THE UP GRADE

“The candle in the niche behind her cast a dim light over the soft curves of Jean’s cheeks”

THE UP GRADE

BY
WILDER GOODWIN

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
CHARLES GRUNWALD

BOSTON
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
1910

Copyright, 1910,
By Little, Brown, and Company

All rights reserved

Published, January, 1910

Fifth Printing

THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.

TO MY MOTHER
MAUD WILDER GOODWIN

ILLUSTRATIONS

THE UP GRADE

CHAPTER I

Stephen Loring sat on the edge of the sidewalk, his feet in the gutter. He was staring vacantly at the other side of the street, completely oblivious of his surroundings. No one would select a Phœnix sidewalk as an attractive resting-place, unless, like Loring, he were compelled by circumstances over which he had ceased to have control.

“Here, ‘Hombre’! How are you stacking up? Do you want a job?”

With an uncertain “Yes,” Loring arose from the sidewalk, before looking at the man who addressed him. Turning, he saw a brisk, sandy whiskered man about forty-five years of age, who fairly beamed with efficiency, and whose large protruding eyes seemed to see in every direction at once.

The questioner looked only for a second at the man before him. The face told its own story—the story of a man who had quit. The tired eyes half apologized for the lines beneath them.

“Easterner,” decided the prospective employer, “since he wears a belt and not suspenders.” The stranger extended his hand in an energetic manner, and continued: “My name is McKay. The Quentin Mining Company, up in the hills, want men. They sent me down to round up a few. You are the forty-first man, and the boss bet me that I would only get forty.”

Loring’s head was still swimming as the result of a period of drunkenness which only lack of funds had brought to a close. By way of answer he merely nodded wearily and murmured: “My name is Loring.”

His taciturnity in no wise discouraged his interlocutor, for the latter paused merely to wipe the perspiration from his forehead with a handkerchief which might possibly once have been white. Then, slipping his arm through Loring’s, he went on with his communications: “The boss bet me I would lose half the men I got, but they will have their troubles trying to lose me. Come right along down to the station! I have them all corralled there with a friend watching them. I don’t suppose you have such a hell of a lot of packing to do,” he drawled, looking at Loring’s disheveled apparel with a comprehending smile. “I went broke myself once in ’Frisco. Why, Phœnix is a gold mine for opportunities compared with that place! I’ll set you up to a drink now. There is nothing like it to clear your head.”

During this running fire of talk, McKay had convoyed Loring to a saloon. The proprietor was sitting listlessly behind a roulette wheel, idly spinning it, the while he made imaginary bets with himself on the results, and was seemingly as elated or depressed as if he had really won or lost money. Observing the entrance of the two men, he rose and sauntered over behind the bar.

“What will you have, gents?”

“I guess about two whiskies,” answered McKay. “Will you have something with us?”

“Well, I don’t mind if I do take a cigar,” answered the barkeeper, as, after pouring their drink, he stretched his arm into the dirty glass case. Then he aimed an ineffectual blow with a towel at the flies on the dirty mirror, and returned to his wheel.

McKay wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and licked the last drops of whisky from his mustache. Then again taking Loring by the arm, he stepped out into the street. The heat, as they walked toward the railroad tracks, was terrific. The dusty stretch of road which led to the station shimmered with the glare. No one who could avoid it moved. In the shade of the buildings, the dogs sprawled limply. Now and then riders passed at a slow gait, the horses a mass of lather and dusty sweat. One poor animal loped by, driven on by spur, with head down, and tail too dejected to switch off the flies.

Loring watched him. “I think,” he mused, “that that poor horse feels as I do. Only he has not the alleviating satisfaction of knowing that he is to blame for it himself.”

The station platform was crowded with battered specimens of Mexican peons, chattering in high-pitched, slurred syllables. Their swarthy faces immeasurably irritated Stephen. Three white men, standing a little apart, looked rather scornfully at the crowd. The only difference in their appearance, however, was that while each of the white men had two suspenders, the overalls of each of the Mexicans were supported by only one. It would have been hard to gather together a more bedraggled set of men than these were; but McKay counted them with loving pride.

“Forty-one! All here!” he exclaimed. “Hop aboard the train, boys; we’re off!”

“Railway fare comes out of your first two days’ work,” he exclaimed cheerfully to Loring.

The train was of the “mixed” type that crawls about the southwest. A dingy, battered, passenger coach trailed at the end of a long line of freight cars, which were labeled for the most part with the white circle and black cross of the “Atcheson, Topeka and Santa Fé.” The men scrambled aboard, the engine grunted lazily, protestingly, and the long train slowly started. Until the train was well under way, McKay stood with his broad back against the door, his hand lying nonchalantly but significantly on a revolver beneath his vest, then, with a contented smile, he dropped into a seat.

Loring had no hat. In Arizona, a man may go without his trousers, and be called eccentric. To go without a hat is ungentlemanly. Consequently the three other white men whom McKay had collected kept themselves aloof, and Stephen, crawling into a seat beside a voluble Chinaman, dozed off in misery, wondering whether the murmuring buzz that he heard was in his head, or in the car wheels. The Chinaman looked down at Stephen’s unshaven face and matted hair, and grinned pleasantly.

“He allee samee broke,” he murmured to himself, crooning with pleasure.

For six hours the train had been plowing its way across the desert, backing, stopping, groaning, wheezing. The blue line of the hills seemed little nearer than in the morning. Only the hills behind seemed farther away. Now and then, far out in the sage-brush, a film of dust hung low in the air, telling of some sheep outfit driving to new grazing lands. On the side of the train next Loring, a trail followed the line of the telegraph poles. Wherever the trail crossed the track and ran for a while on the opposite side, Stephen felt a childish anger at it, for otherwise he could amuse himself by counting the skeletons of horses and cattle, which every mile or so made splatches of pure white against the gray white of the dust. The passengers slouched in the hot seats, rolling countless cigarettes with the dexterity which marks the Southwesterner, drawing the string of the “Durham” sack with a quick jerk of the teeth, at the close of the operation. The air of the car reeked with smoke. At each little station-shed new men joined the crowd, being received with looks of silent sympathy and invariably proffering a request for the “makings.” When this was received, they resignedly settled on the torn black leather of the seats, trying to accomplish the impossible feat of resting their necks on the edge of the backs without cramping their legs against the seats in front of them.

The train stopped suddenly with a jerk which was worse than usual, as if the engine had stumbled over itself. The brakeman, a target for many jests, hurried through the car.

“What have we stopped for now?” drawled McKay. “To enjoy the scenic effect?”

“Horse runned along ahead of the engine and bust his leg in the trestle,” laconically answered the brakeman.

“The son-of-a-gun! Now, the critter showed durned poor judgment, didn’t he?”

The brakeman swore mildly, and disappeared. In a few minutes he returned, carefully spat in the empty stove, and the train casually moved on again.

Seeing a paper lying in the aisle, as he walked down the car, the brakeman stooped and picked it up. His eye fell upon a large red seal, and much elaborate writing. With a puzzled expression he read the document.

“United States of America. Department of State.

“To all whom these presents may concern, Greeting. I, the undersigned, Secretary of State, of the United States of America, hereby request all whom it may concern to permit—Stephen Loring—a citizen of the United States, safely and freely to pass, and in case of need to give him all lawful aid and protection.”

“It must be a passport,” he thought. “First one I ever seed, though. I wonder who might Stephen Loring be.”

His eye fell upon the appended description:

• “Age, 23 yrs., 4 mos.
• Stature, 6 ft. 1.
• Forehead, Broad.
• Eyes, Brown.
• Nose, Irregular.
• Mouth, Wide.
• Chin, Medium.
• Hair, Black.
• Complexion, Ruddy.
• Face, Square.”

He looked about at the men in the car until his eye fell on Stephen.

“That’s him, all right,” he thought. “I should say it would be sort of inconvenient to have such a good description to fill!”

He went to Stephen and touched him on the shoulder. “Hey, stranger, I reckon this belongs to you.”

Loring, surprised, took the proffered paper. Then he felt in the pocket of his coat.

“I think it must have fallen out of my pocket. Much obliged!” he exclaimed.

It was an old passport, expired ten years since, but Stephen carried it about with him as a means of identification in case of accident.

“How did you know that this was mine?” he asked the brakeman from idle curiosity.

The man pointed with an exceedingly dirty thumb to the description.

“I ain’t no detective, but I reckon that fits pretty well.” Then he nodded to Loring and walked away.

