Though Fred and the professor shouldered pick and shovel at sunrise every morning and laid them down thankfully at dusk every night, they could not hope to work out the assessment upon eight mining claims in a year. The professor was not a success as a pick-and-shovel man, though he did his best. He acquired a row of callouses on each hand and a chronic ache in his back, but beyond that he did not accomplish very much. Fred was really the brawn of the undertaking, and in a practical way he was the brains also. Fred saw at once that the task required more muscle than he and the professor could furnish, so he hired a couple of men and set them to work on the claims of the speculators.
Two little old Irishmen, these were; men who had dried down to pure muscle and bone as to their bodies, and to pure mining craft and tenacious memory for the details of their narrow lives as to brains. The mountains produce such men. In the barren plains country they would be called desert rats, but in the mountains they are called prospectors.
They set up their own camp half a mile down the creek, so that Kate and Marion seldom saw them. They did their own cooking and divided their work to suit themselves, and they did not charge as much for their labor as Fred charged the claim-owners for the work, so Fred considered that he had done very well in hiring them. He could turn his attention to his own claim and the claims of Marion and Kate, and let the professor peck away at a hole in the hillside where he vaguely hoped to find gold. Why not? People did, in these mountains. Why, nuggets of gold had been picked up in the main street of Quincy, so they told him. One man in town had solemnly assured him that all these hills were "lousy with gold"; and while the professor did not like the phrase, he did like the heartening assurance it bore to his wistful heart, and he began examining his twenty-acre claim with a new interest. Surely the early-day miners had not gleaned all the gold! Why, nearly every time he talked with any of the natives he heard of fresh strikes. Old prospectors like Murphy and Mike were always coming in town for supplies and then hurrying back to far canyons where they fully expected to become rich.
The professor got a book on mineralogy and read it faithfully. Certain points which he was not sure that he understood he memorized and meant to ask Murphy, who had a memory like a trap and had mined from Mexico to Alaska and from Montana to the sea.
Murphy poised his shovel, since he happened to be working, twinkled his eyes at the professor through thick, silver-rimmed glasses, and demanded: "For why do ye be readin' a buke about it? For why don't ye get down wit yer pick, man, and see what's in the ground? My gorry, I been minin' now for forty-wan year, ever sence I come from the auld country, an' I never read no buke t' see what I had in me claim. I got down inty the ground, an' I seen for meself what I got there--an' whin I found out, my gorry, I didn't need no buke t' tell me was she wort' the powder I'd put inty 'er. An' them that made their millions outy their mines, they didn't go walkin' around wit' a buke in their hands! My gorry, they hired jackasses like me an' Mike here t' dig fer all they wanted t' know about.
"And if ye want to find out what's there in yer claim, I'd advise ye t' throw away yer buke, young feller, an' git busy wit' yer two hands, an' ye'll be like t' know a dom sight more than wit' all yer readin'. An' if ye like to bring me a sample of what ye git, I'll be the wan t' tell ye by sight what ye have, and I don't need no buke t' tell it by nayther."
Whereat Mike, who was silly from being struck on the head with a railroad tie somewhere down the long trail of years behind him, gulped his lean Adam's apple into a laugh, and began to gobble a long, rambling tale about a feller he knew once in Minnesota who could locate mines with a crooked stick, and wherever he pinted the stick you could dig....
Murphy sat down upon him then--figuratively speaking--and reminded Mike that they were not talking about crooked sticks ner no kind of sticks, ner they didn't give a dom what happened in Minnesota fifty year ago--if it ever had happened, which Murphy doubted. So Mike left his story in the middle and went off to the water jug under a stubby cedar, walking bowlegged and swinging his arms limply, palms turned backward, and muttering to himself as he went.
"A-ah, there goes a liar if ever there was one--him and his crooked sthick!" Murphy brought out a plug of tobacco the length of his hand and pried off a corner with his teeth. "Mebby it was a railroad tie, I dunno, that give him the dint in his head where he should have brains--but I misdoubt me if iver there was more than the prospect of a hole there, and niver a color to pay fer the diggin'." He looked at the professor and winked prodigiously, though Mike was out of earshot. "Him an' his crooked sthick!" he snorted, nudging the professor with his elbow. "'S fer me, I'd a dom sight ruther go be yer buke, young feller--and more I cannot say than thot."
The professor went back to his ledge on the hillside and began to peck away with his pick, getting a sample for Murphy to look at. He rather liked Murphy, who had addressed him as young feller--a term sweet to the ears of any man when he had passed forty-five and was still going. By George! an old miner like Murphy ought to know a fair prospect when he saw it! The professor hoped that he might really find gold on his claim. Gold would not lessen the timber value, and it would magnify the profits. They expected to make somewhere near six thousand dollars off each twenty acres; perhaps more, since they were noble trees and good, honest pine that brought the best price from the mills. Six thousand dollars was worth while, certainly; but think of the fortune if they could really find gold. He would have a more honest right to the claim, then. He wondered what Murphy thought of the shaft he was sinking over there, where Fred had perfunctorily broken through the leaf mold with a "prospect" hole, and had ordered Murphy and Mike to dig to bed-rock, and stop when they had the assessment work finished.
