Frontier Stories | Page 7

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
di'mens. And stunted. And why? 'Cos the heat wasn't kep up long
enough. Mebbe yer think I stopped thar? That ain't me. Thar's a pit out
yar in the woods ez hez been burning six months; it hain't, in course,
got the advantages o' the old one, for it's nat'ral heat. But I'm keeping
that heat up. I've got a hole where I kin watch it every four hours.
When the time comes, I'm thar! Don't you see? That's me! that's David
Fairley,--that's the old man,--you bet!"
"That's so," said Lance, curtly. "And now, Mr. Fairley, if you'll hand
me over a coat or jacket till I can get past these fogs on the Monterey
road, I won't keep you from your diamond pit." He threw down a
handful of silver on the table.
"Ther's a deerskin jacket yer," said the old man, "that one o' them

vaqueros left for the price of a bottle of whiskey."
"I reckon it wouldn't suit the stranger," said Flip, dubiously producing a
much-worn, slashed, and braided vaquero's jacket. But it did suit Lance,
who found it warm, and also had suddenly found a certain satisfaction
in opposing Flip. When he had put it on, and nodded coldly to the old
man, and carelessly to Flip, he walked to the door.
"If you're going to take the Monterey road, I can show you a short cut
to it," said Flip, with a certain kind of shy civility.
The paternal Fairley groaned. "That's it; let the chickens and