In the weeks which followed the settling of the trouble in the camp, Kay flourished and grew. Great trainloads of supplies were daily dumped on the platform of the railway station, to be checked off and sorted, before the final haul up to camp. The old rough road to the station had become hard and smooth by the continual pounding of the heavy, six-mule wagons. Under McKay’s master direction, the framework bridges on the route had been replaced by substantial structures. Wherever a ca?on or gulch opened, sluice boxes had been buried beneath the road surface, so that a heavy rain no longer meant washouts and consequent stoppage of coke and supplies. The coke teams struggled back to the railroad almost as heavily laden with matt, as on the upward trip they had been with coke. Each day saw new framework houses built, and new families settling their possessions. Wagons were driven into camp laden with battered stoves, broken chairs, a stray dog or[275] two, and in general the household belongings of new settlers; for the growth of the “lilies of the field” is as nothing compared with that of a prosperous mining camp. Each day the office was filled with men clamoring for lumber: “Only a little, Boss! Just to put in a flooring. We can get along with two boards on the sides. Anything just so as we can get settled.” And Loring sat behind his desk, speaking with kindly but evasive words, telling each that the Company longed to build him a perfect palace, but that under the present conditions he must wait. For fast as lumber was hauled into camp, still faster came the need for it for mine timbering, for storehouses, and for a thousand and one necessities. The construction work had been rushed to completion. The huge new ore cribs were a triumph of McKay’s ingenuity, built by a clever system of bracing from the unseasoned lumber that had been at hand, and supporting with perfect safety the enormous strain to which they were subjected. The Company was rapidly becoming the controlling factor in the copper output of the district.
It was the time for the arrival of the evening[276] mail and the office was full of men and tobacco smoke. McKay had pre-empted the safe and sat on the top of it, clanking his heels against the sides. His sandy colored hair matched the color of the pine boards of the wall against which he was propped. The draughting tables carried their load of men, as did each of the well-worn chairs, and the three-legged stool. A babel of voices prevailed. Every now and then Reade opened the door from the back office, and poking his head into the room with a disgusted expression upon his face, called out: “Soft pedal there, soft pedal! How in hell can a man do any work with you fellows raising such a racket?”
Stephen, as usual sat at his roll-top desk in the corner, his feet up on the slide, both hands in his pockets, the while he rocked his pipe gently up and down in his teeth. One of the clerks was telling with becoming modesty of his social triumphs in Ph?nix at the “Elks” ball. The audience listened with the listless attention of those whose curiosity hangs heavy on their hands.
“I was the candy kid, all right,” remarked the narrator.
[277]
His fervid discourse was interrupted by a drawl from some one in the background. “I reckon that some time you must have drunk copiouslike of the Hassayampeh River.”
A machinery drummer who was in the office cocked up his ears, thinking that perhaps behind the allusion lay a doubtful story.
“What’s that about the river?” he asked. “I never heard of that.”
“Why, they say,” answered the first speaker, “that whoever drinks of the Hassayampeh River can’t ever tell the truth again so long as he lives.”
“And also,” added McKay; “that no matter where he drifts to, he is sure to wander back again to the old territory; that he’ll die in Arizona.”
“How was that story ever started?” Loring asked.
“The valley of the Hassayampeh was one of the first trails into the ore country,” answered McKay, “and the lies that emanated from the camps along that river was of such a fearful, godless and prize package variety that they made the old river famous. There was a fellow in camp here only the other day was telling me[278] about prospectin’ down there in seventy-three. He said all they had to eat was fried Gila monster. I guess that was after he’d drunk the water though,” finished McKay reflectively.
“The territory sure has gone off since those days,” said a cattleman who had ridden into camp for his mail. “Only last year down near Roosevelt I shot two Mexicans, and say, it cost me a hundred dollars for negligence,” he went on indignantly, “and the sons of guns warn’t wurth more than twelve dollars and two bits apiece.”
“You are right about the way Arizona is going to hell,” said the mine foreman. “I don’t know as any of you fellows ever knowed ‘Teeth’ Barker. Anyhow, next to what his father must have been, he was the ugliest creature that ever lived on this earth. All of his teeth just naturally stuck out like the cowcatcher of an engine. Well, in spite of that, he always was a good friend of mine. Least he used to be.
“About six months ago I was up to Jerome, and they was telling about an accident there. A man no one knowed at all was killed, but a fellow said he had the ugliest tusks he ever seed. I knew at once that must be[279] Barker. They said they’d planted him up on the knoll, and so,” continued the foreman sadly, “and so, although it was a powerful hot day, I struggled up to the knoll with a nice piece of pine board, and a jack-knife, and I sort of located ‘Teeth’ with a handsome monument and an exaggerated epitaph.
“I came down as hot as the devil, and steps into a saloon to get a drink, when who should walk up to me but ‘Teeth’ Barker himself!
“‘You’re dead,’ said I.
“‘Do I look like it?’ he asked. He got sort of hot under the collar about it, too.
“Well, the long and short of it all was that I had gone and taken all that trouble with a tombstone for a stranger.
“‘The least that you can do, “Teeth” Barker,’ said I, ‘is to come up and see that beautiful monument I erected over you. It took as much trouble to make as a year’s assessment work.’
“Well, he didn’t see it that way. Said he wouldn’t go up there if I was to pay him. And that was after I had taken all that trouble! Gratitude! There ain’t no such thing any more in Arizona,” concluded the foreman.
Story after story was put forth for the edification[280] of the crowd until the grating of wheels outside told of the arrival of the stage. A moment later heavy footsteps resounded on the porch, and the burly stage-driver, with two great mail-sacks slung over his shoulder, swung into the office.
“Evening, gents!” he called in answer to the general salutation. He stepped over to Stephen’s desk and threw down a little bunch of envelopes. “Four telegrams,” he said.
Loring rapidly slit open the envelopes, laying the telegrams on one side, and after running through the contents, began to sort the mail.
“Any passengers?” he asked the driver.
“Yes, six. Drummers mostly. They are over there eating now. There was two men and a lady; but they stopped to eat supper at the station. They will be up later.”
“It’s lucky Mrs. Brown built those new sleeping quarters to her place; she’ll be running a regular hotel here soon,” said the driver, as he swung on his heel and tramped out to unharness his horses.
Stephen sorted the mail rapidly, and deftly scaled the letters to the fortunate recipients.
“That is all,” he said, as he tossed the last.[281] Every one left the office with the exception of McKay who, with a woebegone expression on his face, lingered behind.
“What is the matter?” asked Loring.
“Nothing,” answered McKay gruffly.
“Well, how is this?” said Stephen, taking from his pocket a letter which was addressed in large square characters to McKay. “You see she did not forget you, after all.”
McKay blushed to the roots of his hair, then opened the letter with seeming nonchalance.
“It seems to me that you have a pretty steady correspondent there,” said Stephen, while he straightened up his desk preparatory to the evening’s work. “I have handed you a letter like that every night this week.” McKay colored even more, then stretched out his hand. “Shake, Steve! I am going to get spliced. I have been meaning to tell you before this.”
Loring jumped up and pounded him on the back.
“You gay winner of hearts, who is she?”
“Do you remember Jane Stevens, back at Quentin? Well, it’s her.”
Loring’s eyes twinkled. “How did you ever get the nerve?” he asked.
[282]
At the thought of his audacity, the perspiration broke out on McKay’s forehead.
“Well she had me plumb locoed. I remember once a horse had me buffaloed the same way,” he explained. “I was scared, scared blue, Steve; but finally I got up my nerve and thought I’d go and break my affections to her gentle and polite like. So one day I rode over to their pl............