The Claim Jumpers - Stewart Edward White

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you're stuck."

      In other words, Bennington was to hold the ends of the reins while some one else drove. But he did not know that. He felt his responsibility.

      As to the assessment work, Old Mizzou had already assured him there was no immediate hurry; men were cheaper in the fall. As to investigating, he started in on that at once. He and Davidson climbed down shafts, and broke off ore, and worked the gold pan. It was fun.

      In the morning Bennington decided to work from seven until ten on Aliris. Then for three hours he and Old Mizzou prospected. In the afternoon the young man took a vacation and hunted Wild Western adventures.

      It may as well be remarked here that Bennington knew all about the West before he left home. Until this excursion he had never even crossed the Alleghanies, but he thought he appreciated the conditions thoroughly. This was because he was young. He could close his eyes and see the cowboys scouring the plain. As a parenthesis it should be noted that cowboys always scour the plain, just as sailors always scan the horizon. He knew how the cowboys looked, because he had seen Buffalo Bill's show; and he knew how they talked, because he had read accurate authors of the school of Bret Harte. He could even imagine the romantic mountain maidens.

      With his preconceived notions the country, in most particulars, tallied interestingly. At first Bennington frequented the little town down the draw. It answered fairly well to the story-book descriptions, but proved a bit lively for him. The first day they lent him a horse. The horse looked sleepy. It took him twenty minutes to get on the animal and twenty seconds to fall off. There was an audience. They made him purchase strange drinks at outlandish prices. After that they shot holes all around his feet to induce him to dance. He had inherited an obstinate streak from some of his forebears, and declined when it went that far. They then did other things to him which were not pleasant. Most of these pranks seemed to have been instigated by a laughing, curly-haired young man named Fay. Fay had clear blue eyes, which seemed always to mock you. He could think up more diabolical schemes in ten minutes than the rest of the men in as many hours. Bennington came shortly to hate this man Fay. His attentions had so much of the gratuitous! For a number of days, even after the enjoyment of novelty had worn off, the Easterner returned bravely to Spanish Gulch every afternoon for the mail. It was a matter of pride with him. He did not like to be bluffed out. But Fay was always there.

      "Tender foot!" the latter would shriek joyously, and bear down on the shrinking de Laney.

      That would bring out the loafers. It all had to happen over again.

      Bennington hoped that this performance would cease in time. It never did.

      By a mental process, unnecessary to trace here, he modified his first views, and permitted Old Mizzou to get the mail. Spanish Gulch saw him no more.

      After all, it was quite as good Western experience to wander in the hills. He did not regret the other. In fact, as he cast in review his research in Wild West literature, he perceived that the incidents of his town visits were the proper thing. He would not have had them different—to look back on. They were inspiring—to write home about. He recognised all the types—the miner, the gambler, the saloon-keeper, the bad man, the cowboy, the prospector—just as though they had stepped living from the pages of his classics. They had the true slouch; they used the picturesque language. The log cabins squared with his ideas. The broncos even exceeded them.

      But now he had seen it all. There is no sense in draining an agreeable cup to satiety. He was quite content to enjoy his rambles in the hills, like the healthy youngster he was. But had he seen it all? On reflection, he acknowledged he could not make this statement to himself with a full consciousness of sincerity. One thing was lacking from the preconceived picture his imagination had drawn. There had been no Mountain Flowers. By that he meant girls.

      Every one knows what a Western girl is. She is a beautiful creature, always, with clear, tanned skin, bright eyes, and curly hair. She wears a Tam o' Shanter. She rides a horse. Also, she talks deliciously, in a silver voice, about "old pards." Altogether a charming vision—in books.

      This vision Bennington had not yet realized. The rest of the West came up to specifications, but this one essential failed. In Spanish Gulch he had, to be sure, encountered a number of girls. But they were red-handed, big-boned, freckled-faced, rough-skinned, and there wasn't a Tam o' Shanter in the lot. Plainly servants, Bennington thought. The Mountain Flower must have gone on a visit. Come to think of it, there never was more than one Mountain Flower to a town.

       Table of Contents

       Table of Contents

      One day Old Mizzou brought him a blue-print map.

      "This y'ar map," said he, spreading it out under his stubby fingers, "shows the deestrict. I gets it of Fay, so you gains an idee of th' lay of the land a whole lot. Them claims marked with a crost belongs to th' Company. You kin take her and explore."

      This struck Bennington as an excellent idea. He sat down at the table and counted the crosses. There were fourteen of them. The different lodes were laid off in mathematically exact rectangles, running in many directions. A few joined one another, but most lay isolated. Their relative positions were a trifle confusing at first, but, after a little earnest study, Bennington thought he understood them. He could start with the Holy Smoke, just outside the door. The John Logan lay beyond, at an obtuse angle. Then a jump of a hundred yards or so to the southwest would bring him to the Crazy Horse. This he resolved to locate, for it was said to be on the same "lode" as a big strike some one had recently made. He picked up his rifle and set out.

      Now, a blue-print map maker has undoubtedly accurate ideas as to points of the compass, and faultless proficiency in depicting bird's-eye views, but he neglects entirely the putting in of various ups and down, slants and windings of the country, which apparently twist the north pole around to the east-south-east. You start due west on a bee line, according to directions; after about ten feet you scramble over a fallen tree, skirt a boulder, dip into a ravine, and climb a ledge. Your starting point is out of sight behind you; your destination is, Heaven knows where, in front. By the time you have walked six thousand actual feet, which is as near as you can guess to fifteen hundred theoretical level ones, your little blazed stake in a pile of stones is likely to be almost anywhere within a liberal quarter of a mile. Then it is guess-work. If the hill is pretty thickly staked out, the chase becomes exciting. In the middle distance you see a post. You clamber eagerly to it, only to find that it marks your neighbour's claim. You have lost your standpoint of a moment ago, and must start afresh. In an hour's time you have discovered every stake on the hill but the one you want. In two hours' time you are staggering homeward a gibbering idiot. Then you are brought back to profane sanity by falling at full length over the very object of your search.

      Bennington was treated to full measure of this experience. He found the John Logan lode without much difficulty, and followed its length with less, for the simple reason that its course lay over the round brow of a hill bare of trees. He also discovered the "Northeast Corner of the Crazy Horse Lode" plainly marked on the white surface of a pine stake braced upright in a pile of rocks. Thence he confidently paced south, and found nothing. Next trip he came across pencilled directions concerning the "Miner's Dream Lode." The time after he ran against the "Golden Ball" and the "Golden Chain Lodes." Bennington reflected; his mind was becoming a little heated.

      "It's because I went around those ledges and boulders," he said to himself; "I got off the straight line. This time I'll take the straight line and keep it."

      So he addressed himself to the surmounting of obstructions. Work of that sort is not easy. At one point he lost his hold on a broad, steep rock, and slid ungracefully to the foot of it, his elbows digging frantically into the moss, and his legs straddled apart. As he struck bottom, he

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