Loring glanced idly at the passport as it lay open on his knee. As he did so he wondered what the friends who knew him ten years back, at the time when that document was issued, would say to his appearance now. “Wild oats gone to seed. I guess that about describes me,” he murmured, with a grim smile, as he folded the passport and slipped it back into the frayed lining of his pocket. Dissipation and wreck do not change the color of a man’s eyes, the shape of his forehead or the outline of his face, so that it had still been possible to recognize Loring by his old passport. Had it been a description of his personality instead of his measurements, no one could have recognized the original. Mathematically it is but the difference of an inch from a retreating chin to one thrust forward; artistically a very slight touch will turn frank eyes into hopeless ones; philosophically the turning of the corners of the lips downward instead of upward may change the whole viewpoint of life. Experience is mathematician, artist, and philosopher combined, and it had accomplished all these changes in Stephen Loring.

Through the parting kindness of friends, most of the men had some food, which they proceeded to chew with noisy satisfaction. Loring began to feel cravings. The Chinaman beside him was gnawing at a huge ham sandwich with a very green pickle protruding from between the edges of the bread. He eyed Loring, then turned to him and asked: “You hab bite? My name Hop Wah. I go cook for the outfit. Me heap fine cook,” solemnly added the celestial.

Loring gratefully shared the food.

The men in the car, who until now had been rather morose and silent, began to cheer up, and to sing noisily. Loring lazily wondered why, until he saw several black bottles passed promiscuously about. McKay handed his own flask to Loring.

“Have another drink!” he said, “there is nothing like it for a hang-over.”

Loring took a deep pull at the flask.

“Hey, Chink, have some?” continued McKay.

Wah smiled and shook his head.

“Don’t drink, eh? Well, I’ll bet then that you are strong on dope,” said McKay, as he returned the flask to his pocket.

Night began to turn the color of the hills to a rich cobalt. Now and then the train crawled past shacks whose evening fires were beginning to twinkle in the dusk. Little camps scattered in the niches of the foothills showed gray and blurred. Jagged masses of rock, broken by cuts and hollows, now overshadowed the train. Giant cacti, growing at impossible angles from pinnacles and crevasses, loomed against the sky line. As the hills shut in, the roar of the train echoed of a sudden louder and louder where the desert runs flat as a board to the hills, and then with no transition becomes the hills.

“Only fifteen miles more now, boys,” sang out McKay; “but it may take two hours,” he added under his breath.

Cheered by this announcement, one of the Mexicans groped under his seat and produced a large nondescript bundle, which, after sundry cuttings of string, and unwrapping of paper, resolved itself into a guitar. Then, after fishing in his pockets, he produced a mouth-organ with two clamps attached. Loring, for want of better occupation, watched him. The man deftly fastened the harmonica to the edge of the guitar. Then slinging the dirty red guitar ribbon over his neck, he played a few warning chords. When the attention of all was fixed upon him, he bent his head over the mouth-organ, and strumming the guitar accompaniment with sweeping strokes, rendered a selection that had once been “A Georgia Camp-Meeting.” The applause being generous, the artist threw himself into the spirit of his performance.

“Thees time—with variations,” he exclaimed excitedly. And they were variations!

McKay regarded his flock with genial interest.

“Ain’t he the musical boy, though?” he observed to Loring.

“Playing those two together is quite a trick,” thought Loring; “I must learn it.” Then he realized that he could not even play either singly. Such impulses and awakenings were frequent with him. Constructively he felt himself capable of doing almost anything. The ridiculousness of his thought aroused him from his lethargy, and he began to hum softly the tune that car wheels always play.

At eight o’clock the engine gave a last exhausted wheeze, and stopped. “Quentin. All ashore!” called out McKay.

The men took their bundles from the racks, crowded down the aisle, and out to the rickety station platform, where the ticket agent, lantern in hand, looked at them wonderingly.

“I didn’t lose a man on the trip,” McKay said to the agent, in answer to the latter’s query of “What in hell?” “Well, boys,” went on McKay, “it is ten miles to where we camp, and there ain’t no hearses, so I guess we’ll have a nice little moonlight stroll.”

The station settlement of Quentin consisted of a few scattered tents, and of five saloons, with badly spelled signs. One shack bore in large letters the proud legend: “Grocery Store.” It had evidently been adopted as a residence, for in smaller letters beneath the sign was painted: “This ain’t no store—Keep out!” Loring, with lazy amusement, read this evidence of a shiftlessness greater than his own.

The crowd began to gravitate toward the saloons. “Hey, other way there!” shouted McKay, for he well knew that if the crowd began drinking there, very few would reach camp. A big Mexican, who had been imbibing heavily on the train, lurched toward the saloons, bellowing: “Me much mal’ hombre. I take a drink when I damn please!”

“You much mal’ hombre, eh?” said McKay, smiling. “Then take that!” He stepped up to the man, and let drive a blow from one shoulder that almost broke the mutineer’s jaw. The man staggered, then turned and ran, but up the trail. The other men howled with laughter, then they picked up their blanket rolls and bundles, and laughing and singing started up the trail, where the deep shadows of the tall suwaras made black streaks against the white porphyry of the projecting cliffs.

Loring and Hop Wah followed at the end of the procession, the former consoling himself for his lack of blankets by thinking how much easier walking was without them; the latter cheerfully singing a song of which verse, chorus, and envoi were: “La la boom boom! La la boom boom!” If this were lacking in originality, it was at least capable of infinite repetition, and it turned out to be Wah’s one musical number.

Mile after mile up the trail toiled the straggling line, the Mexicans calling loudly to each other, or mocking with jeering whoops the unfortunates who slipped on the loose stones. McKay, chuckling to himself with pleasure, led the little band. He was thinking of the expressions of praise and surprise, of the congratulations upon the successful outcome of his expedition, which would be bestowed upon him in camp.

Immediately ahead of Loring walked the three other white men of the collection. The volubility of their cursing, as they stumbled along, caused McKay to drop back to them. After the customary greeting of “Well, gents, how are you stacking up?” he began to probe into the cause of their discontent.

“What’s the work, boss, anyhow?” they asked.

“Can you ‘polish’ the head of a drill?” asked McKay. He inquired as a matter of form, for one glance at their slouching shoulders and their thin chests had given him his answer. “Can’t?” he observed cheerfully. “Well, I guess your work will be ‘mucking’ on a narrow gauge railway grade that we are building.”

“Mucking!” growled one. “Ain’t there nothing else that we can do besides scratch around with a pick and shovel?”

“Well, Sullivan, it is that at first. Later, if I can get you a job out at the main camp, I will. It is sort of hard on you fellows to have to grub with all these ‘Mex’ at the road camp; but as soon as you get a little ‘time’ saved up you can start in buying your own stuff and messing together.”

“Save up ‘time’!” exclaimed Sullivan. “Hell! There ain’t no use savin’ anything in this Gawd-forsaken country.”

“Well, cheer up, anyway!” laughed McKay. “Here is the ground where the road camp lies.” Several camp-fires blazed suddenly out of the darkness. Around them many shadowy figures were grouped. These gathered with interest about the newcomers, noisily commenting upon their appearance. “Here we are, boys. The tents ain’t down here yet; but sleeping out of doors is powerful healthy. Sure Mike!” he added, poking a grinning Mexican boy in the ribs. “Seguro Miguel! Nothing like it, is there, Pedro?”

“How about the rattle-bugs, Boss?” asked Sullivan, the malcontent.

“There ain’t no rattlesnakes out in April. Besides, if there was, they would not bite your carcass,” answered McKay, irritated by the man’s attitude of continual grumbling.

The men all busied themselves unrolling their blankets and looking for sheltered places in which to sleep. Loring was not accustomed to construction camps. He thought that for the white men, at least, sleeping accommodations must have been provided.

“Where can I sleep?” he asked McKay.

The latter grinned from one big ear to the other. “Say,” he drawled, “that’s good! Your hot bath ain’t ready though. Haven’t got any blankets, have you?” he added, relenting a bit. “Better crawl in with some one to-night. To-morrow, when I come down here from the copper camp, I’ll bring you a pair. I guess you won’t skip till you have done enough work to pay for them, as you won’t have money enough to vamos. And, say, I’ve got a swell hat that I will give you. It ain’t respectable or refined like not to have one.”

The rough kindness touched Loring deeply, and he began to thank him warmly.

