McClure's Magazine/Volume 26/Number 1/The Sportin' Blood of Zenith

by Mrs. Wilson Woodrow

 

THE SPORTIN' BLOOD OF ZENITH

BY

MRS. WILSON WOODROW

AUTHOR OF "THE NEW MISSIONER," "THE BOTANIST AND THE MACHINE," ETC.

ILLUSTRATED BY F. WALTER TAYLOR

THE first Sunday that the Rev. Hugh Carrot hers preached in Zenith, every bench in the weather-beaten, unpainted, little frame church was occupied. Not so much for the sake of profiting by his discourse as from a desire to size up, as it were, the man; to photograph upon the mental lenses the least variation of facial expression, and the slight- est peculiarity of speech or manner, that one might be able creditably to hold one's own in the inevitable and exhaustive discussion of personal traits and mental equipment.

To the casual observer the congregation might have appeared but a meager gathering; but to the practised village eye, capable of comparing it with the ordinary Sunday assemblage, it was of astonishing proportions, for the inhabitants of Zenith were not wont to take the keen edge off the pleasure of church attendance by a too frequent indulgence in its privileges.

At the conclusion of the service, a little group of women detached themselves from the congregation slowly filing out, and stood t one side of the dusty, mountain road waiting for Carrothers to appear, in order that one of the group, who desired to ask him home to dinner, might have the support of friendship while performing this social obligation.

"My!" lisped Mrs. Thomas, throwing back from her face her most cherished possession a rusty crêpe veil—"Was n't he great? I do like it when they begin to talk about the serene Emberson, and the weighty Carlyle. Now Missioner, she's always handin' out our plain duty to us, an' I mus' say I get tired of it. As I says to a gentleman from over to Mt. Tabor that was callin' on me las' night, I says: 'There's other things in life beside plain duty.'"

"I ain't so crazy about him as some," announced Mrs. Evans, the tiny, bright-eyed, determined creature who had elected to act as hostess, speaking as one from whom a somewhat critical opinion would be expected. "When he kep' shouting, 'Boys, stay on the farm,' I could hardly sit still in my seat. Lord knows we can't even raise potatoes on these rocks! But Jack Turner tells me that he's deposited at the Mt. Tabor bank, had money left him by his folks, an' he's a widower, girls. His wife's only been dead a year, an' that's the best time to ketch 'em. Now, I was thinkin', all through the sermon: there's my niece, Susie Hazen. She's a good, steady girl, has kep' house for her paw ever since her maw died. She's plain and dresses quiet, and would n't stir up no envy in the congregation. Anyway, I don't want that Tom Eagan hangin' round her."

Mrs. Nitschkan, bluff and breezy, her Sunday attire unchanged from its week-day, masculine simplicity, snapped her fingers in sturdy contempt. "My patience! You won't find one of them serious moon-gazers of men that ever run after the plain, steady kind. They 're took in every time by some flighty, sassy bit of uselessness."

"Yes, Mis' Evans," corroborated Mrs. Thomas, with the serpent-like wisdom born of an extensive knowledge of the masculine heart: "You jus' watch. You can dangle Susie before his eyes all you 're a mind to but all that he 'll see 'll be Mrytle Swanstrom. Times when he was prayin' mos' fervent, this mornin', I noticed he kep' peekin' through his eyelashes at Myrtle. Maybe you saw her sittin' there in her new white dress that she's been breakin' her fingers to get done; an' her hat all over pink roses. There she sat, her that had n't darkened the church door for months, lookin' like butter would n't melt in her mouth."

"IT WAS MYRTLE WHO WOULD INADVERTENTLY AND INNOCENTLY MEET HIM AS HE CAME WHISTLING DOWN THE HILL AT SUNSET"]

"FRANCES BENSON TURNED AWAY DISHEARTENED, YET NOT WHOLLY DISCOURAGED"

"Myrtle's entirely too enterprisin'," commented Mrs. Evans shortly. "She's got a plenty beaux now. Susie's goin' to have this chance."

