Sandburrs and Others. Lewis Alfred Henry
right!’ said Gassy; ‘come out to the shaft to-morrow.’
“The next day I was at the place appointed. The shaft was already fifty feet deep. Besides myself and this person, Gassy, who was to tutor me, there was a creature named Jim. This made three of us.
“At the suggestion of Gassy, he and I descended into the shaft; Jim was left on the surface. We went down by means of a bucket, Jim unwinding us from a rickety old windlass.
“Once down, Gassy and I, with sledge and drill, perpetrated a hole in the bottom of the shaft. I held the drill, Gassy wielding the sledge. When the hole met the worshipful taste of my tutor, he put in a dynamite cartridge, connected a long, five-minute fuse therewith, and carefully thumbed it about and packed it in with wet clay.
“At Gassy’s word, I was then hauled up from the shaft by Jim. I added my strength to the windlass, Gassy climbed into the bucket, lighted the fuse, and was then swiftly wound to the surface by Jim and myself. We then dragged the windlass aside, covered the mouth of the shaft, and quickly scampered to a distance, to be out of harm’s reach.
“At the end of five minutes from the time that Gassy lighted the fuse, and perhaps three minutes after we had cleared away, the shot exploded with a deafening report. Tons of rock were shot up from the mouth of the shaft, full fifty feet in the air. It was all very impressive, and gave me a lesson in the tremendous power of dynamite. I was much pleased, and felt as if I were learning.
“Following the explosion Gassy and I again repaired to the bottom of the shaft. After clearing away the débris and sending it up and out by the bucket, we resumed the sledge and drill. We completed another hole and were ready for a second shot. This was about noon.
“It was at this point that the miscreant, Gassy, began to put into action a plot he had formed against me, and to carry out which the murderer, Jim, lent ready aid. You must remember that I had perfect confidence in these two villains.
“‘I never seed no tenderfoot go along like you do at this business,’ said Gassy Thompson to me.
“This was flattery. The miscreant was fattening me for the sacrifice.
“‘Looks like you was born to be a miner,’ he went on. ‘Now, I’m goin’ to let you fire the next shot. Usual, I wouldn’t feel jestified in allowin’ a tenderfoot to fire a shot for plumb three months. But you has a genius for minin’; it comes as easy to you as robbin’ a bird’s nest. I’d be doin’ wrong to hold you back.’
“Of course, I naturally felt pleased. To be allowed to fire a dynamite shot on my first day in the shaft I felt and knew to be an honour. I determined to write home to my friends of this triumph.
“Gassy said he’d put in the shot, and he selected one of giant size. I saw the herculean explosive placed in the hole; then he attached the fuse and thumbed the clay about it as before. He gave me a few last words.
“‘After I gets up,’ he said, ‘an’ me an’ Jim’s all ready, you climb into the bucket an’ light the fuse. Then raise the long yell to me an’ Jim, an’ we’ll yank ye out. But be shore an’ light the fuse. There’s nothin’ more discouragin’ than for to wait half an* hour outside an’ no cartridge goin’ off. Especial when it goes off after you comes back to see what’s the matter with her. So be shore an’ light the fuse, an’ then Jim an’ me’ll run you up the second follerin’. This oughter be a great day for you, young man! firin’ a shot this away, the first six hours you’re a miner!’
“Jim and Gassy were at the windlass and yelled:
“‘All ready below?’
“I was in the bucket and at the word scratched a match and lit the fuse. It sputtered with alarming ardour, and threw off a shower of sparks.
“‘Hoist away!’ I called.
“The villains ran me up about twenty-five feet, and came to a dead halt. At this they seemed to get into an altercation. They both abandoned the windlass, and I could hear them cursing, threatening, and shooting; presumably at each other.
“‘I’ll blow your heart out!’ I heard Gassy say.
“My alarm was without a limit. I’d seen one dynamite cartridge go off. Here I was, swinging some twenty-five feet over a still heavier charge, and about to be blown into eternity! Meanwhile the caitiffs, on whom my life depended, were sacrificing me to settle some accursed feud of their own.
“I cannot tell you of my agony. The fuse was spitting fire like forty fiends; the narrow shaft was choked with smoke. I swung helpless, awaiting death, while the two monsters, Gassy and Jim, were trying to murder each other above. Either from the smoke or the excitement, I fainted.
“When I came to myself I was outside the shaft, safe and sound, while Gassy and his disreputable assistant were laughing at their joke. There had been no shot placed in the drill-hole; the heartless Gassy had palmed it and carried it with him to the surface.
“At my very natural inquiry, made in a weak voice – for I was still sick and broken – as to what it all meant, they said it was merely a Colorado jest, and intended for the initiation of a tenderfoot.
“‘It gives ‘em nerve!’ said Gassy; ‘it puts heart into ‘em an’ does ‘em good!’
“As soon as I could walk I severed my relations with Gassy Thompson and his outlaw adherent, Jim. The next morning my hair had turned the milky sort you see. The Creede people with whom I discussed the crime, laughed and said the drinks were on me. That was all the sympathy, all the redress, I got.
“After that I came East without delay. When I leave the city of New York again it will not be for Creede. Nor will my next mining connection be formed with such abandoned barbarians as Gassy Thompson and Jim.”
ONE MOUNTAIN LION
Pard! would you like to shoot at that lion?”
Bob usually gave me no title at all. But when in any stress of our companionship he was driven to it, I was hailed as “pard!” Once or twice on some lighter occasion he had addressed me by the Spanish “Amigo.” In business hours, however, my rank was “pard!”
Sundown in the hills. The scene was a southeast spur of the Rockies; call the region the Upper Red River or the Vermejo, whichever you will for a name. Forty miles due west from the Spanish Peaks would stand one on the very spot.
I had been out all day, ransacking the canyons, taking a Winter’s look at the cattle to note how they were meeting the rigours of a season not yet half over. I had witnessed nothing alarming; my horned folk of the hills still made a smooth display as to ribs, and wore the air of cattle who had prudently stored up tallow enough the autumn before to carry them into the April grass.
“Many a day have I dwelt in a wet saddle, only to crawl into a wetter blanket at night; and all for cows!” It was Bob Ellis who fathered this rather irrelevant observation. I had cut his trail an hour before, and we were making company for each other back to camp. I put forth no retort. Bob and I abode in the same small log hut, and I saw much of him, and didn’t feel obliged to reply to those random utterances which fluttered from him like birds from a bush.
It had been snowing for three days. This afternoon, however, had shaken off the storm. It is worth while to see the snow come down in the hills; flakes soft and clinging and silently cold; big as a baby’s hand. Out in the flat valleys free of the trees the snow was deep enough to jade and distress our ponies. Therefore Bob and I were creeping home among the thick sown pines which bristled on the Divide like spines on a pig’s back. There was very little snow under the trees. What would have made an easy depth of two feet had it been evenly spread on the ground over which our broncos picked their tired way, was above our heads in the pines. That was the reason why the trees were so still and silent. Your pine is a most garrulous vegetable in a sighing fashion, and its complaining notes sing for ever in your ears; sometimes like a roar, sometimes like a wail. But the three-days’ snow in their green mouths gagged them; and never a tree of them all drew so much as a breath as we pushed on through their ranks.
“Like the Winchester