McKay uttered a brisk good night and turned to walk up the trail which led to the main camp, two miles beyond. The Mexican whom the boss had knocked down at the station stepped suddenly forward. Expecting trouble, Loring jumped to his feet. He heard McKay say: “I guess the señorita won’t think much of your beauty now, will she, Manuel? I’ll send the doctor down in the morning to fix up that face of yours.” The Mexican, instead of rushing at McKay, exclaimed excitedly: “Oh, boss, you just like a father to me!”

Still smiling at the sudden change of temper Loring lay down on the ground, and tried to sleep. The knife-like cold of the Arizona night made him shiver. Striving to keep warm, he rolled from side to side. Suddenly, from out of the darkness near him, he heard a soft laugh: “Hey, me bludder, Hop Wah got plenty blankets. Roll here!” Gratefully he crawled in between the Chinaman’s blankets. Wah looked at him curiously. “La la boom boom,” he crooned to himself. “Heap lot whisky.” Then he turned over and went peacefully to sleep.

Loring lay rigidly upon his back. Conscience, remorse, and a rock beneath his fourth rib, all kept him awake. The stars did not answer his half-framed questions, so he shut his eyes. It is hard to think when the eyes are closed, so he opened them again. It was a very simple question that he reiterated to the shadows, to the embers of the fire, and to the drone of the Gila river. It consisted of one word—“Why?” There was no need of his asking any one except himself; but he put off as long as possible asking the one person who could answer, for he knew why. His friends had always been so ready to make excuses for his shortcomings, that in graciousness he could do no less than acquiesce. But in spite of the veil with which memory surrounds facts, when a man lies awake at night he is likely to see them as they are.

That both of Stephen’s parents had died when he was a child was no answer to the question which he asked of the fire and the river. His uncle had educated him with an affectionate insight which no parent could have bettered. That he had not all along realized what he was doing was no answer. A keen judge of men, Loring was an inspired critic of himself. It was not lack of ambition that had dragged him down, for always there had been a longing for those things which were not within his grasp. There was no inherent vice in his character. There was courage, loyalty, and kindness. There was only one thing lacking—some power to drive the whole.

Most people are either led or pushed through life. But there are some whose motive power must come from within.

CHAPTER II

At half-past six the next morning the whistle in the upper camp blew long and clear. It is a strange fact that the dispassionate whistle in the morning is the brutal enemy of labor, calling its victims to the struggle; but that at noon it is impartial and cheerful. It then attempts the rôle of referee in the great game between labor and capital and, like a good umpire, favors neither. Yet the same whistle at night, when it calls the game off, becomes the warm ally of the workman, encouraging him openly with promise of rest and supper. It is then as if it said to him: “I was compelled to be impartial. That is my duty; but frankly, now that it is over, I am glad that you have won.”

Loring opened his eyes as he heard the morning whistle, and, at first a little dazed, looked about him. Then he rose and stretched himself. Every bone in his body ached as the result of the night on the hard ground. All around him men were yawning sleepily as they crawled out of their blankets. Close beside the camp ran the tawny Gila river. Stephen walked down to the bank, and kneeling on a small rock which lay half afloat in the ooze mud, endeavored to wash. Then, refreshed, if not much cleaner, he made his way to the cook tent. Here under a fly stretched on poles were four long tables, heaped with tin plates and condensed milk cans. The monotony of the table furnishings was broken by a few dingy cans, decorated with labels of very red tomatoes, which served as sugar and salt holders. The old inhabitants of the camp were noisily greeting the newcomers, pounding on their cups and whistling whenever they perceived some old acquaintance.

The labor of the Southwest is of a very vagrant quality. A man merely works until he has money enough to move. Each time that he moves he spends all his money on a celebration, so that his wanderings, though frequent, are not long in duration. Thus many of these men had met before, around the smelters in Globe, in the Tucson district, or north in the Yavapai.

Loring found a place on one of the rickety benches, and looked toward the coffee-bucket. Sullivan, who was opposite to him, growled gloomily: “Say, the grub is rank. This coffee is festered water.” The description, though not an appetizing one with which to begin a meal, was not without truth. In varying degree it might have been applied to the rest of the breakfast, from the red, tasteless frijollas to the stew, which consisted of a few shreds of over-cooked meat, in the midst of a nondescript mass of questionable grease.

As Loring had finished eating what he could of the meal, and was contemplating borrowing some tobacco, the foremen, who, as etiquette demands, had eaten their breakfast in a group apart from the men, began to look at their watches, and to stir about actively.

“Hurry up now, boys! Out on the grade—quick! Vamos! Only five minutes more now!” they called.

The tools of the old workmen were scattered along the grade, where each had dropped them at the end of the previous day’s work. The newcomers were marched single file, through the tool-house, where each picked out his implements, then started off to the place assigned him. Loring, not from altruism, but because he did not know the difference which well chosen tools make in a long day’s toil, made no effort to grab. In consequence he emerged from the shed supplied with a split shovel, and a dull, loose-headed pick. A foreman beckoned him to a place on the grade, opposite to the cook tent. He immediately started to swing his pick.

“Don’t be in such a hell of a hurry!” called Sullivan, “you’ll have plenty to do later.”

The seven o’clock whistle blew sharply. “Lope her, boys!” sang out the section foreman. All talking stopped abruptly, and the click of picks, swung with steady blows, and the rasp of shovels echoed all along the grade. Loring, new to “mucking,” swung his pick with all the strength of his back, bringing it down, with rigid full arm strokes, upon the rocky soil. The foreman noticed this with amusement. “He’ll bust in an hour,” he thought; but he only said: “Loosen your grip a bit or you’ll get stone-bruises.” Then he passed on up the line, to tell a Mexican, who had already stopped to light a cigarette, that “this ain’t no rest cure.”

Hop Wah from the depths of the cook tent perceived Loring’s energetic labors, and called out to him: “Hey, me bludder, no swing like that! No damnee use. Just let him pick fall!” Stephen nodded gratefully, and complied with the practical advice. He worked steadily, only pausing to exchange his pick for a shovel, whenever he had broken enough earth, or loosened some large stone. “Surely,” he thought, “I can keep this up for ten hours. Here, at last, is a job that I can do.”

Stephen Loring had never in his life “made good.” He had started well on many ventures, and then given out. His friends had at first been intensely admiring, and had predicted great things for him; but gradually they had given him up as hopeless. They would have lent him money cheerfully; but a determination not to borrow was one of his few virtues. In consequence, having fallen stage by stage, he was now reduced to being a day laborer, a “mucker,” watched by a foreman to see that he did not shirk. If the same method had been applied to him earlier, it might have been his salvation. As it was, he had sunk beneath the current.

The next hour seemed to Loring twice as long as the first. His wrist pulsed with agony from the jar of the blows. He was compelled to wrap his handkerchief around his right hand, as he had worn great blisters sliding it up and down the pick handle. The sweat, as it rolled down from his forehead, made his cheeks smart. Every few minutes he was forced to rest. At ten o’clock the time-keeper came to him, and, drawing a shabby brown book from his pocket, entered Stephen’s name on the rolls. Then he drew from his pocket and handed to Loring a brass tag, like a baggage check. “Your number is four fifty-three; keep this now!”

Stephen looked at the tag for a second, then slipped it into his pocket. It did not jangle against anything. He leaned on his pick handle for a moment, and with mild interest listened to the time-keeper, as he accosted the Mexican who was working next to him.

“Eh, hombre! What’s your name? Cómo se llama?”

The foreman spoke sharply to Stephen, and with the blood rising slightly to his temples at the rebuke, he fell to work again.

Loring possessed a strong imagination and he had solaced many a hardship by either planning for pleasanter occupations in the future, or vividly reconstructing worse ones in the past. But imagination is a dangerous plaything. The men working on either side of him thought of nothing, except perhaps some solution of the great problem of the human race, how to make the greatest possible show of work with the least effort. Stephen, however, was accompanied in his work by imagination. To-day it was of a sort which was neither subtle nor pleasant. It began by saying to him: “You are healthy. You will probably live for thirty years or more. They will be pleasant years, won’t they? There are three hundred and sixty-five days in a year, so if you work ten hours a day for thirty years, perhaps you may grow used to work. Work is a great companion, is it not, Stephen? It is unfortunate,” finished imagination glibly, “that you must do this forever.”

Loring spoke aloud in answer to his imagination, timing his syllables to the already shortened strokes of his pick. “Not forever?”

“Well,” rejoined imagination, “I see no alternative, do you? And what is more,” added the Devil who at this moment was operating imagination, “You are not even building the railroad. All you are doing is moving rocks. Any one can move rocks.”