Meanwhile, the unconscious object of this discussion, the Rev. Hugh Carrothers, had lingered to assist Miss Benson, the missionary, in gathering up the hymn-books and closing and locking the windows and door of the church. These tasks accomplished, he hastened to join the little group by the roadside and turn with them into the trail through the pines, which, Mrs. Evans explained, was a short cut to her door.

As they walked he looked about him with eyes which had not lost their first delight in the majestic panorama of the mountains. Almost in a night a veil of delicate pink and blue blossoms had covered the bare, rocky hillsides, and at every step one trod upon flowers. With a new and ever increasing enjoyment, the preacher gazed about him, and inhaled the pure, balsamic air with its rich fragrances of the earth and the pines.

He was a tall, thin fellow of about thirty, with a gentle, rather timid face, and mild, wondering eyes. In coming to Zenith, he had had no intention of wresting from the missionary her charge; but had merely taken his physician's advice and had sought the higher altitudes and the occupation of manual labor in an endeavor to recuperate from a severe illness.

Now, as he followed the trail with his hostess, the other women close behind, he voiced his admiration of the beauty of the village site. "Ah, ladies, your lines have indeed fallen in pleasant places. Strength must surely come from these hills."

"Well," replied Mrs. Thomas, not vaingloriously, but as if stating a fact, "we cert'ny done our best by this place. Nobody can say we ain't tried to give it an air of refinement. We four, Mis' Evans, Mis' Nitschkan, Mis' Landvetter, an' myself has always hung together since we come here, an' if folks ain't done what was right we've usually had the strength to make 'em, one way or another, an' took no back talk either."

Carrothers looked slightly puzzled. "There are some rare spiritual natures here," he continued. "Now, that little Miss Swanstrom shows a touching desire to help in the Sunday-school work."

He was interrupted by a loud burst of coughing from Mrs. Nitschkan, and an audible if rather smothered remonstrance from Mrs. Thomas: "For goodness sake, Mis' Landvetter, will you stop nudgin' me in the ribs, you mos' knocked me off the cliff."

"Have you broke ground for your cabin yet, Mr. Carrothers?" asked Mrs. Evans hastily, mindful of the social amenities.

"I began last week," he answered with pleased interest. "I wish you ladies would help me some with the plan."

"Almighty glad to," responded Mrs. Evans in her most gracious society tones. "Now, preacher," solicitously, "this is something of a climb for a tenderfoot, and we'd best rest a bit."

As they paused for a moment in the blue shadow of the pines, idly scanning the mountain road beneath the ledge of rock on which they stood, each gaze was caught and held by two figures strolling up the sunshiny expanse of the highway—a straight, sturdy young miner with a dark, handsome face, and a girl whose white dress was carefully lifted from the dust, and whose rose-wreathed hat was hanging half-way down her back from the pink ribbons knotted under her chin. Her attitude expressed unmistakably a coquettish and petulant aloofness and an exaggerated indifference to the evidently impassioned and expostulatory nature of the man's remarks.

"Ah, that is Miss Swanstrom now!" exclaimed Carrothers in tones of interest, "and who is the young man with her?"

"Frank McGuire," said Mrs. Evans briefly, "It's Jack to-day, Don to-morrow, and Tom the day after."

Even as she spoke, Myrtle glanced upward and smiled and nodded. The smile deepened as she saw Carrothers's body-guard, and acting on a sudden, mischievous impulse, she snatched a flower from her belt and hurled it toward them. It fell a few feet short, half-way up the cliff and Carrothers, his face alight, scrambled down over the rocks, rescued the blossom, and fastened it in his coat, waving his hat as Myrtle stood flushed and laughing beneath. Perhaps for both, an added spice to the situation was the unconcealed and angry remonstrance of McGuire. "Gosh a'mighty!" murmured Mrs. Nitschkan at this unseemly and audacious sight. "Ain't she a bold one?"

"You bet if she vas mine she'd git a touch of de stick," chuckled Mrs. Landvetter deeply. But Mrs. Evans maintained a silence more ominous than speech.

