Chapter I

This dream gave to Clement, in Ellice's eyes, a glamour of mystery and power--beyond the subtlety of words, and she met him in a spirit of awe and wonder, such as a child might feel to find one of its dream-heroes actually beside the fireside in the full sunlight of the morning. The fear and agony and joy of the night's vision gave a singular charm to the meeting.

It startled her to find she still retained the capability of being moved by the sound of a man's voice. It seemed like a wave of returning life.

Her heart quickened as she saw him enter the dining-room and look around for her--and when his eyes fell upon her a light filled his face which was akin to the morning. She did not attempt to analyze the emotion thus revealed, but she could not help seeing that he looked the embodiment of health and happiness.

He wore a suit of light brown corduroy with laced miner's boots, and they became him very well.

He smiled down at her as he drew near.

"You are better this morning, I can see that."

It was exactly as if he knew of her dream, and that the walk had been actual, and a flush of pink crept into her face--so faint it was no one noticed it--while it seemed to her that her cheeks were scarlet. What magic was this which made her flush--she whom Death had claimed as his own?

Mr. Ross invited Clement to sit with them, as she hoped he would. Clement had, indeed, intended to force the invitation. "I'm going for a gallop this morning," he said in explanation of his dress. "I wish you could go too," he added, addressing Ellice.

Mr. Ross introduced him to the elderly woman: "Mr. Clement, let me present you to my sister, Miss Ross."

Miss Ross was plump like her brother, and a handsome woman, but irritable like him. She complained, also, of the altitude and of the chill shadows. Neither father nor aunt formed a suitable companion for the sick girl.

Clement was the antidote. His whole manner of treatment was of the hopeful, buoyant sort. He spoke of the magnificent weather, of the mountains, of the purity of the water.

"After I get back from my ride I wish you'd let me come and talk with you. Perhaps," he added, "you'll be able to walk a little way with me."

He made the breakfast almost cheerful by his presence, and went away saying:

"I'll be back by ten o'clock and I shall expect to find you ready for a walk."

Miss Ross was astonished both at his assurance and at Ellice's singular interest and apparent acquiescence.

"Well, that is a most extraordinary man. I wonder if that's the Western way."

"I wish I were able to do as he says," the girl said quietly. The old people looked up in astonishment.

"Aunt Sarah, I want you to help me dress. I'm going to try to walk a little."

"Not with that man?" the aunt inquired in protest.

"Yes, Aunt." Her voice was vibrant with fixed purpose.

"But think how you would look leaning on his arm."

"Auntie, dear, I have gone long past that point. It doesn't matter how it looks. I cannot live merely to please the world. He has asked me, and if I can I will go."

Mr. Ross broke in, "Why, of course, what harm can it do? I'd let her lean on the arm of 'Cherokee Bill' if she wanted to." They all smiled at this, and he added, "The trouble has been she didn't want to do anything at all, and now she shall do what she likes."

It all seemed very coarse and common now, and she could not tell them the secret of the dream that had so impressed her, and of her growing faith that this strong man could help her back to health and life. She only smiled in her slow, faint way, and made preparation to go with him who meant so much to her.

He met her on the veranda in a handsome Prince Albert suit of gray with a broad-brimmed gray hat to match. He looked like some of the pictures of Western Congressmen she had seen, only more refined and gentle. He wore his coat unbuttoned, and it had the effect of draping his tall, erect frame, and the hat suited well with the large lines of his nose and chin. It seemed to her she had never seen a more striking and picturesque figure.

"I'll carry you down the stairs if you'll say the word," he said as they paused a moment at the topmost step.

"Oh, no. I can walk if you will give me time."

"Time! Time is money. I can't afford it." He stooped and lifted her in his right arm, and before she could protest he was half way down the stairway. He laughed at the horrified face of the aunt. He was following impulses now. As they walked side by side slowly--she, not without considerable effort--up toward the spring, he said abruptly, but tenderly:

"You must think you're better--that's half the battle. See that stream? Some day I'm going to show you where it starts. Do you know if you drink of that water up at its source above timber-line it will cure you?"