By noon time Stephen was limp and exhausted. The hour’s respite seemed to him to go by like a flash, and he started upon the afternoon’s work in a hopeless frame of mind, his muscles stiffened instead of rested by the short relaxation.

After an hour’s labor, he moved to a place where the ground was soft, and for a while his delight in this supported him. It is little things such as this which make the epochs in a day of manual labor. As he toiled on grimly, in a few short hours, he had reversed his views on Socialism.

“Of course the laborer is the chief factor in production,” he murmured wearily to himself, as he grew more and more dizzy.

At three o’clock, McKay, with a surveying party, reached the section of the grade where Loring was working. Stephen watched him, as he stooped over the level and waved his hand up and down. He heard him shout “O. K. back sight! Ready fore sight!” Then “O. K. fore sight! ’Sta ’ueno!” and somehow the cheery tones braced Loring for his work.

McKay, as he came up, nodded cheerfully: “I left that hat for you in the cook tent,” he said; “it will make you look like a real man!” Then noticing the agonized swings of the pick, he looked at Loring quizzically.

“Say, I reckon you ain’t done this sort of thing for some time, have you? I guess a short spell at flagging wouldn’t discourage you. Go up to the tool-house, and get a white flag that you’ll find there. Then go up to that point back there, where the wagon road crosses the grade. I’ll put another flagman on the point below, and when he waves, you stop anything that comes along. In a few minutes we are going to “shoot” all along here, and I don’t want to blow up any teams or people that are going up to the copper camp.”

Loring dropped his pick with alacrity, and started for the tool-shed. As he walked back along the grade, he looked with curious interest at the men who were still working. Somehow their labors seemed a part of himself. His back ached sympathetically as they stooped to their work. At the shed he found the dirty white rag and stick which served for flagging. Then he hurried to his place. He passed Sullivan, who waved joyously to him.

“The boss has set me flagging, too. Gee, what a graft! Me for a nap, as soon as they start to shoot. There won’t any teams go by, when they hear the shots, and I can get a good sleep.”

“You had better not,” answered Loring. Then, feeling that it was none of his business, he went on to the place which McKay had assigned to him. He seated himself on a large rock, from which he could see far in all directions. He was at the end of the grade nearest to the copper camp, and he could see the great iron chimneys of the smelter, protruding above the hills to the north, belching forth black smoke against the brilliant blue of the sky. “The whole country looks as if it had been made with a hack-saw,” he mused, as he looked at the jagged rocks and irregular mountains about him. “I would give a great deal to see something green besides this accursed cactus; but I suppose that grass and civilization go together.”

Then, watching for a signal, he fixed his eyes on the point of rock where Sullivan was stationed. After a few minutes he saw, against the brown background of the rocks, a spot of white move quickly up and down. He immediately ran out into the road, and stopped a line of coke teams that was coming down from the camp. The drivers merely threw on their brakes, and let the thin-boned, almost transparent horses tug uselessly at the traces, until they discovered the vainness of the effort. Then horses, like drivers, relapsed into the comatose acceptance of conditions, which in the land of the cactus becomes part of man and beast. McKay came up on horseback, calling out to the first of the drivers: “Hold your horses! The e-l-ephants are about to pass!” The Mexican, just as though he had understood, grinned, then again dozed off.

One by one, far down the grade, little puffs of smoke began to curl at the places where the drillers’ gangs had been working. The men, howling in mock terror, came tearing past the place where Loring and McKay were standing. They would run several hundred yards further than safety required in order to delay by a few moments their return to work when the blasting was finished. As the men surged by, McKay, in spite of his disgust, grinned.

“Trust a Mex to find some way to shorten work,” he said to Loring. In rapid succession the “shots” began to go off; whole sections of the cliffs seemed to swell, then gave forth a fat volume of smoke, and finally burst, hurling fragments of brown-black rock against the sky line. Then, a fraction of an instant later, the dull, muffled boom carried to the ear.

“Regular bombardment, ain’t it!” exclaimed McKay. “Wo-op! duck!” As a large jagged piece of shale came whizzing over their heads he and Loring simultaneously dropped to the ground.

“Ain’t it funny?” said McKay, as they got to their feet again. “Now time and again these things won’t go fifty feet, then all of a sudden they chase a fellow who is a quarter of a mile away.”

The heaviest “shot” of all was to be fired in a place near Loring’s position, where a deep spur of black diorite protruded across the grade. During five days gangs had been drilling on this spur, so that its face was honeycombed with ten deep holes, for diorite is almost as hard as iron, and to make any impression upon it requires an immense load of powder. McKay himself had superintended the loading, patting the charges firmly down with the tamping rod, until, as he expressed it, he had enough powder there to “blow hell up to heaven.” They had waited to fire these “shots” until the last of the others had exploded, and now the little group of men who were nearest began to look everywhere for shelter. The waiting teams were backed up close against the ledge, while the drivers crawled underneath the wagons for protection. Loring and McKay stood beside a large boulder, behind which they could drop when the explosion came. Into every niche men crawled, waiting for the shock.

The foreman bent over the first fuse, and a wisp of thin blue smoke arose at the touch of his hand.

“Hope he ain’t cut the fuses too long,” growled McKay anxiously. “If one of those loads misses fire, it won’t be safe to work in this neighborhood.” The foreman stepped quickly from fuse to fuse, and spurt after spurt of smoke began to curl from the rock, some hanging low, some rising. The foreman stooped over one of the fuses for a second time.

“It’s missed!” exclaimed McKay. “No, he’s got it. Hey, beat it! Quick!” he shouted, as the thin smoke began to turn from whitish-blue to yellow-brown. The foreman ran back a up the grade towards them.

“The damned fool!” breathed McKay. “Like as not he’ll kill himself, and it will take me a week to find another man who can shoot the way he can. About thirty seconds more, and that rock is going to jump!”

Loring raised his eyes. Far down the grade, beyond the point, he saw a speck. The speck grew larger and became a horse and rider.

McKay saw it too. “Sullivan will warn him,” he said tersely. “My God!” he yelled, “it’s a woman, and her pony is running away.”

Loring made a jump into the grade and dashed towards the smoke. The yellow-brown turned to the black-brown that just precedes an explosion. It poured forth from the ground like a volcano.

“He can’t even reach the ‘shots,’” gasped McKay. “Oh, my God, where was the other flagman! Only fifty yards more—He must make it!—He will!—He’s reached the spot; he’s past it. He will—God, and there’s ten shots there!” Even as he spoke the surface of the earth belched forth rumbling thunder and burst into fragments. McKay dropped flat on the ground, behind the sheltering boulder. A great cloak of brown smoke punctured with huge black rocks shut out the scene. Then, with dull, splashing thuds, the rocks began to fall into the muddy river which dragged itself along beside the grade. First came a few solemn splashes as the large rocks fell, then faster, a very hailstorm of fragments, as the smaller pieces showered down. The Mexicans were cursing frantically, adding to the roar a shrill pitch.

The first three “shots” went off in lightning succession. A pause, then two more.

“Five!” yelled McKay.

Then three more “shots” boomed deeply. McKay and the foreman knelt behind the boulder, pale, breathing hard, striving to guess what lay behind that wall of smoke. Another pause, then a terrific report.

“Nine, only one more!” shouted the foreman. They waited ten seconds,—no other shot. Then ten seconds more. They rose to their feet and started forward. “Two must have gone off at once,” yelled McKay. Another roar, and they had barely time to reach cover before the shower of rocks again fell.

“Ten! Come on!” roared McKay. The rocks had hardly fallen, before he, followed by a dozen others, was rushing through the smoke to what he knew must be beyond. The grade was blocked with great masses of rock, and by the time they had climbed over these barriers, the smoke had cleared.

They found Loring lying on his face, his right hand still grasping the bridle of the dead horse. The girl was kneeling beside him. As McKay reached her side, he recognized the daughter of the manager of the mine. He raised her to her feet, while as if dazed by the miracle he repeated: “You ain’t hurt, Miss Cameron? You ain’t hurt?” She shook herself free from him, then knelt again by Stephen, trying to stanch with her handkerchief the blood that was flowing from a great cut in his temple. She looked up at McKay with an anxious appeal in her eyes. “Is he dead?” she asked.

“The girl was kneeling beside him.” [Page 36]

McKay bent over, and opening the rough shirt felt Loring’s heart. “No, he’s alive still, but he’s pretty close to gone,” he answered. He untwisted the tight clenched fingers from the bridle, and half raised the unconscious body. It lay limp in his arms. He turned to one of the foremen who were gathered around.