And if the preacher was noticeably absent-minded during the rest of the stroll, surely it were not improbable to conjecture that his thoughts were more fully occupied with the evanescent bloom on Myrtle's cheek, and the fleeting radiance of her youthful eyes, than by the conversation of the ladies in whose company he walked.

But Myrtle had, so to speak, fired the first gun with such heedless daring, such flaunting and reckless disregard of consequences that Mrs. Evans's companions felt themselves justified in expecting an immediate return fire, and were rather aggrieved when none was forthcoming.

Mrs. Thomas, in dilating upon the matter afterward, said: "I mos' expected to see a bolt fall from the blue and hit that girl dead, tryin' to carry on with preacher when Mis' Evans was takin' him home to dinner, and on a Sunday, too. You bet Mis' Evans 'll pay her back."

But if Mrs. Evans had any such intentions she kept them, for the moment at least. to herself. And the Zenith mind continued to focus itself upon Carrothers, and to dwell with keen and undiminished interest upon the romantic possibilities which might eventuate from the presence of a preacher and a widower in the camp.

Public opinion varied: "There bein' only two unmarried girls in Zenith, Susie and Mrytle, an' Marthy Thomas, our only widow, engaged, it makes it some exciting," remarked the village Solon from his chair in the assayer's office. "Of course, it narrers it down to a race between Susie and Mrytle, or, to put things as they is—its Myrtle an' Myrtle's maw against Mis' Evans's will an' grit.

"I would n't say," he continued reminiscently, "I would n't say that as far back as I can recollect Mis' Evans has lost out mor'en two or three times; but there's plenty of fightin' blood in the Swanstroms, an' I would put it this way, that the odds is even."

Mrs. Evans it was who kindly offered to assist the preacher in planning the arrangement of his cabin, and, as they sat about the kitchen table in the evening studying the drawings, would appeal to the shy and silent Susie for advice. "Mr. Carrothers," explanatorily, "she's such a housekeeper as never was. When the cabin's finished we 'll come over, an' Susie shall get up one of her suppers for you. My Lord, they're simply great! Susie, lift the coffee-pot off the stove, and hand down preacher a piece of pie."

But it was Myrtle who would inadvertently and innocently meet him as he came whistling down the hill at sunset; Myrtle who would at first refuse to turn back, protesting that she had "an errand further along," and would then be reluctantly persuaded to postpone the errand and go for a stroll.

And if the minister was frequently invited to supper at the homes of those Myrtle called "the Evans click," with Susie invariably and ostentatiously seated beside him, a proceeding which caused the retiring girl a more obvious embarrassment on each occasion, why Carrothers, on the other hand, was more and more frequently to be seen sitting on the step of the Swanstrom cabin through the long summer evenings; and Frank McGuire's frown daily grew deeper, his expression more sullen.

"I do' know, Mis' Evans," remarked Mrs. Thomas frankly at the Wednesday afternoon meeting of the Ladies' Aid Society, "I do' know if you're just on the right track. 'Course," sighing, "we got to recognize that bacon and greens is more to a brute of a man, than the gentle influence of woman; but you got to remember that he's young, and ain't made such a god of victuals as they do when they 're older. Now Susie is always showed off to him as bakin' or sewin' or scrubbin'; while Myrtle comes saunterin' along his path in a white dress, an' the sun shinin' on her yellow hair, an' a sprinklin' of musk on her hankercher. If you notice, for the las' three Sundays he's been rantin' about the lilies of the field. Always watch the straws, I says, an' then, bimeby, you 'll get to know somethin'."

"Zenith ain't neffer had a preacher before dat vas a vidower, und had money in de bank," said Mrs. Landvetter ruminatively.

"Lord pity him!" Mrs. Nitschkan's commiseration was like herself, robust. "As Dan Mayhew says to me yesterday: 'My patience!' he says, 'I do feel sorry for that fellow. Every time he climbs outen that cellar he's blastin', there's five or six women sittin' around on the ground ready to feed him pie and cake an' tell him about their souls. If he expects to get any peace in these hills he'd better move up above timber-line.'"