What Murphy thought of it Murphy was succinctly expressing just then to Mike, with an upward twinkle of his thick, convex glasses, and a contemptuous fling of his shovelful of dirt up over the rim of the hole.
"My gorry, I think this mine we're workin' on was located by the bake," he chuckled. "Fer if not that, will ye tell me why else they want 'er opened up? There's as much gold here as I've got in me pocket, an' not a dom bit more."
"Well, that man I knowed in Minnesota, he tuk a crooked sthick," gobbled Mike, whose speech, as well as his mind had been driven askew by the railroad tie; but Murphy impatiently shut him up again.
"A-ah, an' that's about as much as ye iver did know, I'm thinkin', le's have no more av yer crooked sthick. Hand me down that other pick, fer this wan is no sharper than me foot."
He worked steadily after that, flinging up the moist soil with an asperated "a-ah" that punctuated regularly each heave of his shoulder muscles. In a little he climbed out and helped Mike rig a windlass over the hole. Mike pottered a good deal, and stood often staring vacantly, studying the next detail of their work. When he was not using them, his hands drooped helplessly at his sides, a sign of mental slackness never to be mistaken. He was willing, and what Murphy told him to do he did. But it was Murphy who did the hard work, who planned for them both.
Presently Mike went bowlegging to camp to start their dinner, and Murphy finished spiking the windlass to the platform on which it rested. He still whispered a sibilant "a-ah!" with every blow of the hammer, and the perspiration trickled down his seamed temples in little rivulets to his chin that looked smaller and weaker than it should because he had lost so many of his teeth and had a habit of pinching his lower jaw up against his upper.
The professor came back with his sample of rock--with a pocketful of samples--just as Murphy had finished and was wiping his thick glasses on a soiled, blue calico handkerchief with large white polka-dots on the border and little white polka-dots in the middle. He turned toward the professor inquiringly, warned by the scrunching footsteps that some one approached. But he was blind as a bat--so he declared--without his glasses, so he finished polishing them and placed them again before his bleared, powder-burned eyes before he knew who was coming.
"An' it's you back already," he greeted, in his soft Irish voice, that tilted up at the end of every sentence, so that, without knowing what words he spoke, one would think he was asking question after question and never making a statement at all. "An' what have ye dug outy yer buke now?"
"No, by George, I dug this out of the ground," the professor declared, going forward eagerly. "I want you to tell me frankly just what you think of it."
"An' I will do that--though it's many the fight I've been in because of speakin' me mind," Murphy stated, grinning a little. "An' now le's see what ye got there. My gorry, I've been thinkin' they're all av thim buke mines that ye have here," he bantered, peering into the professor's face, before he took the largest piece of rock and turned it over critically in his hands. In a minute he handed it back with a quizzical glance.
"They's nawthin' there," he said softly. "If thot was gold-bearin' rock, my gorry, we'd all of us be rollin' in wealth, fer the mountains is made of such. Young feller, ye're wastin' yer time an' ivery dollar ye're sinkin' in these here claims ye've showed me--and thot's no lie I'm tellin' ye, but the truth, an' if ye believe it I'll soon be huntin' another job and ye'll be takin' the train back where ye come from."
The professor eyed him uncertainly. He looked at the great, singing pines that laced their branches together high over their heads. Fred, he thought, had made a mistake when he hired experienced miners to do this work. It might be better to let Murphy in....
"Still the timber on the claims is worth proving up, and more," he ventured cautiously, with a sharp glance at Murphy's spectacles.
"A-ah, and there yer right," Murphy assented with the upward tilt to his voice. "An' if it's the timber ye be wantin', I'll say no more about the mine. Four thousand acres minin' claims no better than yer own have I seen held fer the trees on thim--an' ain't it the way some of these ole fellers thot goes around now wit' their two hands in their pants pockets an' no more work t' do wit' 'em than to light up their seegars--ain't it wit' the timber on their minin' claims that they made their pile? A-ah--but them was the good times fer them that had brains. A jackass like me an' Mike, here, we're the fellers thot went on a lookin' fer gold an' givin' no thought to the trees that stood above. An' thim that took the gold an' the trees, they're the ones thot's payin' wages now to the likes of Mike an' me."
He straightened his back and sent a speculative glance at the forest around him. "'Tis long sence the thrick has been worked through," he mused, turning his plug of tobacco over in his hand, looking for a likely place to sink his stained old teeth. "Ye'll be kapin' mum about what's in yer mind, young feller, ef ye don't want to bring the dom Forest Service on yer trail. Ef it was me, I'd buy me a bag of salt fer me mines--I would thot."
"Well, by George!" The professor stared. "What has salt--?"
