The Wedge of Gold | Page 8

dark, I walked home with her. It was a starlit night in summer, and we talked as we walked as young people do. The gate to the path leading up to her house was open, and I continued to walk by her side until we were almost at the door, when the 'Governor' sprang up from a bench on the little lawn, where he had been sitting, and, rudely seizing his step-daughter by the arm, broke out with a torrent of insulting reproaches that she should dare to be walking alone at night by the side of the most worthless scapegrace in all England.
"The dear girl tried to explain that my part of the affair was merely an act of courtesy, but the old chap was hot, and that only made him rave the worse.
"I stood it a minute, and then said, 'Never mind, Miss Rose! You go within doors, please, and your governor will feel better when he has time to think.'
"At this he turned upon me, ordered me off the grounds, and added that if I did not go at once he would kick me over the hedge. Then I laughed and said: 'Oh, no, Mr. Jenvie, you certainly would not do that.'
"Something in my voice, I guess, vexed him, for he sprang at me like a Siberian wolf. He was a big, hearty fellow, about forty years old, and the blow he aimed at me would have felled a shorthorn. But I knocked it aside, as he made the rush, which swerved him a little to one side, and the opportunity was too good. Bless my soul! Before I thought, I planted him a stinger on the neck, and he went down like a felled ox. And he lay there for fully a minute. The beautiful girl never screamed or uttered a word, except, 'O, Jack, I hope you are not hurt!' She had never called me Jack before, and by Jove, it sounded sweeter to me than a wedding march. The old chap in a dazed way rose up on his hands. I saw he was coming out of it, and with a hasty 'Good night, Miss Rose,' I got out of the way. I went home and told my governor the whole story, and wasn't he mad! Jenvie was his closest friend, you know, and so he ordered me to go and apologize to the old barrister. I told him flatly I would not. Then he ordered me out of the house, and, first bidding mother and sister Grace good-bye, I left. I had four pounds six, and with it I went down to an old aunt's of mine in Cornwall. After three days there I met some miners, had a night with them, which ended by their initiating me into their clan. Next morning, thinking it over, my better self asserted itself, and the whim took me to learn the mining business.
"I worked a year, and when off shift I read all the books on geology and mining that I could find; I found a pamphlet telling me all about this lode and its possibilities. I had worked steadily and had saved money enough to pay my way here; I came, and went to work the second day after arriving on the lode."
"What are your plans, Browning?" asked Sedgwick.
"I have no certain plans," was the answer. "I have just lived on an impossible dream, you know, of making ��5,000, then going back, and if Rose Jenvie is not married to try to steal her away. If I could make a good bit of money I would buy a place, a big tract of downs in Devonshire. I could, by draining it and running it my way, make it double in value in three years."
"And I," said Sedgwick, "have been nursing just such another dream, which is to make $30,000 to go back and cancel the mortgage of $5,000 on the old home place, and then to buy old Jasper's farm on the hill. It is a daisy. It contains 300 acres and is worth $40 an acre. If I could do that, I believe I could reconcile the old gent, and make him think I was not so mightily out of the way after all when I fought at college and ran away. But $30,000--good Lord! when will a man get $30,000 working for $4 a day on the Comstock?"
"It is a close, hard game," said Browning. Then there was silence, the candle burned out, and in a moment more both miners were asleep.
CHAPTER III.
MAKING MONEY AT $4 PER DAY.
The men awoke early, and, as Sedgwick had predicted, by six o'clock, the superintendent of the mine came down and went to the end of the drift. On his return to the lower station of