"There's only one way to stop it," announced Mrs. Evans with impersonal finality, "and that's to get his attention fixed on one girl. And I think that Myrtle had ought to be remonstrated with. Everybody in camp is talkin' about the way she's treatin' Frank McGuire. Yes, she had ought to be remonstrated with, an' Missioner's the one to do it."

"I 'll wait until I know more about the subject," said the missionary coolly. She was not one to submit lightly to dictation.

But, nevertheless, she was pondering if a word in season were not her duty, for Myrtle's mischievous skirmishes with the invincible Mrs. Evans were an absorbing topic of village gossip of which the preacher alone seemed ignorant.

Opportunity, however, arranged the matter without her lifting a finger; for, one afternoon as she sat sewing by her cabin door, occasionally raising her eyes to watch the magpies flutter their black-and-white wings through the pines, or the chipmunks whisk silently up to snatch a bit of food from the pan she always placed for them, Myrtle came panting up the trail, her pink face glowing in the depths of her pinker sunbonnet, and carrying in either hand a tin pail.

"How would you like to go berryin' Miss Benson?" she called blithely. "There's an awful good patch on Corona, and it won't be so warm up there. If you ain't got your jam made, this might be a good chance."

"That's so," replied the missionary, reflecting that it might also be a good chance to speak the word in season, which was weighing upon her mind.

"You see," said Myrtle explanatorily, as they turned off into a narrow trail leading up the mountain side, "Aunt Ella she wants some jam to take back East with her. Company's lots of trouble, Missioner. 'Fore they come it was gettin' the house all cleaned, and tidies and throws and pincushion covers all done up, and between times workin' on paw to let maw cut his hair, an' makin' him promise to wear a collar while they 're here.

"Uncle Hiram, he's well off, an' Aunt Ella, she always was that airy an' set up, maw says. So maw can't bear for her to think because we live up here in the mountains we don't know what's what, an' don't have things right."

They had reached the raspberry patch by this time, and for a season there was silence as they filled their pails with the fragrant, wild fruit. Then Myrtle's voice was lifted anxiously and, withal, hesitatingly.

"Say, Miss Benson, the worst is about Frank McGuire. You see," pleating the ruffles on her apron, a flush rising on her soft cheek, "Frank an' me was goin' to be married this summer, and paw was tickled to death, an' then maw she put her foot down because she wanted to show off to Aunt Ella and act like I could get preacher. And to please her I told Frank I wanted to put off the weddin' till fall. Well, he would n't believe it was just on account of maw's pride 'fore Aunt Ella. He suspicioned all the time that I was goin' to throw him over for the preacher, an' he took on something awful; and now," two large tears rolled down her cheeks, "we ain't hardly on speakin' terms, an' he says he won't be played with no longer, that I've got to tell folks at the raspberry sociable on Saturday night that we're goin' to be married, or he 'll go over the range the next day and won't never come back."

"But, Myrtle," said the missionary gently, "since you really care for Frank, why wait until then? Why not decide now?"

"No," her blue eyes flashing through the drops which still clung to her lashes, "Frank's got to 'pologize first for the way he spoke. I ain't forgot some of the things he said, callin' me 'heartless flirt.' Well, I've showed him what flirtin' is."

"Ah, Myrtle," remonstrated Miss Benson, "would n't it make you happier to forgive him? It's easy to forgive those we love."

"No it ain't," said Myrtle sharply. "They 're the ones it's the hardest to forgive." She shut her lips. and with a toss of the head turned busily to her berry picking.

"Say, Missioner," after an interval of silence, and in a burst of what Miss Benson regarded as reprehensible levity, "the preacher's awful nice, ain't he?"

"He is very pleasant," replied Frances Benson coldly.

"Frank's terrible jealous of him." Myrtle made the statement with undisguised pride.

The missionary was genuinely shocked. "Myrtle! How can you accept Mr. Carrother's attentions if you really care for Frank?" she exclaimed.