"A-ah, an' there's where ye're ign'rant, young feller, wit' all yer buke l'arnin'. 'Tis gold I mean--gold thot ye can show t' thim thot gits cur'us. But if it was me, I'd sink me shaf' in a likelier spot than what this spot is--I wuddn't be bringing up durt like this, an' be callin' the hole a mine! I kin show ye places where ye kin git the color an' have the luke of a mine if ye haven't the gold. There's better men than you been fooled in these hills. I spint me a winter meself, cuttin' timbers fer me mine--an' no more than a mile from this spot it was--an' in the spring I sinks me shaf' an' not a dom ounce of gold do I git fer me pains!"
"Well, by George! I'll speak to Fred about it. I--I suppose you can be trusted, Murphy?"
Murphy spat far from him and hitched up his sagging overalls. "Kin any man be trusted?" he inquired sardonically. "He kin, says I, if it's to his intrust. I'm gittin' my wages fer the diggin', ain't I? Then it's to me intrust to kape on diggin'! Sure, me tongue niver wagged me belly outy a grub-stake yit, young feller! I'm with ye on this, an' thot's me true word I'm givin' ye."
The professor hurried off to find Fred and urge him to let Murphy advise them upon the exact sites of their mines. Murphy hung his hammer up in the forked branches of a young oak, and went off to his dinner. Arriving there, he straightway discovered that Mike, besides frying bacon and making a pot of muddy coffee and stirring up a bannock, had been engaged also in what passed with him for thinking.
"Them fellers don't know nothin' about minin'," he began when he had poured himself a cup of coffee and turned the pot with the handle toward Murphy. "They's no gold there, where we're diggin', I know there's no gold! They's no sign of gold. They can dig a hunnerd feet down, an' they won't find no gold! Why, in Minnesota, that time--"
"A-ah, now, le's have none av Minnesota," Murphy broke in upon Mike's gobbling--no other word expresses Mike's manner of speech, or comes anywhere near to giving any idea of his mushy mouthing of words. "An' who iver said they was after gold, now?"
Mike's jaw went slack while he stared dully at his partner. "An' if they ain't after gold, what they diggin' fer, then?" he demanded, when he had collected what he could of his scattered thoughts.
"A-ah, now, an' thot's a diffrunt story, Mike, me boy." Murphy broke off a piece of bannock, on the side least burned, and nodded his head in a peculiarly knowing manner. "Av ye could kape yer tongue quiet fr'm clappin' all ye know, Mike, I cud tell ye somethin'--I cud thot."
"Wh-why, nobudy ever heard me talkin' things that's tol' in secret," Mike made haste to asseverate. "Why, one time in Minnesota, they was a feller, he tol' me, min' yuh, things 't he wouldn't tell his own mthrrr!" Mike, poor man, could not say mother at all. He just buzzed with his tongue and let it go at that. But Murphy was used to his peculiarities and guessed what he meant.
"An' there's where he showed respick fer the auld lady," he commended drily, and winked at his cup of coffee.
"An' he tol' me, mind yuh, all about a mrrer" (which was as close as he could come to murder) "an' he knew, mind ye, who it was, an' he tol' me--an' why, I wouldn't ever say nothin' an' he knew it--I doctrrrred his eyes, mind ye, mind ye, an' the doctrrrs they couldn't do nothin'--an' we was with this outfit that was puttin' in a bridge" (only he couldn't say bridge to save his life) "this was 'way back in Minnesota--"
"A-ah, now ye come back to Minnesota, ye better quit yer travelin' an' eat yer dinner," quelled Murphy impatiently. "An' le's hear no more 'bout it."
Mike laid a strip of scorched bacon upon a chunk of scorched bannock and bit down through the mass, chewed meditatively and stared into the coals of his camp fire. "If they ain't diggin' fer gold, then what are they diggin' fer?" he demanded aggressively, and so suddenly that Murphy started.
"A-ah, now, I'll tell ye what they're diggin' fer, but it's a secret, mind ye, and ye must nivver spheak a word av it. They're diggin' fer anguintum, me boy. An' thot's wort' more than gold, an' the likes av me 'n you wadden't know if we was to wade through it, but it's used in the war, I dunno, t' make gas-bags t' kill the inimy, and ye're t' say nawthin' t' nobody er they'll likely take an' hang ye fer a spy on the government, but ye're sa-afe, Mike, s' long as ye sthick t' me an' yer job an' say nawthin' t' nobody, d' ye see."
"They'd nivver hang me fer a spy," Mike gobbled excitedly. "They'll nivver hang me--why I knowed--"
"A-ah, av yer ivver did ye've fergot it intirely," Murphy squelched him pitilessly.
Mike gulped down a mouthful and took a swallow of muddy coffee. "They better look out how they come around me," he threatened vaguely. "They can't take me for a spy. I'd git the lawyers after 'em, an' I'd make 'em trouble. They wanta look out--I'd spend ivvery cent I make on lawyers an' courts if they took and hung me fer a spy. I'd lawsue 'em!"
Murphy laughed. "A-ah, would ye, now!" he cried admiringly. "My gorry, it takes a brain like yours t' think av things. Now, av they hung me, I'd be likes to let 'er sthand thot way. I'd nivver a thought t' lawsue 'em fer it--I wad not!"
