Captain Nye
was
very
ill
indeed,
with
spasmodic
rheumatism.
But
the
old
gentleman
was
himself—which
is
to
say,
he
was
kind-hearted
and
agreeable
when
comfortable,
but
a singularly
violent
wild-cat
when
things
did
not
go
well.
He
would
be
smiling
along
pleasantly
enough,
when
a
sudden
spasm
of
his
disease
would
take
him
and
he
would
go
out
of
his
smile
into
a perfect fury.
He
would
groan
and
wail
and
howl
with
the
anguish,
and
fill
up
the
odd
chinks
with
the
most
elaborate
profanity
that
strong
convictions
and
a
fine
fancy
could
contrive.
With
fair
opportunity
he
could
swear
very
well
and
handle
his
adjectives
with
considerable
judgment;
but
when
the
spasm
was
on
him
it
was
painful
to
listen
to
him,
he
was
so
awkward. However, I had
seen
him
nurse
a
sick
man
himself
and
put
up
patiently
with
the
inconveniences
of
the
situation,
and
consequently
I
was
willing
that
he
should
have
full
license
now
that
his
own
turn
had come.
He
could
not
disturb
me,
with
all
his
raving
and
ranting,
for
my
mind
had
work
on
hand,
and
it
labored
on
diligently,
night
and
day,
whether
my
hands
were
idle
or
employed. I
was
altering
and
amending
the
plans
for
my house,
and
thinking
over
the
propriety
of
having
the
billard-room
in
the
attic,
instead
of
on
the
same
floor
with
the
dining-room; also, I
was
trying
to
decide
between
green
and
blue
for
the
upholstery
of
the
drawing-room, for, although my
preference
was
blue I
feared
it
was
a
color
that
would
be
too
easily
damaged
by
dust
and
sunlight; likewise
while
I
was
content
to
put
the
coachman
in
a
modest
livery, I
was
uncertain
about
a footman—I
needed
one,
and
was
even
resolved
to
have
one,
but
wished
he
could
properly
appear
and
perform
his
functions
out
of
livery,
for
I
somewhat
dreaded
so
much
show;
and
yet, inasmuch
as
my
late
grandfather
had had a coachman
and
such
things,
but
no
liveries, I felt
rather
drawn
to
beat him;—or beat
his
ghost,
at
any
rate; I
was
also
systematizing
the
European
trip,
and
managed
to
get
it
all
laid out,
as
to
route
and
length
of
time
to
be
devoted
to
it—everything,
with
one
exception—namely,
whether
to
cross
the
desert
from
Cairo
to
Jerusalem
per
camel,
or
go
by
sea
to
Beirut,
and
thence
down
through
the
country
per
caravan. Meantime I
was
writing
to
the
friends
at
home
every
day,
instructing
them
concerning
all
my
plans
and
intentions,
and
directing
them
to
look
up
a handsome
homestead
for
my mother
and
agree
upon
a
price
for
it
against my coming,
and
also
directing
them
to
sell
my
share
of
the
Tennessee
land
and
tender
the
proceeds
to
the
widows'
and
orphans' fund
of
the
typographical union
of
which
I had
long
been a
member
in
good
standing. [This Tennessee
land
had been
in
the
possession
of
the
family
many
years,
and
promised
to
confer
high
fortune
upon
us
some
day;
it
still
promises
it,
but
in
a
less
violent
way.]
When
I had been nursing
the
Captain
nine
days
he
was
somewhat
better,
but
very
feeble.
During
the
afternoon
we
lifted
him
into
a chair
and
gave
him
an
alcoholic
vapor
bath,
and
then
set
about
putting
him
on
the
bed
again.
We
had
to
be
exceedingly careful,
for
the
least
jar produced pain. Gardiner had
his
shoulders
and
I
his
legs;
in
an
unfortunate
moment
I stumbled
and
the
patient
fell
heavily
on
the
bed
in
an
agony
of
torture. I
never
heard
a
man
swear
so
in
my life.
He
raved
like
a maniac,
and
tried
to
snatch a revolver
from
the
table—but I got it.
He
ordered
me
out
of
the
house,
and
swore a
world
of
oaths
that
he
would
kill
me
wherever
he
caught
me
when
he
got
on
his
feet again.
It
was
simply a passing fury,
and
meant nothing. I
knew
he
would
forget
it
in
an
hour,
and
maybe
be
sorry
for
it, too;
but
it
angered
me
a little,
at
the
moment.
So
much
so, indeed,
that
I determined
to
go
back
to
Esmeralda. I
thought
he
was
able
to
get
along
alone, now,
since
he
was
on
the
war
path. I
took
supper,
and
as
soon
as
the
moon rose, began my nine-mile journey,
on
foot.