“Smith, get a horse and ride like hell for the company doctor!” The man was off for the corral in an instant.

“Now, Miss, you just leave him to us!” went on McKay. “See now, your skirt is getting all blood.”

For reply, she raised Loring’s head gently and placed it in her lap. “Now, send some one for blankets and water,” she directed.

“Agua, hey, ag-ua!” shouted McKay, and in a minute a little pale-faced water boy came stumbling up with a bucket of muddy water. McKay looked on in wonder while the girl deftly washed the dirt from the wounds.

“She has her nerve,” he thought. “There ain’t nothing like a woman.”

One of the Mexicans came back from the cook tent with a blanket, and upon this they gently lifted Stephen. Then four men carried him to the nearest tent. Jean walked beside them, holding her wet handkerchief tightly against Loring’s forehead, in vain attempt to stop the bleeding. They laid him on the ground, inside the tent.

“Now you must go, Miss Cameron,” implored McKay. “I’ll send you up to camp in one of the teams. Your father would never forgive me if I let you stay. Why you are as pale as—”

The girl interrupted him decisively. “Are there any cloths here for bandages?”

He looked hopelessly around the tent with its pile of dirty quilts.

“I don’t see anything,” he murmured.

Jean seized the soft white stock about her neck, and with a quick tug tore it off. “This will do,” she breathed, as she placed the impromptu bandage about Loring’s head.

“Now tie this! I can’t pull it tightly enough.”

McKay drew the ends of the bandage together, and clumsily knotted them. Then he thought of his one universal remedy. Meekly turning to Jean he asked: “How about some whisky for him?” She nodded, and he drew a flask from his pocket. With strong fingers he pried open Stephen’s jaws, and poured the whisky down his throat. The stimulant brought a slight color to the mask-like face.

“I guess he would sure enjoy this some, if he were conscious,” thought McKay grimly. The men had been sent back to work, and only he and Miss Cameron knelt in the tent by Stephen, feeling anxiously for the slow heart-beats in the big helpless frame. Then came the pound of horses’ hoofs on the road, the sliding sound of a pony flung back in full career upon his haunches, and the doctor stood pulling open the flaps of the tent. Jean rose to her feet.

“I shall only be in the way now,” she said, and stepped outside into the vivid sunlight.

CHAPTER III

Two weeks had passed since the accident. Loring, whose life had been at first despaired of, was gaining fast in strength, and enjoying the first real comfort that he had known in months. As he lay quietly on the hard canvas cot, the rough company hospital seemed to him a dream of luxury.

His cot had been placed close to the door, where he could look out over the little camp. The early morning light brought the whiteness of the tents scattered about the plateau into clear contrast with the shadowy brownness of the surrounding mountains, while in the sunlight the yellow pine framework of the intermingled shacks sparkled brightly. The smelter pounded away steadily, great wreaths of smoke pouring from its chimneys, the blast sucking and breathing like some huge driven beast. Intermingled with the sound was the clanging rasp of shovels, as the smelter stokers piled coke into the furnace. Over on the far mountain a wood-laden burro train was picking its way slowly down the trail. In the thin morning air the tinkle of the bells on the animals’ necks and the sharp calls of the drivers carried clear across the valley. Close by the smelter, in the midst of the coal dust and cinders, stood a jaded horse, with a harness made of chains. For two days it had fascinated Loring to see the deft way in which the driver hooked this horse to the glowing slag pots, and drove him along the narrow track that led out on the slag dump. With the childishness of the sick, he harbored a deep grudge against the shack, behind which the horse, with his molten load, would always disappear. This prevented his seeing the operation of dumping the slag, which he felt must be highly interesting. At the other side of the doorway he could just see the corner of a newly finished shack. He looked a bit gloomily at the completed building, for it had been delightful to watch the carpenters at work upon it. In two days the whole house had been finished, even to the tin roofing. This tin roofing, by the way, had brought Stephen much joy, for the carpenter’s assistant had laid the plates from top down, instead of beginning at the bottom, so that the joints would overlap and be water-tight. In consequence the whole roofing had been ripped off and done over again.

The morning shift was just going to work, and the hurrying groups of men passed the door on their way up to the mine. At the watering-trough each stopped, and plunging his canteen deep into the water, held it there until the burlap and flannel casing was saturated, ensuring a cooling drink for them during their work. Loring laughed at himself when he found himself wishing that they would not all wear blue denim overalls.

Little water boys struggled past, each with a pole, like a yoke across his shoulders, from either end of which hung a bucket. The men greeted them as they passed, with calls of “Go-od boy!” “Bueno muchacho!” Several of the men, as they passed, greeted Stephen with shy exclamations of “Eh, amigo—Cóm’ estamos?” Then they went on to their work beneath the ground. Loring was touched by these inquiries for his welfare, and smiled in a friendly fashion at each.

Loring’s smile had been one of his worst enemies, for it had so often prevented people from telling him what they thought of him. It combined a sensitiveness which was unexplained by the rather heavy molding of his chin, with a humor which only one who had carefully studied his eyes would be prepared for. It was an exasperating smile to those who did not like him, for it possessed a quality of goodness and strength to which they thought he had no right as an accompaniment to his character. On the other hand, it was one of the attributes which most strongly attracted his friends. It was not an analytical smile, so it put him in touch with unanalytical people, yet it had a certain deprecating twist which could convey a hint of subtlety.

When the seven o’clock whistle blew, Loring thought of the gang at the road camp lined up for ten hours of relentless toil, and he breathed deep in contentment.

“It is great to be laid up for a respectable cause,” he thought. Memories of the times that he had spent at an old university in the East came to him. He looked about him at the rough, bare boards, at the eight canvas cots, at the lumps on three of them, where, wearing the inevitable pink or sky blue undershirt, lay sick Mexican miners. He amused himself by mentally filling with his old-time associates each of the empty cots. “I wish they were all here,” he half exclaimed. Then it occurred to him that this was not a very kindly wish. Loring heard the murmur of voices outside the door, and listened attentively. He recognized the voice of the company doctor. “It must be time for the morning clinic,” he thought to himself. Then he listened to the brisk questioning and prescribing.

“You feeling much mal’? Well, not so much whisky next time; get to work!”

Stephen heard a low-voiced question from some one. Then again the doctor’s decided answer: “Of course not! Hospital fee does not pay for crutches. What do you want for a dollar, anyhow?”

He listened with interest as each man described his symptoms or his needs. “It makes me feel almost well to hear about all those things,” he reflected. The broad shoulders and cheerful smile of the doctor appeared in the doorway, and with heavy footsteps the owner of these two pleasant possessions approached Loring.

“Feeling pretty good this morning?” asked the doctor.

Stephen answered that he was.

“That’s fine,” exclaimed the doctor. “At one time you were a pretty tough case. I thought we’d have the trouble of a funeral in camp. Swell affairs they are, here. But say, did you ever see a funeral in Phœnix? Why, they trots ’em in Phœnix!”

Loring expressed his admiration for such a spirit of activity, while the doctor was propping him up in bed, and adjusting the bandages.

“I guess you won’t have to work for some days,” remarked the doctor. “It is lucky you did one day’s work, as it just pays for your hospital fee and medicine.”

“Hard luck, doctor,” laughed Stephen, “but that had to go for traveling expenses.” Hearing light footsteps on the porch outside, the doctor went to the door. Loring heard him answer some question.

“Well, Miss Cameron, I guess it won’t kill him to see you. It may even be good for him. Come in by all means!”

Loring looked up and saw framed in the doorway, like a picture, a girl frank of eyes and fresh of coloring. A little Scotch cap was perched on the waves of her tawny hair. Her gown was of dark blue, relieved at neck and throat by bands of white, and girdled by a ribbon of red and blue plaid. Across her arms lay a sheaf of yellow and red wild flowers such as creep into abundant life among the forbidding rocks. The vision seemed to bring a new tide of life and vigor to Loring. He forgot his weakness and raised himself for a moment on his elbow; but the effort was too much for him, and he sank back exhausted on his pillow.

The girl hesitated for an instant. Then she stepped quickly over to his cot.

“This is Miss Cameron, Loring,” explained the doctor; “she has come to thank you for what you have done.”

The girl impulsively bent over him, and took his big, weak hand in her own small, strong one.

“Oh, I am glad that you are better. I would have come before to see you, but the doctor would not allow it.”

Loring looked malevolently at the doctor.

“How can I thank you?” she went on.

