But the mother’s eyes were on the small intruders. Something was gripping at her heart, and somehow it felt like four small and dirty hands.
“Wher’ you goin’?” demanded Vada, her childish curiosity roused, and all her beautiful spiders forgotten for the moment.
Her question remained unanswered, leaving the room in ominous silence. Then Jamie’s treble blundered into its midst, dutifully echoing his sister’s inquiry.
“’Es, wher’ you doin’?”
The man’s eyes were narrowly watching the woman’s face. He noted the tremulous lips, the yearning light in her eyes. In a moment he was answering the children, lest their innocent words should upset his plans.
“Say, your momma’s going for a horse-ride. She’s just going right out, and I’m going to show her a dandy place where she can fetch you, so you can catch heaps an’ heaps of bugs and spiders. She’s just wanting you to stop right here and catch more bugs, till I come along and fetch you.”
“O–oh!” cried Vada, prolonging her exclamation gleefully. “Say, can’t us go now?”
“Me do too,” murmured her faithful shadow.
One quick glance at the mother’s face and the man spoke again.
“Not now, kiddies. I’ll come and fetch you. Run along.” Then he turned swiftly upon Jessie. “Where’s your bundle?” he asked in his usual masterful manner.
And her reply came in a tone of almost heart-broken submission.
“In there,” she said, with a glance at the inner room.
The man gave her no time to add anything more. He felt the ground he was treading was more than shaky. He knew that with the coming of these children a tremendous power was militating against him–a power which would need all his wits to combat. He passed into the inner room, and returned in a moment with the girl’s bundle. And with his return one glance showed him how nearly his plans were upset. Jessie was clasping Jamie in her arms, kissing him hungrily, tears streaming down her cheeks, while, out of sheer sympathy, little Vada was clinging to her mother’s skirts, her small face buried in amongst them, sobbing as though her heart would break.
In a moment he was at her side. This was not a time when any drastic methods could serve him, and he adopted the only course which his shrewd sense told him would be likely to avail. Gently but firmly he took the boy out of her arms.
“You want him to go with us?” he said kindly. “Very well. Maybe we’re doing wrong–I mean, for his sake. Anyhow, I’ll carry him, and then I’ll come back for Vada. It’s not good. It’s too hard on him, carrying him all that distance–too dangerous. Still, I want you to be happy, Jess. I’d do anything for that, even–even at his expense. So–”
“No–no!” cried the mother, carried away by the fear he expressed so subtly, and warmed by his carefully expressed sympathy. “Don’t take any notice of me. I’m foolish–silly. You’re right–he–he couldn’t make the journey with us. No, no, we–won’t–take him now. Set him down, Jim. I’ll go now, and you’ll–you’ll come back for them. Yes, yes, let’s go now. I–I can’t stay any–longer. I’ve left a letter for Zip. Swear I shall have them both. You’ll never–never break your word? I think I’d–die without them.”
“You shall have them. I swear it.” The man spoke readily enough. It was so easy to promise anything, so long as he got her.
But his oath brought neither expression of gratitude nor comment. The woman was beyond mere words. She felt that only flight could save her from breaking down altogether. And, thus impelled, she tore herself from the presence of the children and rushed out of the hut. The horses were down at the creek, and thither she sped, lest her purpose should fail her.
James followed her. He felt that she must not be left by herself to think. But at the door he paused and glanced keenly around him. Then he breathed a sigh of relief. Not a living soul was to be seen anywhere. It was good; his plans had worked out perfectly.
He set Jamie down, and, all unconscious of the little drama being played round his young life, the child stretched out a chubby hand in the direction of the soap-box he and his sister had been playing with.
“’Piders,” he observed laconically.
Vada rushed past him to inspect their treasures, her tears already dried into streaks on her dirty little cheeks.
“An’ bugs,” she cried gleefully, squatting beside the box.
They had forgotten.
The man hurried away down towards the creek, bearing the pitiful bundle of woman’s raiment. The girl was ahead, and, as she again came into his view, one thought, and one thought only, occupied his mind. Jessie was his whole world–at that moment.
He, too, had forgotten.
“They’ve runned away,” cried Vada, peering into the box.
“Me don’t like ’piders,” murmured Jamie definitely.
Vada’s great brown eyes filled with tears. Fresh rivulets began to run down the muddy channels on her downy cheeks. Her disappointment found vent in great sobbing gulps.
Jamie stared at her in silent speculation. Then one little fat hand reached out and pushed her. She rolled over and buried her wet face in the dusty ground and howled heart-brokenly. Then Jamie crawled close up beside her, and, stretching himself out, wept his sympathy into the back of her gaping frock.
CHAPTER III
THE AWAKENING OF SCIPIO
At noon the camp began to rouse. The heavy eyes, the languid stretch, the unmeaning contemplation of the noontide sunlight, the slow struggles of a somnolent brain. These things were suggested in the gradual stirring of the place to a ponderous activity. The heavy movement of weary diggers as they lounged into camp for their dinner had no suggestion of the greedy passion which possessed them. They had no lightness. Whatever the lust for gold that consumed them, all their methods were characterized by a dogged endeavor which took from them every particle of that nervous activity which belongs to the finely tempered business man.
The camp was a single row of egregious dwellings, squat, uncouth, stretching away on either side of the veranda-fronted store and “gambling hell” which formed a sort of center-piece around which revolved the whole life of the village. It was a poor, mean place, shapeless, evil-smelling in that pure mountain air. It was a mere shelter, a rough perch for the human carrion lusting for the orgy of gold which the time-worn carcass of earth should yield. What had these people to do with comfort or refinement? What had they to do with those things calculated to raise the human mind to a higher spiritual plane? Nothing. All that might come later, when, their desires satisfied, the weary body sick and aching, sends fearful thoughts ahead towards the drab sunset awaiting them. For the moment the full tide of youth is still running strong. Sickness and death have no terrors. The fine strength of powerful bodies will not allow the mind to focus such things.
Out of the rugged hills backing the camp the gold-seekers struggle to their resting-place. Here, one man comes clambering over the rough bowlder-strewn path at the base of a forest-clad hill. Here, an atom of humanity emerges from the depths of a vast woodland that dwarfs all but the towering hills. Another toils up a steep hillside from the sluggish creek. Another slouches along a vague, unmade trail. Yet another scrambles his way through a low, dense-growing scrub which lines the sides of a vast ravine, the favored locality of the gold-seeker.
So they come, one by one, from every direction radiating about the building, which is Minky’s store. Their faces are hard. Their skin is tanned to a leathery hue, and is of a texture akin to hide. They are silent, thoughtful men, too. But their silence is of the vast world in which they delve, and their thought is the thought of men absorbed in their quest. No, there is no lightness, even in their happiest moments. To be light, an intelligent swiftness of brain is needed. And these derelicts have little of