She saw his intent and said, "I'm afraid I'll be cured before I get to the spring."

"I'm going to make it my aim in life to see you drink at that pool." His directness and simplicity stimulated her like some mediæval elixir. He made her forget her pain. They did not talk much until they were seated on one of the benches near the fountain.

"Sit in the sun," he commanded. "Don't be afraid of the sun. You hear people talk about the sun's rays breeding disease. The sun never does that. It gives life. Beware of the shadow," he added, and she knew he meant her mental indifference. They had a long talk on the bench. He told her of his family, of himself.

"You see," he said, "father had only a small business, though he managed to educate me, and, later, my brother. But when he died it had less value, for I couldn't hold the trade he had and times were harder. I kept brother at college during his last two years, and when he came out I gave the business to him and got out. He was about to marry, and the business wouldn't support us both. I was always inclined to adventure anyway. Gold Creek was in everybody's mouth, so I came here.

"Oh, that was a wonderful time; the walk across the mountains was like a story to me. I liked the newness of everything in the camp. It was glorious to hear the hammers ringing, and see the new pine buildings going up--and the tent and shanties. It was rough here then, but I had little to do with that. I staked out my claim and went to digging. I knew very little about mining, but they were striking it all around me, and so I kept on. Besides"--here he looked at her in a curiously shy way--"I've always had a superstition that just when things were worst with me they were soonest to turn to the best, so I dug away. My tunnel went into the hill on a slight upraise, and I could do the work alone. You see I had so little money I didn't want to waste a cent.

"But it all went at last for powder and the sharpening of picks, and for assaying--till one morning in August I found myself without money and without food."

He paused there, and his face grew dark with remembered despair, and she shuddered.

"It must be terrible to be without food and money."

"No one knows what it means till he experiences it. I worked all day without food. It seemed as if I must strike it then. Besides, I took a sort of morbid pleasure in abusing myself--as if I were to blame. I had been living on canned beans, and flapjacks, and coffee without milk or sugar, and I was weak and sick--but it all had to end. About four o'clock I dropped my pick and staggered out to the light. It was impossible to do anything more."

There were tears in her eyes now, for his voice unconsciously took on the anguish of that despair.

"I sat there looking out toward the mountains and down on the camp. The blasts were booming from all hills--the men were going home with their dinner-pails flashing red in the setting sun's light. It was terrible to think of them going home to supper. It seemed impossible that I should be sitting there starving, and the grass so green, the sunset so beautiful. I can see it all now as it looked then, the old Sangre de Christo range! It was like a wall of glistening marble that night.

"Well, I sat there till my hunger gnawed me into action. Then I staggered down the trail. I saw how foolish I had been to go on day after day hoping, hoping until the last cent was gone. I hadn't money enough to pay the extra postage on a letter which was at the office. The clerk gave me the letter and paid the shortage himself. The letter was from my sister, telling me how peaceful and plentiful life was at home, and it made me crazy. She asked me how many nuggets I had found. You can judge how that hurt me. I reeled down the street, for I must eat or die, I knew that."

"Oh, how horrible!" the girl said softly.

"There was one eating-house at which I always took my supper. It was kept by an Irish woman, a big, hearty woman whose husband was a prospector--or had been. 'Biddy Kelly's' was famous for its 'home cooking.' I went by the door twice, for I couldn't bring myself to go in and ask for a meal. You don't know how hard that is--it's very queer, if a man has money he can ask for credit or a meal, but if he is broke he'll starve first. I could see Biddy waiting on the tables--the smell that came out was the most delicious, yet tantalizing, odor of beef-stew--it made me faint with hunger."

His voice grew weak and his throat dry as he spoke.

"When I did enter, Dan looked up and said respectfully, 'Good-evenin', Mr. Clement,' and I felt so ashamed of my errand I turned to run. Everything whirled then--and when I got my bearings again Dan had me on one arm and Biddy was holding a bowl of soup to my lips."