So fascinated was Stephen by the eager breathless way in which she spoke, that he hardly understood what she was saying. With difficulty he raised himself again on his elbow. “Why it was all in the day’s work of a flagman,” he said. “There is nothing at all for which to thank me.”

She shook her head in denial. “It is not in the day’s work of a flagman to risk his life for someone whom he has never seen,” she said quickly. “There is nothing that I can say which can possibly express my gratitude; but you do know, don’t you?” As she spoke she looked at him appealingly.

Stephen murmured something, he scarcely knew what, in reply, and was conscious of wishing vaguely that the doctor would not look at him.

Miss Cameron laid her armful of flowers beside him. As she dropped the red and yellow sheaf, Stephen noticed the delicate modeling of her wrist, and smiled appreciatively. “When you are better, my father will see you,” continued the girl. “He will reward you, and—” With her usual quick intuition she noticed the shade of annoyance on his face. “That is,” she went on rather slowly, “he will do what he can for you.”

“Thank you,” said Loring, “but I think that in two or three weeks I shall be able to work again.”

“I am afraid if I let you talk any more, you won’t ever be able to work,” interrupted the doctor.

“I will come again to-morrow,” said Jean. “If there is anything that you want, you must let us send it to you. Good-bye, and thank you!” Her voice as she spoke had the quality of sympathy.

He watched her for a moment as she stopped by the other cots, inquiring in pretty broken Spanish for the welfare of the occupants. “Hang it,” he thought, “I wish she would not look at that Mexican in just the way that she looked at me!” With his eyes he followed her as long as he could, then when the tents shut her from view, he closed his eyes and imagined that she was still near.

He picked up the flowers and buried his face in them. Their sweetness brought up a wave of memories of the past, of things that he had thrown away. He bit his lip hard and under his breath swore bitterly at himself. Then the fragrance of the flowers soothed him, and he lay back on his pillow thinking of the girl who had brought them. She seemed so strange a figure in the life of Quentin, so aloof, so unrelated! He could not adjust her to her setting. At last it occurred to him that it was not necessary for him to adjust her—in fact that she and her setting were none of his business.

Then tired, with the flowers still crushed in his hand, he fell asleep to the accompaniment of the monotonous pound of the smelter. He dreamed of days gone by, yet through it all, vaguely, intangibly, there drifted a girl, the tenderness of whose eyes was blended with the impersonality of pity.

As they walked together across the camp, Miss Cameron remarked to the doctor: “It is strange how the rough life here seems to train men. He seemed to be almost a gentleman.”

Doctor Kline smiled in an amused fashion.

“There’s a lot here, Miss Cameron, who seem ‘almost a gentleman,’ and they are not the best kind, either. In fact they come pretty near to being the worst. Arizona is not the graveyard of reputations. It’s the hell that comes after that. Men drift here from every corner of the world, and from every sort of life. The undercurrent here is full of derelicts. Nobody questions about the past or the future here. They just drift, and it is not so very long before most of them sink.”

In the course of forty years of varied experience, Dr. Kline had never made so long a speech. He stopped short, and, flushing, looked quickly at Miss Cameron to see if she were laughing at him. Her serious expression reassured him, and he looked at her again; only this time it was for the purpose of admiration.

They had reached the door of her father’s house. It was called a house and not a shack, partly as a matter of etiquette, being the manager’s dwelling, and partly because it had a porch. Also it possessed the added grandeur of two small wings, which were joined to the one-story, central building.

Jean said good-bye to the doctor and went into the house. Her father was busy at his desk with some large blue prints of the workings; but he stopped when she entered.

“How is the man getting along?” he asked. “I hope that the poor devil isn’t laid up so that he can never swing a pick again.”

“He is much better,” answered Jean, as she dropped into a big chair beside her father’s desk, “but, Father, do these men do nothing else all their lives beside swing picks?”

Her father smiled, amused at the earnest manner. “Well, my dear, they are likely to do so, unless they develop aptitude for ‘polishing’ the head of a drill, as they say here. In other words, become miners, instead of ‘muckers,’ in which case they get their three dollars a day instead of two. The difference in social position, however, which I suppose is what you mean, is not very great.”

“I thought that the West was a place where men rose fast from the ranks, where the opportunities for success lay at each man’s feet,” said Jean thoughtfully.

“That is partially true,” replied her father; “but you must remember steadiness is needed as much here as anywhere, and that is a quality which most men, of a type such as I judge this Loring to be, have not. Also to reach success here they have to swim through a river of whisky, and most of them drown in transit.”

Jean sat for a moment in silence, the sun playing tricks of light and shade across the ripples of her hair and in the depths of her level-gazing eyes.

At length she exclaimed suddenly: “Why is it that they all drink?”

“Why?” echoed her father. “I have been so occupied with the result that I have had no time to consider the cause. The fact is—they have no other form of relaxation here. Besides, when men work seven days a week all the year round, after a while they reach a point where they must do something to break the tedium, and drinking whisky is a convenient method.”

“Then why do you make them work on Sunday?” asked Jean. “Why not let them rest on that day?”

Her father laughed. “Well, it doesn’t sound logical after what I have just said, but if they get Sunday to rest, they are all so drunk that we have not enough men on Monday to start the mines. We tried it once. I suppose that the only explanation of the way the men drink here is that they do. I think it is a germ in the air.”

Mr. Cameron turned again to his work. Jean sat silently beside him watching the firm lines with which he traced new winzes, drifts, and cross-cuts on the prints, the precision with which he wrote his comments on the borders.

It was a strong face which bent over the table, strong, stern, and telling of a Scotch ancestry in which Mr. Cameron took great pride, for had not one of his forefathers fought in the army of the Lord of the Isles, and another been a faithful follower to the end of the hopeless Stuart cause!

Clearly loyalty was a tradition of their race, and typical of that allegiance which still made all Scotch things dear to these two descendants of the old Highlanders, which led the father to hang on the bare walls of his cabin the shield of the Camerons with its armorial bearings of “or, three bars gules,” and impelled Jean to wear a Scotch cap, and always, somewhere about her dress, a touch of the red and blue Cameron plaid.

Now, as Jean stood at her father’s side, it was easy to see the family likeness, for all the softening of age and sex, which had changed the lines of his face to the curves of hers. The same spirit looked out from both pairs of eyes, and if ever there should come a conflict of wills between the two, there would be as pretty a fight as once happened at Inverlochie, when Cameron and the Lord Protector fell foul of each other.

Jean Cameron had been only a month in Quentin. She had begged to join her father and he had consented, although he had assured her that she would dislike the life. But from the first she had loved the place and everything about it. The atmosphere of crude labor, the men thrusting down into the mountains and drawing out the green-crusted ore, the rides across the trails, had brought her a sense of exhilaration.

She had expected to find in the West the romance of freedom, of wildness, of the natural type. Instead, she had found, and it was infinitely more fascinating, the romance of work, of risk borne daily as a matter of course, not from love of danger, but because it meant bread. To a girl of her keen perception there was a meaning in it all. It was the first glimpse that she had ever had of a world where the little things of life had no existence and where the big things were the little things.

CHAPTER IV

During his convalescence, Stephen had many callers. Mr. Cameron paid him a short visit, and briskly and efficiently expressed his gratitude. At least this was the way in which Loring characterized it to himself, after his departure. From motives of kindness, most of the foremen and men from the office force came in to see him; from motives of self-interest, the visits were generally repeated, for Loring combined a drollness, a vein of narrative, and a wide range of experiences.

McKay was one of those who dropped in frequently to discuss the affairs of the camp in short, jerky sentences, which alternated with the puffs from his stubby black pipe. Stephen, by a great amount of reticence as to his own personal affairs, had won McKay’s respect as a wise man. He was by nature of an exuberant temperament; but experience had taught him that taciturnity was the best way to acquire a reputation for solidity in a community. About four years previous to this time, when he had embarked in life in the West, the first man under whom he had worked had commented upon his garrulous propensities rather caustically. His words: “You don’t want to talk too much in this world, young feller; it ain’t pleasant,” had been borne in upon Loring to the great improvement of his character. McKay had once in the course of a discussion of different men’s capabilities expressed the Western view very tersely. He had said: “The wisest man I ever knew was a fellow in Nogales. I never heard him open his mouth once!”