"Oh, that's nothing," said Myrtle indifferently. "Seems like there's a plenty reasons for my carryin' on with him—to please maw, an' spite Mis' Evans an' her click, an' help out Susie Hazen. Don't you tell none of 'em, Mis' Benson; but Susie's that mortified that she don't know what to do; an' she don't dare speak up, 'cause Mis' Evans is that set. Why, all these tea-parties they 're havin' an' settin' Susie beside preacher makes her so pizen shamed that she don't know what to do. Susie's fellow's Tom Eagan, over to Black Snake, an' she's goin' to marry him in September; but she don't want Mis' Evans to know it, 'cause she'd stick her foot in it sure. That crowd jus' think they can boss everything here in Zenith, an' I'm a goin' to show 'em they can't boss me."

"But, Myrtle, is it worthy of you to encourage Mr. Carrothers and torment poor Frank just to spite some one?"

"Oh, it don't hurt 'em, really it don't," asserted Myrtle, anxious to retain the missionary's good opinion. "Preacher, he don't care a snap about me. He's got the picture of a girl from Illinois in his watch an' he jus' wants to talk about her an' take on about how lonely he is; and as for Frank, it won't hurt him none. Why, Missioner, some of the boys have told me they'd drown themselves in the creek, or jump over the Pass, or go up above timber-line an' live like recluses; but they never did, not one of 'em. And you jus' see," as she parted from Frances Benson at the door of the cabin, "if I don't teach Frank McGuire what flirtin' is."

Miss Benson looked anxiously after the girl as she started down the hill, a brimming pail of berries on either arm. Then placing her own fruit on the ground, she ran down the trail after the younger woman. "Myrtle," she said, in a voice which trembled, "don't try to get even with Frank, remember his provocation. Sometimes whims like that spoil a woman's whole life. Make it up, Myrtle."

Myrtle put her hands affectionately on the missionary's shoulders and laughed. "I 'll teach him," she said emphatically. "Don't you worry none, Missioner, I got to teach him."

Frances Benson turned away disheartened, yet not wholly discouraged; but her hopefulness waned when it became evident to her, even before the night of the raspberry festival, that the seed she had sown had fallen among the rocks, for Myrtle was more audacious than ever in her skirmishes with the enemy.

"There's one thing that always made me so contented with Zenith," said the Solon of the assayer's office, the night of the social, "an' that's its sportin' blood. Mis' Evans, as all knows, is no quitter; an' Myrtle has played her hand to a finish. They do say as she stands ready to stake her last chip—Frank McGuire—agin' Mis' Evans tonight, if she wants to continue the game; but Frank's swore he won't stand no more foolin' an' she's got to give either him or the preacher the go-by this evenin'."

With that sixth sense common in isolated communities, where the interest in the drama before one's eyes is intense and absorbing because at any moment the spectator may be called from the seclusion of the audience to take his place among the actors before the footlights, the participators in the raspberry festival became intuitively aware of the imminent, psychological moment.

The missionary felt it, and was vaguely troubled and perplexed.

It communicated itself to Mrs. Evans and "her click" and for once that close and assured corporation seemed slightly irresolute.

"I know," muttered Mrs. Evans, "that this 'll be the last time I wear myself to skin and bones to get any girl married. I ask you, Mis' Thomas, if Susie Hazen has ever said more than 'yes, sir,' an' 'no, sir,' to preacher, an' if she ain't et like a wolf at every tea-party we given 'em? Now, you know as well as I do that no girl's goin' to get a house an' home, husband and children actin' that way. I will say for Myrtle, she certainly is enterprisin'."

"How true it is," sighed Mrs. Thomas, "that God helps those that helps theirselves. Well, here we are at the door."

The Town Hall was alight with a dozen lamps in brackets on the walls; the main part of the floor had been cleared for dancing, and polished until it shone, while at the lower end were placed long tables where raspberries and ice-cream were served by the members of the Aid Society. The proceeds of the dancing and refreshment privileges were to go for a new melodeon to be purchased for the church.

Myrtle was dancing indefatigably, the gayest of the gay, when Frances Benson laid an anxious and detaining hand upon her arm. "Myrtle," she begged, "put a stop to all of this nonsense and talk to-night. Decide one way or another. Frank will soon be here now."

