The Cross-Cut | Page 5

father found what he was looking for and
was on the point of achieving his every dream, when something
happened. Then three men simply disappeared from the mining camp,
announcing that they had failed and were going to hunt new diggings.
That was all. One of them was your father--"
"But you said that he 'd found--"
"Silver, running twenty ounces to the ton on an eight-inch vein which
gave evidences of being only the beginning of a bonanza! I know,
because he had written me that, a month before."
"And he abandoned it?"
"He 'd forgotten what he had written when I saw him again. I did n't
question him. I did n't want to--his face told me enough to guess that I
would n't learn. He went home then, after giving me enough money to
pay the taxes on the mine for the next twenty years, simply as his
attorney and without divulging his whereabouts. I did it. Eight years or
so later, I saw him in Indianapolis. He gave me more money--enough
for eleven or twelve years--"
"And that was ten years ago?" Robert Fairchild's eyes were reminiscent.
"I remember--I was only a kid. He sold off everything he had, except
the house."
Henry Beamish walked to his safe and fumbled there a moment, to
return at last with a few slips of paper.

"Here 's the answer," he said quietly, "the taxes are paid until 1922."
Robert Fairchild studied the receipts carefully--futilely. They told him
nothing. The lawyer stood looking down upon him; at last he laid a
hand on his shoulder.
"Boy," came quietly, "I know just about what you 're thinking. I 've
spent a few hours at the same kind of a job myself, and I 've called old
Henry Beamish more kinds of a fool than you can think of for not
coming right out flat-footed and making Thornton tell me the whole
story. But some way, when I 'd look into those eyes with the fire all
dead and ashen within them, and see the lines of an old man in his
young face, I--well, I guess I 'm too soft-hearted to make folks suffer. I
just couldn't do it!"
"So you can tell me nothing?"
"I 'm afraid that's true--in one way. In another I 'm a fund of
information. To-night you and I will go to Indianapolis and probate the
will--it's simple enough; I 've had it in my safe for ten years. After that,
you become the owner of the Blue Poppy mine, to do with as you
choose."
"But--"
The old lawyer chuckled.
"Don't ask my advice, Boy. I have n't any. Your father told me what to
do if you decided to try your luck--and silver 's at $1.29. It means a lot
of money for anybody who can produce pay ore--unless what he said
about the mine pinching out was true."
Again the thrill of a new thing went through Robert Fairchild's veins,
something he never had felt until twelve hours before; again the urge
for strange places, new scenes, the fire of the hunt after the hidden
wealth of silver-seamed hills. Somewhere it lay awaiting him; nor did
he even know in what form. Robert Fairchild's life had been a plodding
thing of books and accounts, of high desks which as yet had failed to

stoop his shoulders, of stuffy offices which had been thwarted so far in
their grip at his lung power; the long walk in the morning and the tired
trudge homeward at night to save petty carfare for a silent man's pettier
luxuries had looked after that. But the recoil had not exerted itself
against an office-cramped brain, a dusty ledger-filled life that suddenly
felt itself crying out for the free, open country, without hardly knowing
what the term meant. Old Beamish caught the light in the eyes, the
quick contraction of the hands, and smiled.
"You don't need to tell me, Son," he said slowly. "I can see the
symptoms. You 've got the fever--You 're going to work that mine.
Perhaps," and he shrugged his shoulders, "it's just as well. But there are
certain things to remember."
"Name them."
"Ohadi is thirty-eight miles from Denver. That's your goal. Out there,
they 'll tell you how the mine caved in, and how Thornton Fairchild,
who had worked it, together with his two men, Harry Harkins, a
Cornishman, and 'Sissie' Larsen, a Swede, left town late one night for
Cripple Creek--and that they never came back. That's the story they 'll
tell you. Agree with it. Tell them that Harkins, as far as you know, went
back to Cornwall, and that you have heard vaguely that Larsen later
followed the mining game farther out West."
"Is it the truth?"
"How do I