Loring’s visitors, however, were not all of such a character. Every morning Miss Cameron came into the hospital and greeted Stephen with a gay smile that made pain seem a base currency with which to pay for such happiness. He had come to look forward to the few minutes during which she talked to him as the oasis of his day. As time went on, his thoughts of her grew more absorbing. A man when convalescent can, with the greatest of ease, fall in love with an abstract ideal, so that when a very charming concrete example was near, the process of dreaming speedily crystallized to a point where Stephen found himself very much in love. For many hours after one of her visits he lay staring at the ceiling, trying to find some adjective by which to describe her. Failing in his direct search, he fell back on the method of question and answer. Was she beautiful? he asked himself. It was many years since he had seen women of her class, and it was hard for him to find a comparative standard. He was certain that she was a joy to look upon. Had she sympathy? Her kindness to the sick Mexicans in the hospital was a ready answer to that question. Was she feminine? She had a quality of comradeship and companionship combined, which previously he had only associated with men. Yet back of it was a latent coquetry, and unconsciously it piqued him to feel that towards him there was no trace of it. Strive as he would, he could find no word which could fit all the opposing sides of her character, her aloof frankness, her subtle force.

“Fall-in-love-withable-ness,” he reflected, “is not a recognized word, and yet it is the one that describes her.”

At last came the days when with effort at first, then with ease, he could stroll from shack to shack about the camp. He often spent his time in the assay office, watching the assayer tend the delicate balances, or precipitate the metal from the various shades of blue liquid which stood on the ledge by the window in neat rows of test-tubes. Then there was the tienda, where, sitting on a box in the corner, he could watch the Mexicans as they crowded up to the bookkeeper’s window, loudly calling out their numbers, and asking for coupons. The air in the store was always thick with the smell of “Ricorte” or “Pedro” tobacco. There were also in the glass cases gaudy tinfoil-wrapped cigars, “Dos Nationes,” which the more lavish and wealthy purchased, and which added a slightly more expensive hue to the smoky atmosphere. Often, too, he would loaf about the draughting-room, where at first he amused himself by drawing exceedingly impressionistic sketches on the bits of paper that were scattered about.

Stephen possessed that rare quality of being able to loaf without being in the way. His loafing added a pleasant background to work that others were doing, instead of being an irritant. Gradually he came to helping Duncan, the surveyor, to check up his figures, and, much to the latter’s surprise, in speedy fashion worked out logarithms for him. Loring as a subordinate always did so well that it made his incompetency, when given responsibility, doubly disappointing. Duncan, whose mathematical methods were, though no doubt safer, far slower, grew to have an excessive opinion of Loring’s ability, and expressed it about the camp. He often questioned Stephen as to where he had acquired his knowledge of logarithms; but Loring always told him that he had merely picked it up at a way station on the journey of life. As curiosity about others rarely goes deep in Arizona, the subject had been finally taken for granted, and dropped.

One day while Stephen was working with Duncan, Mr. Cameron entered the room, and said abruptly: “Well, Loring, are you about ready for work?”

“Yes,” said Stephen, “I was going to work for Mr. McKay again to-morrow.”

Mr. Cameron paused for a moment, and looked him over carefully. He noticed the clear light of the eyes, and he was pleased. He noticed the indecisive lines at the corners of the mouth, hesitated, and almost imperceptibly shook his head. Years of experience had taught him to read men’s faces well. This was the first which he had ever liked, and yet not quite trusted. The combination of feeling puzzled him.

Loring had begun to flush a trifle under the sharp scrutiny, before Mr. Cameron again spoke.

“I was thinking of giving you a position on the hoist. The man on Number Three is going to quit to-morrow.” Mr. Cameron said “quit,” with a little snap of the jaw, that left no doubt as to why the man was going to leave. “Do you know anything about the work?” he went on.

Loring’s “No, but I think perhaps I can learn,” seemed to irritate Mr. Cameron, who exclaimed: “Good Lord, man! ‘think perhaps you may be able to learn.’ ‘Think perhaps!’ Here you are going to have men’s lives in your hands. It is no place for a man who thinks ‘perhaps.’ Still I will try you. You will receive three dollars and a half for eight hours, and overtime, extra. At that the work is not hard. You can go up to the shaft now. Colson, the man whom you are going to try to replace, is on shift, and he will teach you what he can. You go on the pay-roll to-morrow.” Cutting short Stephen’s thanks, Mr. Cameron abruptly left the office.

Duncan began to chuckle quietly.

“It is damned lucky for you, Loring, that you didn’t go on much further with your theories of ‘thinking perhaps.’ I don’t know where you were before you came here, and I don’t care; but here it will help you some to remember that it is only what you do know or can do that counts.”

Stephen took cheerfully this good advice, and after securing his hat, he stretched himself comfortably in the doorway, then started up the hill to the mine. In the hot glare he climbed the tramway which led from the hungry ore cribs by the smelter to Number Three hoist. He was still weak, and the climb tired him considerably. Several times, in the course of the few hundred yards, he stopped and rested. As many times more he was compelled to step to one side of the track in order to let the funny, squat, little ore cars whiz by him, the brake cable behind them stretching taut, and whining with the peculiar note of metal under tension. When at last, tired and out of breath, he reached the hoist box, Colson gave him a sour greeting.

“Damned boiler leaks like a sieve. Have to keep stoking her all the time. Engine is always getting centered. Wish you joy! It’s the worst job I ever tackled.”

In answer to Loring’s request for instructions, Colson slowly wiped his hands on a bit of oily waste, and having taken a fresh chew of tobacco, proceeded to explain the working of the drum hoist, and the signal code.

For the rest of the afternoon, under Colson’s supervision, Stephen managed the clutch that governed the cable, and at the ever recurring clang of one bell, ran the ore buckets with great speed up the shaft. Whenever the signal of three bells, followed by one, rang out, he brought the buckets slowly and decorously to the surface, for that told of a human load. Loring, in spite of apparent clumsiness, possessed a great amount of deftness, and he was soon running the hoist fairly well, although the jerks with which the engine was brought to a standstill told the miners that a new and inexperienced hand was at the clutch.

At half-past three the men of the shift began to signal to come to the surface. Loring asked Colson how, when the shift did not end till four, this was allowed. Colson explained that as the mine was non-Union, and employed mostly Mexican labor, the piece work system was in use. When the men had filled a certain number of buckets, they could come to the surface regardless of the time. The result had been that more work was accomplished than formerly, while the miners had shorter hours.

“That is all very pleasant,” reflected Stephen, “if the company, having seen how active the men can be, does not increase the number of buckets required.”

Shortly before four o’clock they were relieved by the engineer for the next shift, who undertook the task of lowering the waiting men. Then Colson and Loring, picking up their coats, walked slowly down the hill into the camp. At the smelter Loring parted with Colson and walked over to his own quarters. Since his dismissal from the hospital, he had been sharing a tent with one of the shift bosses—a man about whom Stephen knew little except the fact that he was named Lynn, and that he never washed. The company rented tents with board floors, for two dollars a month, so that when the quarters were shared, household expenses were not large.

As Loring threw back the wire-screened door of the tent, Lynn, from within, greeted him with mild interest.

“I hear they are goin’ to try you on Number Three. Now over where I used to work in Black Eagle, they wouldn’t let a green man even smell the hoist. It ain’t safe, nor legal. But I suppose the Boss had to give you some job. All wrong, though.”

Loring kept discreet silence in answer to this, and after fetching a bucket of water, proceeded to wash with many splashes. This annoyed Lynn, who grunted: “How can a man do any work with you wallowin’ round like a herd of steers?” Then he returned to his previous occupation of poring over location papers for some claims of his “up yonder.” These claims were the joke of the camp, on account of their remoteness from any known ore vein, yet Lynn, unaffected by the waves of exultation or depression which from time to time swept through the camp, year by year persisted in doggedly doing his assessment work.

In Arizona almost every man, no matter what his occupation or station, has “some claims up in the hills.” These claims furnish the romance of his life, for always beneath the grimmest present lies the golden “perhaps” of a rich strike.

Stephen sat on the edge of his cot, rolling a cigarette and watching Lynn’s profile.

“There are some people,” he meditated, “who would not look cheerful if they were paid so much a smile.” When Lynn had finished his papers, he rose with solemn deliberative slowness, took down a black felt hat from a wooden peg on the tent pole, transferred his toothpick from the left side of his mouth to the right, and slouched towards the door.

“Come on over to grub!” he called back. Loring joined him, and together they walked over to the company mess.

