Flip: A California Romance | Page 9

to let his
partners get the laugh outer him? D'ye reckon he's goin' to show his

head outer this yer ranch till he can do it square? Not much! Go 'long.
Dad, you're talking silly!"
The old man weakened. He feebly trailed his axe between his legs to a
stump and sat down, wiping his forehead with his sleeve, and imparting
to it the appearance of a slate with a difficult sum partly rubbed out. He
looked despairingly at Lance. "In course," he said, with a deep sigh,
"you naturally ain't got any money. In course you left your pocketbook,
containing fifty dollars, under a stone, and can't find it. In course," he
continued, as he observed Lance put his hand to his pocket, "you've
only got a blank check on Wells, Fargo & Co. for a hundred dollars,
and you'd like me to give you the difference?"
Amused as Lance evidently was at this, his absolute admiration for Flip
absorbed everything else. With his eyes fixed upon the girl, he briefly
assured the old man that he would pay for everything he wanted. He
did this with a manner quite different from the careless, easy attitude he
had assumed toward Flip; at least the quick-witted girl noticed it, and
wondered if he was angry. It was quite true that ever since his eye had
fallen upon another of his own sex, its glance had been less frank and
careless. Certain traits of possible impatience, which might develop
into man- slaying, were coming to the fore. Yet a word or a gesture of
Flip's was sufficient to change that manner, and when, with the fretful
assistance of her father, she had prepared a somewhat sketchy and
primitive repast, he questioned the old man about diamond-making.
The eye of Dad kindled.
"I want ter know how ye knew I was making diamonds," he asked, with
a certain bashful pettishness not unlike his daughter's.
"Heard it in 'Frisco," replied Lance, with glib mendacity, glancing at
the girl.
"I reckon they're gettin' sort of skeert down there--them jewelers,"
chuckled Dad, "yet it's in nater that their figgers will have to come
down. It's only a question of the price of charcoal. I suppose they didn't
tell you how I made the discovery?"

Lance would have stopped the old man's narrative by saying that he
knew the story, but he wished to see how far Flip lent herself to her
father's delusion.
"Ye see, one night about two years ago I had a pit o' charcoal burning
out there, and tho' it had been a smouldering and a smoking and a
blazing for nigh unto a month, somehow it didn't charcoal worth a cent.
And yet, dog my skin, but the heat o' that er pit was suthin hidyus and
frightful; ye couldn't stand within a hundred yards of it, and they could
feel it on the stage road three miles over yon, t'other side the mountain.
There was nights when me and Flip had to take our blankets up the
ravine and camp out all night, and the back of this yer hut shriveled up
like that bacon. It was about as nigh on to hell as any sample ye kin get
here. Now, mebbe you think I built that air fire? Mebbe you'll allow the
heat was just the nat'ral burning of that pit?"
"Certainly," said Lance, trying to see Flip's eyes, which were resolutely
averted.
"Thet's whar you'd be lyin'! That yar heat kem out of the bowels of the
yearth,--kem up like out of a chimbley or a blast, and kep up that yar
fire. And when she cools down a month after, and I got to strip her,
there was a hole in the yearth, and a spring o' bilin', scaldin' water
pourin' out of it ez big as your waist. And right in the middle of it was
this yer." He rose with the instinct of a skillful raconteur, and whisked
from under his bunk a chamois leather bag, which he emptied on the
table before them. It contained a small fragment of native rock crystal,
half-fused upon a petrified bit of pine. It was so glaringly truthful, so
really what it purported to be, that the most unscientific woodman or
pioneer would have understood it at a glance. Lance raised his mirthful
eyes to Flip.
"It was cooled suddint,--stunted by the water," said the girl, eagerly.
She stopped, and as abruptly turned away her eyes and her reddened
face.
"That's it, that's just it," continued the old man. "Thar's Flip, thar,
knows it; she ain't no fool!" Lance did not speak, but turned a hard,

unsympathizing look upon the old man, and rose almost roughly. The
old man clutched his coat. "That's it, ye see. The carbon's just turning to