Myrtle's soft little face had grown hard, and her eyes glittered. There was even a worried line or so about her mouth. "I can't help it," she cried. "I can't stand to have Mis' Evans crowin' over me to the end of my days, an' sayin' I took Frank 'cause I could n't get preacher. Look at her grinnin' now 'cause preacher an' Susie's come in together! She's a drivin' me to it, Missioner, she's a drivin' me sure to take him."

"But you told me he did not care for you!"

"They ain't none of 'em so hard to get," said the girl with moody scorn. "I ain't fished for trout all my life in these mountains an' not know how to ketch a man."

A partner claimed her, and she danced away, her white dress fluttering through the moving figures about the hall. When she came to a stop at last, it was in the center of a laughing, gasping group.

But suddenly their laughter, which was ringing to the rafters, faltered and died, silenced by a whisper which had run like lightning through the room. There was a moment's commotion. Men consulted briefly, and started toward the door, while women hastily gathered up babies.

"What is it?" asked Frances Benson of a man who passed her.

"Something wrong at the Gold Dirt. Three of the boys ain't come down."

Myrtle clutched her arm. "Frank!" she gasped. "He's workin' in the Gold Dirt, an' if it was n't him he'd a been here before now. Come on," and pulling the missionary strongly by the hand she ran with her down the steps leading to the road.

Undisturbed by the confusion about her, Mrs. Evans stood by the deserted tables, calmly issuing orders. "You fetch all the ground coffee, Nitschkan, we 'll need it up there. I 'll take a basket of ups, an' you carry the pots, Mis' Thomas. Mis' Landvetter, gather up all the shawls that's left, and don't forget to bring the matches. Let the kids stay here an' eat up the cream an' berries; no use wastin' 'em. Now, you all ready? Then we 'll start."

The wagon road up the mountain was black with people; men with picks and lanterns in their hands, and women whose faces shone white under the shawls they had hastily thrown over their heads.

"What is it?" again asked Frances Benson of a man they met hurrying down the hill.

"Explosion in the Gold Dirt," he answered. "Three of the boys was down on the fifth level to do some blastin'. They signaled for the cage an' the engineer sent it down, but they never signaled for it to be lifted. I guess they waited too long after they touched off their fuses."

"Who were they?" cried Myrtle.

"I ain't got no time to talk," he called back over his shoulder. "I'm goin' for the doctor."

"Oh!" wailed the girl, her fingers sinking painfully deep into the missionary's arm; but after that one outcry she made no further demonstration. She was a daughter of the mountains and knew that no breath must be wasted in lamentation. There was a long climb still before them.

Once the clatter of hoofs behind them caused her to shiver convulsively. "I wonder who it is?" said the missionary, as a man on horseback pushed through the crowd on foot, and on up the slope.

"The surgeon," replied Myrtle in a dull, muffled voice.

When at last they reached the mine, it was a wierd and striking scene which met their eyes, solemn, vivid, almost awe-inspiring. The first arrivals, with a practicality acquired in a life spent in battling with necessity, had built great, flaring bonfires of pitch-pine logs. The red flames, with their dense clouds of pitchy smoke, leaped up against the background of the violet-black mountains with the snow-covered peaks, and illuminated the bare, wooden engine house, the huge, slate-colored ore dumps.

Myrtle stood on the crest of the hill, tense, waiting. All her soft, peachy prettiness had vanished, showing a facial outline hard and stern. As Mrs. Evans panted up beside her, the girl caught that tiny woman by the arms, pinioning them to her sides, and lifted her off her feet.

In an instant Mrs. Nitschkan's man's coat sleeve was rolled up, and her bare, great-muscled arm shot out its clenched fist in Myrtle's face.

"Don't you hurt her, Myrtle," she warned. "If you do, I 'll break your jaw as sure as I'm standin' here."

"What do I care!" said Myrtle. "But I 'll tell you this: this is a judgmen' on me, an' I ain't goin' to be punished alone when there's others deserves it. Her man's one of the best miners in the camp, an' he's got to go down and bring out mine."