Even
millionaires
needed
no
horses,
in
those
days,
for
a
mere
nine-mile
jaunt
without
baggage.
As
I "raised
the
hill"
overlooking
the
town,
it
lacked
fifteen
minutes
of
twelve. I glanced
at
the
hill
over
beyond
the
canyon,
and
in
the
bright
moonlight
saw
what
appeared
to
be
about
half
the
population
of
the
village
massed
on
and
around
the
Wide
West
croppings. My
heart
gave
an
exulting
bound,
and
I said
to
myself, "They
have
made
a
new
strike to- night—and struck
it
richer
than
ever,
no
doubt." I started
over
there,
but
gave
it
up. I said
the
"strick"
would
keep,
and
I had climbed
hill
enough
for
one
night. I went
on
down
through
the
town,
and
as
I
was
passing a
little
German
bakery, a
woman
ran
out
and
begged
me
to
come
in
and
help
her.
She
said
her
husband had a fit. I went in,
and
judged
she
was
right—he
appeared
to
have
a
hundred
of
them, compressed
into
one.
Two
Germans
were
there, trying
to
hold
him,
and
not
making
much
of
a
success
of
it. I
ran
up
the
street
half
a
block
or
so
and
routed
out
a sleeping doctor, brought
him
down
half
dressed,
and
we
four
wrestled
with
the
maniac,
and
doctored,
drenched
and
bled him,
for
more
than
an
hour,
and
the
poor
German
woman
did
the
crying.
He
grew
quiet, now,
and
the
doctor
and
I withdrew
and
left
him
to
his
friends.
It
was
a
little
after
one
o'clock.
As
I
entered
the
cabin
door, tired
but
jolly,
the
dingy
light
of
a
tallow
candle
revealed Higbie, sitting
by
the
pine
table gazing
stupidly
at
my note,
which
he
held
in
his
fingers,
and
looking
pale, old,
and
haggard. I halted,
and
looked
at
him.
He
looked
at
me, stolidly. I said: "Higbie, what—what
is
it?" "We're ruined—we didn't
do
the
work—THE BLIND LEAD'S RELOCATED!"
It
was
enough. I sat
down
sick, grieved—broken-hearted, indeed. A
minute
before, I
was
rich
and
brimful
of
vanity; I
was
a
pauper
now,
and
very
meek.
We
sat
still
an
hour,
busy
with
thought,
busy
with
vain
and
useless self-upbraidings,
busy
with
"Why didn't I
do
this,
and
why
didn't I
do
that,"
but
neither
spoke
a word.
Then
we
dropped
into
mutual explanations,
and
the
mystery
was
cleared away.
It
came
out
that
Higbie had
depended
on
me,
as
I had
on
him,
and
as
both
of
us
had
on
the
foreman.
The
folly
of
it!
It
was
the
first
time
that
ever
staid
and
steadfast
Higbie had left
an
important
matter
to
chance
or
failed
to
be
true
to
his
full
share
of
a responsibility.
But
he
had
never
seen
my
note
till
this
moment,
and
this
moment
was
the
first
time
he
had been
in
the
cabin
since
the
day
he
had
seen
me
last. He, also, had left a
note
for
me,
on
that
same
fatal
afternoon—had ridden
up
on
horseback,
and
looked
through
the
window,
and
being
in
a hurry
and
not
seeing
me, had tossed
the
note
into
the
cabin
through
a
broken
pane.
Here
it
was,
on
the
floor,
where
it
had
remained
undisturbed
for
nine
days: "Don't
fail
to
do
the
work
before
the
ten
days
expire. W. has
passed
through
and
given
me
notice. I
am
to
join
him
at
Mono Lake,
and
we
shall
go
on
from
there
to-night.
He
says
he
will
find
it
this
time, sure. CAL." "W." meant Whiteman,
of
course.
That
thrice
accursed "cement!"
That
was
the
way
of
it.
An
old
miner,
like
Higbie,
could
no
more
withstand
the
fascination
of
a
mysterious
mining excitement
like
this
"cement" foolishness,
than
he
could
refrain
from
eating
when
he
was
famishing. Higbie had been
dreaming
about
the
marvelous
cement
for
months;
and
now, against
his
better
judgment,
he
had gone
off
and
"taken
the
chances"
on
my
keeping
secure a
mine
worth
a
million
undiscovered
cement
veins.
They
had
not
been
followed
this
time.
His
riding
out
of
town
in
broad
daylight
was
such
a common-place
thing
to
do
that
it
had
not
attracted
any
attention.
He
said
they
prosecuted
their
search
in
the
fastnesses
of
the
mountains
during
nine
days,
without
success;
they
could
not
find
the
cement.
