第28章

"Didn't we fool 'em nicely; eh, Yorky! He, he! The biggest thing yet ever played in this camp! I always said I'd play 'em all some day, and I have--played 'em for six months.Ain't it rich?--ain't it the richest thing you ever seed? Did you see Abner's face when he spoke 'bout that man as seed me in Sonora? Warn't it good as the minstrels? Oh, it's too much!" and, striking his leg with the palm of his hand, he almost threw himself from the bed in a paroxysm of laughter,--a paroxysm that, nevertheless, appeared to be half real and half affected.

"Is that photograph hers?" said York in a low voice, after a slight pause.

"Hers? No! It's one of the San Francisco actresses.He, he!

Don't you see? I bought it for two bits in one of the bookstores.

I never thought they'd swaller THAT too; but they did! Oh, but the old man played 'em this time didn't he--eh?" and he peered curiously in York's face.

"Yes, and he played ME too," said York, looking steadily in the old man's eye.

"Yes, of course," interposed Plunkett hastily; "but you know, Yorky, you got out of it well! You've sold 'em too.We've both got em on a string now--you and me--got to stick together now.You did it well, Yorky: you did it well.Why, when you said you'd seen me in York City, I'm d----d if I didn't"--"Didn't what?" said York gently; for the old man had stopped with a pale face and wandering eye.

"Eh?"

"You say when I said I had seen you in New York you thought"--"You lie!" said the old man fiercely."I didn't say I thought any thing.What are you trying to go back on me for, eh?" His hands were trembling as he rose muttering from the bed, and made his way toward the hearth.

"Gimme some whiskey," he said presently "and dry up.You oughter treat anyway.Them fellows oughter treated last night.By hookey, I'd made 'em--only I fell sick."York placed the liquor and a tin cup on the table beside him, and, going to the door, turned his back upon his guest, and looked out on the night.Although it was clear moonlight, the familiar prospect never to him seemed so dreary.The dead waste of the broad Wingdam highway never seemed so monotonous, so like the days that he had passed, and were to come to him, so like the old man in its suggestion of going sometime, and never getting there.He turned, and going up to Plunkett put his hand upon his shoulder, and said,--"I want you to answer one question fairly and squarely."The liquor seemed to have warmed the torpid blood in the old man's veins, and softened his acerbity; for the face he turned up to York was mellowed in its rugged outline, and more thoughtful in expression, as he said,--"Go on, my boy."

"Have you a wife and--daughter?"

"Before God I have!"

The two men were silent for a moment, both gazing at the fire.

Then Plunkett began rubbing his knees slowly.

"The wife, if it comes to that, ain't much," he began cautiously, "being a little on the shoulder, you know, and wantin', so to speak a liberal California education, which makes, you know, a bad combination.It's always been my opinion, that there ain't any worse.Why, she's as ready with her tongue as Abner Dean is with his revolver, only with the difference that she shoots from principle, as she calls it; and the consequence is, she's always layin' for you.It's the effete East, my boy, that's ruinin' her.

It's them ideas she gets in New York and Boston that's made her and me what we are.I don't mind her havin' 'em, if she didn't shoot.

But, havin' that propensity, them principles oughtn't to be lying round loose no more'n firearms.""But your daughter?" said York.

The old man's hands went up to his eyes here, and then both hands and head dropped forward on the table."Don't say any thing 'bout her, my boy, don't ask me now." With one hand concealing his eyes, he fumbled about with the other in his pockets for his handkerchief--but vainly.Perhaps it was owing to this fact, that he repressed his tears; for, when he removed his hand from his eyes, they were quite dry.Then he found his voice.

"She's a beautiful girl, beautiful, though I say it; and you shall see her, my boy,--you shall see her sure.I've got things about fixed now.I shall have my plan for reducin' ores perfected a day or two; and I've got proposals from all the smeltin' works here"(here he hastily produced a bundle of papers that fell upon the floor), "and I'm goin' to send for 'em.I've got the papers here as will give me ten thousand dollars clear in the next month," he added, as he strove to collect the valuable documents again."I'll have 'em here by Christmas, if I live; and you shall eat your Christmas dinner with me, York, my boy,--you shall sure."With his tongue now fairly loosened by liquor and the suggestive vastness of his prospects, he rambled on more or less incoherently, elaborating and amplifying his plans, occasionally even speaking of them as already accomplished, until the moon rode high in the heavens, and York led him again to his couch.Here he lay for some time muttering to himself, until at last he sank into a heavy sleep.When York had satisfied himself of the fact, he gently took down the picture and frame, and, going to the hearth, tossed them on the dying embers, and sat down to see them burn.