Mrs. Evans, completely in the power of the younger and larger woman, had merely cocked her bird-like head and gazed at her with cool defiance; but now her expression changed. In the world, so in Zenith. The eternal feminine knows modifications, but no change. There had been warfare between Myrtle and herself; but at the first hint of trouble, the hatchet was buried, the ministrations began.

"You bet he 'll go down, Mrytle, and in the first cage. Put me down on the ground, an' I 'll see to it."

In the interval of waiting the women busied themselves in making coffee for the miners; and the always increasing crowd lingered breathlessly and, for the most part, silently. Myrtle had thrown herself on the ground, and lay with her head in the missionary's lap. Once Carrothers approached her and, with a few words, attempted to console and hearten her; but she threw out her hand with the impatient gesture of one waving away a fly.

"Aw, shut up," she muttered. "I'd rather hear Mis' Nitschkan swear."

"Gosh a'mighty, child!" said that bluff King Hal in petticoats. "You must n't take on this way. You got to get used to this. We 've all seen our men brung out smashed an' bloody times without number, ain't we, Mis' Evans?"

"Every bone in Sile's body's been broke in these blasted mines," returned that lady laconically. "Lift up your head, Mrytle, an' drink this nice, hot coffee."

"Yes, take the blessed comfort of it," coaxed Mrs. Thomas. "My patience! Ain't it something beautiful the way we take on when accidents happen to them; an' what do they do for us in pain or grief? I 've seen a man set with his feet up on the kitchen stove, readin' a newspaper, an' never turnin' a hair while his wife was screamin' herself black in the face with the strikes, in the next room. Cheer up, Myrtle, they ain't no man worth it."

"Frank is," sobbed Myrtle. "I don't care if the rest is blown to pieces; one of 'em's a drunken Polack, an' the other's a dead-broke son of an English lord, an' it don't make no difference about them."

This exposition of an essentially feminine point of view occasioned no surprise among her sympathizers.

"That's the way we all feel when it comes to our man, no matter how cranky he may be, or our kids, no matter how devilish they are," murmured Mrs. Thomas, who took an artistic delight in her ability to mourn, thoroughly and completely, with those who mourn.

At last, after what seemed hours of waiting, it was announced that the miners had dug through the débris. Finally, one man, "the drunken Polack," was borne out, unconscious, injured; the surgeon worked over him. Then another, the "dead-broke son of a lord"; and last, exhausted, almost asphyxiated, his arm hanging helpless, Frank McGuire. Like a flash Myrtle burst through the crowd, and threw her arms about him. The smile she lifted to his dazed and doubting glance was full of rapture and relief, of a thousand capitulations and promises, and it fell like sunshine upon him, melting the winter of his discontent.

 

Dawn was just breaking over the mountains when a little cavalcade wound down the hill. McGuire, on a dusty, gray burro, was supported by Carrothers on one side and by Myrtle on the other. They were environed by Mrs. Evans, Mrs. Thomas, Mrs. Nitschkan, Mrs. Landvetter, and the missionary, bearing shawls, coffee utensils, and baskets. In the reaction from the suspense and anxiety of the night, these ladies had become jocular almost to hilarity, and the conversation frequently verged on that form of banter known as rude.

"Preacher an' Missioner had better be gettin' ready to officiate at a weddin' soon, had n't they Frank?" called Mrs. Nitschkan jovially.

"Maybe preacher 'll be thinkin' of a weddin' on his own hook?" Myrtle's glance was still inherently coquettish. "Maybe that girl back in Illinois——"

The preacher flushed to the roots of his hair. "She writes she thinks she 'll like it here." Then he took his courage in both hands. "It's—it's—to be next month."

Of the disconcerted little group behind the burro, now huddling together and gazing at each other with round eyes, Mrs. Thomas alone retained her poise.

"Ain't they the critters for you!" she exclaimed, gazing admiringly at Carrothers's back. "There's two games they can sure beat us at—poker an' love. Here was Mrytle an' Mis' Evans raisin' each other to the limit, an' preacher had cold-decked 'em from the start."