Then
a
ghastly
fear
came
over
him
that
something
might
have
happened
to
prevent
the
doing
of
the
necessary
work
to
hold
the
blind lead (though
indeed
he
thought
such
a
thing
hardly
possible),
and
forthwith
he
started
home
with
all
speed.
He
would
have
reached Esmeralda
in
time,
but
his
horse
broke
down
and
he
had
to
walk a
great
part
of
the
distance.
And
so
it
happened
that
as
he
came
into
Esmeralda
by
one
road, I
entered
it
by
another.
His
was
the
superior
energy, however,
for
he
went straight
to
the
Wide
West,
instead
of
turning
aside
as
I had done—and
he
arrived
there
about
five
or
ten
minutes
too
late!
The
"notice"
was
already
up,
the
"relocation"
of
our
mine
completed
beyond
recall,
and
the
crowd
rapidly
dispersing.
He
learned
some
facts
before
he
left
the
ground.
The
foreman
had
not
been
seen
about
the
streets
since
the
night
we
had
located
the
mine—a
telegram
had
called
him
to
California
on
a
matter
of
life
and
death,
it
was
said.
At
any
rate
he
had
done
no
work
and
the
watchful
eyes
of
the
community
were
taking
note
of
the
fact.
At
midnight
of
this
woful
tenth
day,
the
ledge
would
be
"relocatable,"
and
by
eleven
o'clock
the
hill
was
black
with
men
prepared
to
do
the
relocating.
That
was
the
crowd I had
seen
when
I fancied a
new
"strike" had been made—idiot
that
I was. [We
three
had
the
same
right
to
relocate
the
lead
that
other
people
had, provided
we
were
quick
enough.]
As
midnight
was
announced,
fourteen
men, duly armed
and
ready
to
back
their
proceedings,
put
up
their
"notice"
and
proclaimed
their
ownership
of
the
blind lead,
under
the
new
name
of
the
"Johnson."
But
A. D. Allen
our
partner (the foreman)
put
in
a
sudden
appearance
about
that
time,
with
a
cocked
revolver
in
his
hand,
and
said
his
name
must
be
added
to
the
list,
or
he
would
"thin
out
the
Johnson
company
some."
He
was
a manly, splendid, determined fellow,
and
known
to
be
as
good
as
his
word,
and
therefore
a compromise
was
effected.
They
put
in
his
name
for
a
hundred
feet,
reserving
to
themselves
the
customary
two
hundred
feet each.
Such
was
the
history
of
the
night's events,
as
Higbie
gathered
from
a
friend
on
the
way
home. Higbie
and
I cleared
out
on
a
new
mining excitement
the
next
morning,
glad
to
get
away
from
the
scene
of
our
sufferings,
and
after
a
month
or
two
of
hardship
and
disappointment,
returned
to
Esmeralda
once
more.
Then
we
learned
that
the
Wide
West
and
the
Johnson
companies
had consolidated;
that
the
stock,
thus
united,
comprised
five
thousand
feet,
or
shares;
that
the
foreman,
apprehending
tiresome litigation,
and
considering
such
a
huge
concern unwieldy, had
sold
his
hundred
feet
for
ninety
thousand
dollars
in
gold
and
gone
home
to
the
States
to
enjoy
it.
If
the
stock
was
worth
such
a gallant figure,
with
five
thousand
shares
in
the
corporation,
it
makes
me
dizzy
to
think
what
it
would
have
been
worth
with
only
our
original
six
hundred
in
it.
It
was
the
difference
between
six
hundred
men owning a
house
and
five
thousand
owning it.
We
would
have
been
millionaires
if
we
had
only
worked
with
pick
and
spade
one
little
day
on
our
property
and
so
secured
our
ownership!
It
reads
like
a wild fancy sketch,
but
the
evidence
of
many
witnesses,
and
likewise
that
of
the
official
records
of
Esmeralda District,
is
easily obtainable
in
proof
that
it
is
a true history. I
can
always
have
it
to
say
that
I
was
absolutely
and
unquestionably
worth
a
million
dollars, once,
for
ten
days. A
year
ago
my esteemed
and
in
every
way
estimable
old
millionaire
partner, Higbie, wrote
me
from
an
obscure
little
mining
camp
in
California
that
after
nine
or
ten
years
of
buffetings
and
hard
striving,
he
was
at
last
in
a position
where
he
could
command
twenty-five
hundred
dollars,
and
said
he
meant
to
go
into
the
fruit
business
in
a
modest
way.
How
such
a
thought
would
have
insulted
him
the
night
we
lay
in
our
cabin
planning
European
trips
and
brown
stone
houses
on
Russian
Hill!