As they picked their way along the sordid road, Stephen looked at the dirty houses of the Mexicans with a feeling of repulsion. They were built from all the refuse that could be gathered: old sheet iron, quilts, suwara rods, a few boards, broken pieces of glass and tarred paper. A broken-down wagon, on one wheel, lurching in a dissipated fashion against a boulder, added to the disreputability of the tin-can-strewn road. While he and Lynn were plodding moodily along, Stephen suddenly heard behind him the clatter of horses’ hoofs. He turned. The scene no longer seemed sordid, for riding up the road was Miss Cameron. Around her rode five or six little girls,—the camp children,—their legs, too short to reach the stirrups, stuck in the leathers, their hair flying in all directions, while their stiff little gingham dresses fluttered in the breeze. Jean, riding a gray pony, sat clean limbed and lithe across the saddle. The deep full modeling of breast and thigh, the proud carriage of the shoulders, and the easy swing of her body to the lope of the horse—all bespoke high health and keen enjoyment. Her khaki skirt fell on either side in yellow folds against the oiled brown of the saddle. She wore no hat, and the sunlight struck clear and sparkling upon her tawny hair. Her color was fresh from the sting of the wind.

Stephen stepped aside to let the little cavalcade pass; but Miss Cameron reined in her pony, and smilingly greeted him and his companion. Her convoy of little girls bade her a grateful “good-bye,” and scattered to their homes in the various parts of the camp.

“You seem to be a ‘Pied Piper of Hamelin,’” remarked Stephen, looking up at her. Lynn for some reason appeared uneasy.

“No, I don’t decoy them,” she answered. “In fact, I try hard to get away from them, but they are not allowed to ride alone in the valley, and consequently whenever they see my pony saddled they swarm about me like bees and cannot be shaken off. Are you sure that you are strong enough to be out of the hospital?” Miss Cameron added, scrutinizing Stephen with friendly solicitude.

Loring was busying himself with the problem of whether her eyes were really gray or blue. He gathered his wits together however to answer that he was growing better steadily.

“Well, good night, and be sure to continue to get better!” The girl shook the reins of her pony, and galloped off towards the corral.

Lynn could no longer contain himself.

“Look a-here, Loring. I don’t know where you was brought up, but Miss Cameron is a lady, if ever I seed one, and whar I come from, gentlemen don’t call ladies ‘Pi-eyed Pipers.’”

Stephen, with a start, came out of his wistful mood, then almost collapsed with laughter. Lynn stalked along in silent wrath, not speaking another word until they entered the mess room.

It was half-past five, and the room was still crowded, though that many had come and gone was attested by the pools of coffee on the zinc tables, the bread crumbs on the floor, and the great piles of dirty dishes. In a mining camp five o’clock is the fashionable supper hour, and he who comes late has cause to rue it. Loring and his companion cleared places for themselves, and after the necessary preliminaries of wiping their cracked plates on their sleeves, and obtaining their share from the great bowl of stew in the center of the table, they proceeded to eat in businesslike silence. There had been a time when such surroundings would have taken away Stephen’s appetite, but that was far away. The proprietor walked frequently up and down the room, answering mildly the contumely heaped upon the food. He carried a large bucket from which he replenished the coffee cups. Stephen quickly reached the dessert stage of the meal, and the proprietor set that course before him. It consisted of two very shiny canned peaches, floating in a dubious juice.

The man who owned the eating house was of a quiet, depressed nature developed by years of endeavor to please boarders’ appetites at one dollar a day and make a profit of seventy-five cents. Ordinarily dessert consisted of one canned peach. Loring’s double allowance was a silent tribute to the fact that he did not rail at the food as did the others, and to the fact that once, when the purveyor had “spread himself” and served canned oysters, Stephen had thanked him. This had been the third time that the man had been thanked in all his life, and he stowed it away in his strange placid brain.

When Stephen had finished his meal, he rose and joined the group of men, who, as customary after supper, were lounging on the steps. The proprietor, wearing his usual apologetic smile, soon joined them.

“Pretty good supper, boys?” he remarked tentatively.

Some one in the crowd moaned drearily. “Say, I know what good food is. I used to eat up at the Needles, at a place so swell they give Mexicans pie. Reg’lar sort of Harvey house, that was.” The proprietor, still smiling, sadly withdrew, and the crowd returned to its former occupations: commenting on the thin ponies of the Mexicans who galloped by, and trying to catch the eyes of the señoritas as they strolled past, arm in arm, seemingly stolid alike to the attentions and to the jests of the men.

Many of the Indians, who had been brought from the San Carlos Reservation to work on the railway grade, were in camp to make their simple purchases of supplies. Stephen noticed with disgust the way the braves sat astride their ponies with indolent grace, while beside them walked the squaws, with the papooses slung in blankets over their shoulders.

“Good example of the ‘noble redman,’ isn’t it!” he exclaimed to McKay.

“Well, what can you expect?” chuckled the latter. “You know in their marriage ceremony the brave puts the bit of his pony in the mouth of his prospective bride. Sort of a symbol of equality and companionship between man and wife, I reckon.”

As the twilight turned to dusk, the group gradually dissolved, till Loring alone was left on the steps. It was peaceful there, and as he drew on his old black pipe, a healthy feeling of contentment permeated him. He felt that he could do his new work well. His last lessons, he thought, had taught him concentration. He saw himself working up again to a position of power. For some reason that even to himself was only vaguely defined, he felt that now it was all infinitely worth while. As for drink, he merely thought of it as an episode of the past. Stephen’s worst fault lay in not grappling with his enemies until they had him by the throat. As he sat smoking and dreaming, he was aroused by a cheerful salutation.

“Howdy, me bludder? Me bludder, he feel fine?”

Stephen looked up to see Hop Wah standing in the road before him. With his derby hat, yellow face, coal black pig-tail, and with a five-cent cigar drooping from one corner of his mouth Wah was a strange combination of Occident and Orient.

“Fine, thanks!” answered Loring, “but what are you doing up here in camp now, Wah?”

Wah proudly puffed at his cigar, and blew a wreath of gray smoke from between his flat lips.

“Me cook for the company here, now. Makee pie ebbrey day. Oh, lubbly, lubbly pie! Me bludder come to back door, and I give him some. Oh, lubbly, lubbly pie! Goodee bye. Goodee bye, me bludder!” Then Wah departed in the direction of the tienda, marching cheerfully along to his old refrain: “La, la, boom, boom; la, la, boom, boom.”

“The crazy Chinaman!” laughed Stephen. “He certainly enjoys life, though.” Loring rose and knocked out the ashes of his pipe on the steps. Then he walked towards his tent. They were just dumping the slag from the smelter, and he watched the glowing slag pot shoot along the track in front of him. As if by magic it checked at the end of the heap, and poured its molten, flashing stream far over the embankment. The whole camp glowed with a clear, all-suffusing orange light. The outline of the surrounding mountains loomed out blue-black. The glow faded to dull red, then dwindled to a mere thread of light, then disappeared, and all was dark again.

During the next two months, with a concentration of which he had never before thought himself capable, Stephen slaved at learning his task. To feel that in his hands lay the lives of the sixteen men of the shift gave him a sense of responsibility, which in all his former work had been completely lacking. He was so faithful in the performance of his duties that even the critical Mr. Cameron was secretly pleased, while Jean watched with growing interest her father’s experiment, and felt that at last Loring had ceased to drift.

Stephen, on his part, carried in his heart one memory which shortened his working day, gladdened his leisure hours, and left no time for vain regrets. This was the thought of one evening which he had spent at Mr. Cameron’s house, on the occasion of a “Gringo” dance, whereto all the workers in camp, except the Mexicans, had been bidden, in celebration of Washington’s birthday.

Often did Stephen recall the flag-draped room, the Mexican orchestra, which in color resembled a slice of strawberry, vanilla, and chocolate ice-cream. He remembered the lantern-lighted porch, its lamps blending with the soft darkness of the southern night, hung with its own lanterns of stars.

But all these were only a background of his real memories, which were the warm touch of Jean’s hand, as he had held it in the dance for five blessed minutes, and the sound of her voice as she had talked with him on the porch, in the brief intervals when the guests had gathered around the musicians, to invoke the “Star Spangled Banner” and urge that long might it “Wa-a-ave!”

What they had talked about Stephen scarcely knew; but he had a confused impression that under the commonplaces of their talk had lurked, on her part, a hint of friendship which made his dreams perhaps not quite so wild, for he recognized in her something softly invincible which once having given friendship would never withdraw it, though the skies fell. In fact, while Loring was playing cards over the mess table one evening, Jean was putting her friendship to the proof in another quarter of the camp.