Picked up at Sea. John C. Hutcheson
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An Unexpected Coincidence.
“We are friends,” Mr. Rawlings said, “some of us your countrymen, if, as I judge by your accent, you are an Englishman. We are working a mine in this neighbourhood. My name is Rawlings, and I am the proprietor of the mine.”
“My name is Wilton—Ernest Wilton,” the stranger said, taking the hand that Mr. Rawlings held out. “I am glad indeed to meet with a party of my countrymen. Some little time since I started from Oregon with a prospecting party that was organised to hunt up various openings for the employment of capital in mining, and other speculative enterprises. With this party I crossed the Rocky Mountains, and went about from place to place, until about three days ago, when, while shooting amongst these hills of yours, either I lost them or they lost me, and here I have been wandering about ever since by myself, and would probably have come to grief if I had not met you. By profession I am a mining engineer, but the mine I had come from England to work turned out badly, and I accepted another engagement, thinking to do a little sporting and exploring on my own account before returning to England—nice sport I’ve found it, too!”
Mr. Rawlings gave the stranger an earnest invitation to spend a day or two with them down at the creek.
The visitor readily accepted; and the game being lifted and slung on poles, the party started for the camp, Mr. Rawlings strolling on with his new acquaintance, and the others following, talking earnestly together.
Arrived at the house, Mr. Rawlings laughingly apologised for its state of dilapidation, but assured the visitor that it was far more comfortable than it looked.
Seth came to the doorway, and the other miners gathered round, to inspect both the welcome supply of fresh food and the stranger.
“This is Seth Allport, my lieutenant and manager,” Mr. Rawlings said. “Seth, this is Mr. Wilton, an English mining engineer.”
“Jerusalem!” exclaimed Seth. “Now, who would have thought that?”
“You seem surprised at my being an engineer,” said Ernest Wilton, laughing at Seth’s exclamation: for even the hungry miners, who had been previously clustered in groups around Josh and Jasper, surveying the cooking arrangements of the two darkeys with longing eyes, appeared to forget the claims of their appetites for the moment on the announcement of what evidently was a welcome piece of news, as they incontinently abandoned the grateful sight of the frizzling mutton, that was also sending forth the most savoury odours, and joined the leaders of the party who were interviewing the young Englishman. “I shouldn’t have thought one of my profession by any means a strange visitor.”
“It isn’t the surprise, mister,” replied Seth cordially. “No, that ain’t it, quite, I reckon. It’s the coincidence, as it were, at this particular time, mister. That’s what’s the matter! Jehosophat! it is queer, streenger!”
“I’m sure I ought to feel greatly honoured at such an imposing reception,” said Ernest, still rather perplexed at the ovation, which seemed unaccountable to him. “It is not such a very uncommon thing for an engineer to be travelling through these regions, is it now? especially when you consider that it has been mainly through the exertions of men of my craft, and the railways that they have planned, following in their wake, that the country has been opened up at all. I should have thought engineers almost as common nowadays out west as blackberries in old England.”
“You are right there,” said Mr. Rawlins’s, hastening to explain the circumstances that had caused his arrival to be looked upon as such a piece of good fortune, quite apart from the friendly feelings with which they regarded him as a forlorn stranger whom they were glad to welcome to their camp. “But, you see, your coming, as Seth Allport has just remarked, has been almost coincident with a loss, or rather want, which we just begin to feel in our mining operations here. Your arrival has happened just in the nick of time, when we are nearly at a standstill through the want of a competent superintending engineer, like yourself, experienced in mines and mining work. Hands we have in plenty—willing and able hands, too,” added Mr. Rawlings, with an approving glance round at the assembled miners, who acknowledged the compliment with a hearty cheer for himself and Seth Allport;—“but we want a head to suggest how our efforts can be best directed, and our gear utilised, towards carrying out the object we all have in view. I and Seth have done our best; but, what with the overflow of water in the mine, and the necessity we think there is now for running out side cuttings from the main shaft, so as to strike the lode properly, we were fairly at our wits’ end.”
“I see,” said Ernest Wilton musingly, “I see.”
“An’ if yer like to join us in that air capacity,” interposed Seth, thinking that the other was merely keeping back his decision until he heard what terms might be offered him, and that a practical suggestion about money matters would settle the matter, “why, mister, we sha’n’t grumble about the dollars, you bet! As yer knows, the Kernel kinder invited yer jest now, when we had no sort o’ reckonin’ as to who and what yer were. Tharr’ll be no worry about yer share ov the plunder, neow—no, sir.”
“Oh, pray don’t mention that,” exclaimed Ernest Wilton, pained at the interpretation put upon his reticence in accepting the offer of the position made him. “Nothing was further from my thoughts. I am too well acquainted with the open-handedness of the mining fraternity in the Golden State and elsewhere to dream of haggling about terms as to the payment of my poor services.”
“What, then?” said Seth. “We don’t want to bind you down to any fixed sort o’ ’greement, if yu’d rather not.”
“I was only considering,” replied Ernest, vexed at his own hesitancy, “whether I could fairly give up the party with whom I started from Oregon, as I was under a species of engagement, as it were, although there was no absolutely signed and sealed undertaking. It wouldn’t be right, I think, to leave them altogether without notice.”
“Nary mind the half-hearted lot,” said Noah Webster, at this juncture putting his spoke in the wheel. “Didn’t they leave yer out alone in the mountains? I wouldn’t give a red cent for sich pardners, I guess, boss. Raal mean skunks I calls ’em, and no mistake, sirree!”
“But I promised to stay with these fellows till we got over to the settlements on this side,” said Ernest Wilton, smiling at Noah’s characteristic vehemence against those half-hearted companions of his who had held back while he had gone forward by himself, “and I like to keep my word when I can, you know—at all events I ought to send and let them know where I am.”
“We sha’n’t quarrel about that,” said Mr. Rawlings kindly, to put the other at his ease, for some of the rough miners did not appear to like the Englishman’s hanging back from jumping at their leader’s offer.—“A man who is so anxious to keep his word, even with people who left him in the lurch, will be all the more likely to act straightforwardly towards us. Don’t, however, let that fret you, for you will be able to communicate as easily with your friends, and more so, by stopping here with us, as by going on to the nearest frontier township. As soon as the snow has melted, and the roads become passable again, there will be plentiful supply of half-breeds, like Moose there, and other gentry with nothing particular to do, come hanging round us, who will gladly carry any message or letter for you across the hills—for a leetle consideration, of course!” added Mr. Rawlings, with his bluff, hearty laugh.
“Ay, that there’ll be,” said Seth Allport. “Don’t you trouble about that, mister; but jine with us a free heart, and run our injine for us, and we’ll be downright glad, I guess!”
“That we will, sure!” chorussed the miners in a body, with a shout. And so, pressed with a rough but hearty cordiality, Ernest Wilton consented to be a member of the mining party in the same frank spirit, and was now saluted as one of the Minturne Creek adventurers in a series of ringing cheers that made the hill-sides echo again, and the cavernous canon sound the refrain afar.
Jasper