The Three Partners

THE THREE PARTNERS
by Bret Harte

PROLOGUE.
The sun was going down on the Black Spur Range. The red light it had
kindled there was still eating its way along the serried crest, showing
through gaps in the ranks of pines, etching out the interstices of broken
boughs, fading away and then flashing suddenly out again like sparks
in burnt-up paper. Then the night wind swept down the whole mountain
side, and began its usual struggle with the shadows upclimbing from
the valley, only to lose itself in the end and be absorbed in the
all-conquering darkness. Yet for some time the pines on the long slope
of Heavy Tree Hill murmured and protested with swaying arms; but as
the shadows stole upwards, and cabin after cabin and tunnel after
tunnel were swallowed up, a complete silence followed. Only the sky
remained visible--a vast concave mirror of dull steel, in which the stars
did not seem to be set, but only reflected.
A single cabin door on the crest of Heavy Tree Hill had remained open
to the wind and darkness. Then it was slowly shut by an invisible figure,
afterwards revealed by the embers of the fire it was stirring. At first
only this figure brooding over the hearth was shown, but as the flames
leaped up, two other figures could be seen sitting motionless before it.
When the door was shut, they acknowledged that interruption by
slightly changing their position; the one who had risen to shut the door
sank back into an invisible seat, but the attitude of each man was one of
profound reflection or reserve, and apparently upon some common
subject which made them respect each other's silence. However, this
was at last broken by a laugh. It was a boyish laugh, and came from the
youngest of the party. The two others turned their profiles and glanced
inquiringly towards him, but did not speak.

"I was thinking," he began in apologetic explanation, "how mighty
queer it was that while we were working like niggers on grub wages,
without the ghost of a chance of making a strike, how we used to sit
here, night after night, and flapdoodle and speculate about what we'd
do if we ever DID make one; and now, Great Scott! that we HAVE
made it, and are just wallowing in gold, here we are sitting as glum and
silent as if we'd had a washout! Why, Lord! I remember one night--not
so long ago, either--that you two quarreled over the swell hotel you
were going to stop at in 'Frisco, and whether you wouldn't strike
straight out for London and Rome and Paris, or go away to Japan and
China and round by India and the Red Sea."
"No, we didn't QUARREL over it," said one of the figures gently;
"there was only a little discussion."
"Yes, but you did, though," returned the young fellow mischievously,
"and you told Stacy, there, that we'd better learn something of the
world before we tried to buy it or even hire it, and that it was just as
well to get the hayseed out of our hair and the slumgullion off our boots
before we mixed in polite society."
"Well, I don't see what's the matter with that sentiment now," returned
the second speaker good-humoredly; "only," he added gravely, "we
didn't quarrel--God forbid!"
There was something in the speaker's tone which seemed to touch a
common chord in their natures, and this was voiced by Barker with
sudden and almost pathetic earnestness. "I tell you what, boys, we
ought to swear here to-night to always stand by each other--in luck and
out of it! We ought to hold ourselves always at each other's call. We
ought to have a kind of password or signal, you know, by which we
could summon each other at any time from any quarter of the globe!"
"Come off the roof, Barker," murmured Stacy, without lifting his eyes
from the fire. But Demorest smiled and glanced tolerantly at the
younger man.
"Yes, but look here, Stacy," continued Barker, "comrades like us, in the

old days, used to do that in times of trouble and adventures. Why
shouldn't we do it in our luck?"
"There's a good deal in that, Barker boy," said Demorest, "though, as a
general thing, passwords butter no parsnips, and the ordinary,
every-day, single yelp from a wolf brings the whole pack together for
business about as quick as a password. But you cling to that sentiment,
and put it away with your gold-dust in your belt."
"What I like about Barker is his commodiousness," said Stacy. "Here
he is, the only man among us that has his future fixed and his
preemption lines laid out and registered. He's already got a girl that he's
going