The stranger, advancing near, spoke. "Is this the trail to Silver Plume?" he asked, his heaving breast making his speech broken.
"It is," replied the miner, whose thin face and hawk-like eyes betrayed the hermit and the man on guard.
"How far is it across the pass?"
"About thirty miles."
"A good night's walk. Are there any camps above here?"
"None."
"How far is it to the next cabin?"
"Some twelve miles."
The miner, still studying the stranger with piercing intensity, expressed a desire to be reassured. "What are you doing up here on this trail? Are you a mining expert? A spy?" he seemed to ask.
The traveler, divining his curiosity, explained. "I stayed last night at the mill below. I'm a millwright. I have some property to inspect in Silver Plume, hence I'm walking across. I didn't know it was so far; I was misinformed. I'm not accustomed to this high air and I'm used up. Can you take care of me?"
The miner glanced round at the heap of ore which betrayed his craft, and then back at the dark, bearded, impassive face.
"Come in," he said at last, "I'll feed you." But his manner was at once surly and suspicious.
The walls of the hovel were built partly of logs and partly of boulders, and its roof was compacted of dirt and gravel; but it was decently habitable. The furniture (hand-rived out of slabs) was scanty, and the floor was laid with planks, yet everything indicated many days of wear.
"You've been here some time," the stranger remarked rather than asked.
"Ten years."
Thereafter the two men engaged in a silent duel. The millwright, leaning back in his rude chair, stretched his tired limbs and gazed down the valley with no further word of inquiry, while his grudging host prepared a primitive meal and set it upon a box which served as a table.
"You may eat," he curtly said.
In complete silence and with calm abstraction the stranger turned to the food and ate and drank, accepting it all as if this were a roadhouse and he a paying guest. The sullen watchfulness of his host seemed not to disturb him, not even to interest him.
At length the miner spoke as if in answer to a question – the question he feared.
"No, my mine has not panned out well – not yet. The ore is low-grade and the mill is too far away."
To this informing statement the other man did not so much as lift an eyebrow. His face was like a closed door, his eyes were curtained windows. He mused darkly as one who broods on some bitter defeat.
Nevertheless, he was a human presence and the lonely dweller on the heights could not resist the charm of his guest's personality, remote as he seemed.
"Where do you live?" he asked.
There was a moment's hesitation.
"In St. Paul."
"Ever been here before?"
The dark man shook his shaggy head slowly, and dropped his eyes as if this were the end of the communication. "No, and I never expect to come again."
The miner perceived power in his guest's resolute taciturnity, and the very weight of the silence eventually opened his own lips. From moment to moment the impulse to talk grew stronger within him. There was something as compelling as heat in this reticent visitor whose soul was so intent on inward problems that it perceived nothing of interest in an epaulet of gold on the shoulder of Mount Solidor.
"Few come this trail now," the miner volunteered, as he cleared the table. "I am alone and seldom see a human being drifting my way. I do not invite them."
The stranger refilled his pipe and again leaned back against the wall in ponderous repose. If he heard his host's remark he gave no sign of it, and yet, despite the persistence of his guest's silence – perhaps because of it – the lonely gold-seeker babbled on with increasing candor, contradicting himself, revealing, hiding, edging round his story, confessing to his hopes of riches, betraying in the end the secrets of his lonely life. It was as if the gates of his unnatural reserve had broken down and the desire to be heard, to be companioned, had over-borne all his early caution.
"It's horribly lonesome up here," he confessed. "Sometimes I think I'll give it all up and go back to civilization. When I came here the pass had its traffic; now no one rides it, which is lucky for me," he added. "I have no prying visitors – I mean no one to contest my claim – and yet a man can't do much alone. Even if my ore richens I must transport it or build a mill. Sometimes I wonder what I'm living for, stuck away in this hole in the hills. I was born to better things – "
He checked himself at this moment, as if he were on the edge of self-betrayal, but his listener seemed not vitally interested in these personal details. However, he made some low-voiced remark, and, as if hypnotized, the miner resumed his monologue.
"The nights are the worst. They are endless – and sometimes when I cannot sleep I feel like surrendering to my fate – " Here again he broke off sharply. "That's nonsense, of course. I mean, it seems as if a life were too much to pay for a crazy act – I mean a mine. You'll ask why I don't sell it, but it's all I have and, besides, no one has any faith in it but myself. I cannot sell, and I can't live down there among men."
Gabbling, keeping time to his nervous feet and hands, endlessly repeating himself, denying, confessing, the miner raged on, and through it all the dark-browed guest smoked tranquilly, too indifferent to ask a question or make comment; but when, once or twice, he lifted his eyes, the garrulous one shuddered and turned away, a scared look on his haggard face. He seemed unable to endure that steady glance.
At last, for a little space, he remained silent; then, as if compelled by some increasing magic in his hearer, he burst forth:
"I'm not here entirely by my own fault – I mean my own choice. A man is a product of his environment, you know that, and mine made me idle, wasteful. Drink got me – drink made me mad – and so – and so – here I am struggling to win back a fortune. Once I gambled – on the wheel; now I am gambling with nature on the green of these mountain slopes; but I'll win – I have already won – and soon I shall sell and go back to the great cities."
Again his will curbed his treacherous tongue, and, walking to the doorway, he stood for a moment, looking out; then he fiercely snarled:
"Oh, God, how I hate it all – how I hate myself! I am going mad with this life! The squeak of these shadowy conies, the twitter of these unseen little birds, go on day by day. They'll drive me mad! If you had not come to-night I could not have slept – I would have gone to the mill, and that means drink to me – drink and oblivion. You came and saved me. I feared you – hated you then; now I bless you."
Once more he seemed to answer an unspoken query:
"I have no people. My mother is dead, my father has disowned me – he does not even know I am alive. I'm the black devil of the family – but I shall go back – "
His face was working with passion, and though he took a seat opposite his guest, his hands continued to flutter aimlessly and his head moved restlessly from side to side.
"I don't know why I am telling all this to you," he went on after a pause. "I reckon it's because of the weakness of the thirst that is coming over me. Some time I'll go down to those hell-holes at the mills and never come back – the stuff they sell to me is destructive as fire – it is poison! You're a man of substance, I can see that – you're no hobo like most of the fellows out here – that's why I'm talking to you. You remind me of some one I know. There's something familiar in your eyes."
The man with the beard struck the ashes from his pipe and began scraping it. "There is always a woman in these cases," he critically remarked.
The miner took this simple statement as a challenging question. His excitement visibly increased, but he did not at once reply. He talked on aimlessly,