The Spirit of Sweetwater | Page 9

got out. He was about to marry, and the business wouldn't support us both. I was always inclined to adventure anyway. Gold Creek was in everybody's mouth, so I came here.
"Oh, that was a wonderful time; the walk across the mountains was like a story to me. I liked the newness of everything in the camp. It was glorious to hear the hammers ringing, and see the new pine buildings going up--and the tent and shanties. It was rough here then, but I had little to do with that. I staked out my claim and went to digging. I knew very little about mining, but they were striking it all around me, and so I kept on. Besides"--here he looked at her in a curiously shy way--"I've always had a superstition that just when things were worst with me they were soonest to turn to the best, so I dug away. My tunnel went into the hill on a slight upraise, and I could do the work alone. You see I had so little money I didn't want to waste a cent.
"But it all went at last for powder and the sharpening of picks, and for assaying--till one morning in August I found myself without money and without food."
He paused there, and his face grew dark with remembered despair, and she shuddered.
"It must be terrible to be without food and money."
"No one knows what it means till he experiences it. I worked all day without food. It seemed as if I must strike it then. Besides, I took a sort of morbid pleasure in abusing myself--as if I were to blame. I had been living on canned beans, and flapjacks, and coffee without milk or sugar, and I was weak and sick--but it all had to end. About four o'clock I dropped my pick and staggered out to the light. It was impossible to do anything more."
There were tears in her eyes now, for his voice unconsciously took on the anguish of that despair.
"I sat there looking out toward the mountains and down on the camp. The blasts were booming from all hills--the men were going home with their dinner-pails flashing red in the setting sun's light. It was terrible to think of them going home to supper. It seemed impossible that I should be sitting there starving, and the grass so green, the sunset so beautiful. I can see it all now as it looked then, the old Sangre de Christo range! It was like a wall of glistening marble that night.
"Well, I sat there till my hunger gnawed me into action. Then I staggered down the trail. I saw how foolish I had been to go on day after day hoping, hoping until the last cent was gone. I hadn't money enough to pay the extra postage on a letter which was at the office. The clerk gave me the letter and paid the shortage himself. The letter was from my sister, telling me how peaceful and plentiful life was at home, and it made me crazy. She asked me how many nuggets I had found. You can judge how that hurt me. I reeled down the street, for I must eat or die, I knew that."
"Oh, how horrible!" the girl said softly.
"There was one eating-house at which I always took my supper. It was kept by an Irish woman, a big, hearty woman whose husband was a prospector--or had been. 'Biddy Kelly's' was famous for its 'home cooking.' I went by the door twice, for I couldn't bring myself to go in and ask for a meal. You don't know how hard that is--it's very queer, if a man has money he can ask for credit or a meal, but if he is broke he'll starve first. I could see Biddy waiting on the tables--the smell that came out was the most delicious, yet tantalizing, odor of beef-stew--it made me faint with hunger."
His voice grew weak and his throat dry as he spoke.
"When I did enter, Dan looked up and said respectfully, 'Good-evenin', Mr. Clement,' and I felt so ashamed of my errand I turned to run. Everything whirled then--and when I got my bearings again Dan had me on one arm and Biddy was holding a bowl of soup to my lips."
The girl sighed. "Oh, she was good, wasn't she?"
"They fed me, for they could see I was starving, and I told them about the mine--and, well, some way I got them to 'grub-stake' me that night."
"What is that?"
"That is, they agreed to furnish me food and money for tools and share in profits. Dan went to work with me, and do you know, it ended in ruining them both. We organized a company called the 'Biddy Mining Company.' I was president, and Dan was vice-president,