The girl sighed. "Oh, she was good, wasn't she?"

"They fed me, for they could see I was starving, and I told them about the mine--and, well, some way I got them to 'grub-stake' me that night."

"What is that?"

"That is, they agreed to furnish me food and money for tools and share in profits. Dan went to work with me, and do you know, it ended in ruining them both. We organized a company called the 'Biddy Mining Company.' I was president, and Dan was vice-president, and Biddy was treasurer. Biddy kept us going by her eating-house, but eventually we wanted machinery, and we mortgaged the eating-house, and the money went into that hole in the ground. But I knew we would succeed. I could hear voices call me, 'Come, come!'--whenever I was alone I could hear them plainly."

His eyes, turned upon her, were full of mystery.

"I have always felt the stir of life around me in the dark, and there in that mine--after we struck the spring of water--I thought I heard voices all the time in the plash of the water. I suppose it seemed like insanity, for I ruined Dan and Biddy without mercy. I couldn't stop. I was sure if we could only hold out a little while we would reach it. But we didn't. Biddy had to go to work as a cook, and Dan and I went out to try to borrow some money. I couldn't bear to let in somebody else after all the heat and toil Dan and Biddy and I had endured, but it had to be done. We took in a fellow from Iowa by the name of Eldred and went to work again.

"One day after our blast I was the first to enter, and the moment that I saw the heap of rock I knew we had opened the vein. My wildest dreams were realized!"

"And then your troubles ended," the girl said tenderly.

"No--for now a strange thing happened. The assayer tried our ore again and again and found it very rich, but when we shipped to the mills we got almost no returns. We tried every process, but the gold seemed to slip away from us. Finally I took a carload and went with it to see what was the matter. I followed it till it came out on the plates--that is where they catch the gold by the use of quicksilver spread on copper plates--and it seemed all right. I scraped some of it up and put it into a small vial to take home with me. When I got home the company assembled to hear my report, and when I took out the amalgam to show it to them it had turned to a queer yellow-green liquid. I was astounded, but Dan and Biddy crossed themselves. 'It's witch's gold,' Biddy said. 'Dan, have no more to do with it.' And witch's gold it was. They gave up right there and went back to work in the camp. Eldred cursed me for getting him into it, and so they left me to fight it out alone. I was like a monomaniac--I never thought of giving up. I begged a little money from my brother and bought in all the stock of the 'Biddy Mining Company,' and went to work to solve the mystery of the amalgam. I was a good pupil in chemistry at college, and I put my whole life and brain into that mystery and I solved it. I found a way to treat it so all the gold was saved. That made me rich. I called the mine 'The Witch,' and it has made me what you see."

"It is like a fairy tale! What became of your faithful friends, Dan and Biddy?"

"I made Dan my foreman of the mine, and I built an eating-house and hotel for Biddy. They are with me yet. Eldred I bought out on the same terms as the rest."

He had a sudden sensation of heat in his face as he passed the chasm between the withdrawal of Dan and Biddy from the firm and his solution of the amalgam. He did not care to dwell upon that, because Eldred had sued him to recover his stock, claiming that it was bought in under false pretenses. Neither did he care to enter into the stormy time which followed the sudden leap of "The Witch" from a haunted hole in the ground to a cave of diamonds. He hurried on to the end while she listened in absorbed interest like a child to a wonder story.

She sighed in the world-old manner of women and said:

"And I--I have done nothing worth telling. I ruined my health by careless living at school, and here I am, a cumberer of the earth."

Some men would have hastened to be complimentary, but Clement remained silent. He was trying to understand her mood that he might meet it in a helpful way.

"But if I am permitted to live I shall be different. I will do something."

"First of all, get well," he said, and his words had the force of a command. "Give me your hand."

She complied, and he took it in a firm clasp. "Now I want you to promise me you'll turn your mind from darkness to the light, from the cañons to the peaks--that you will determine to live. Do you promise?"

"I promise."

"Very well. I shall see that you keep that promise."