Bushy

“Why didn’t somebody wake me up? Where is Padre? Where are the men folks? Why, I never slept so late before in my life!” Bushy rubbed her eyes hard, for she was yet very sleepy and could scarcely see old Bob, though he sat on the step, right at her feet.

“Shanks said you were ’most played out lariating Delaney, and gave orders for nobody to disturb you till you came out on your own account.”

“Shanks is always afraid something will happen to me,” said Bushy as she dipped her head in a great tin basin of spring water.

Bob leaned back against the logs and laughed till he showed all his yellow teeth—teeth so much like Rover’s that Bushy could not help noting the resemblance. He took out of his pocket a plug of tobacco, and cutting off a square piece, tucked it in his left cheek before answering her.

“How long have they been gone?” asked Bushy, as she warmed up the breakfast that had been left her, and Bob busied himself fixing the fire and keeping it burning.

“About half an hour.”

“And you waited for me?”

“Yes, because I wanted to show you the gold myself. Why, Bushy, it is a clear white quartz, and I dug down three feet and the prospects are fine; there is a great fortune! Just what I have been looking for these twenty years.”

In the beginning of the conversation Bushy’s eyes danced and she ate so fast the potatoes almost choked her. Bob was going to give it all to her. How rich she would be! “The first thing I’ll buy,” she thought, “will be a wig for dear old Tom.”

But when the old man said: “It is just what I have been looking for these twenty years,” Bushy detected a sad tone in his voice that startled her. “Perhaps he is sorry he made the bet; maybe he wants to back out?”

“Don’t you make a lot of good strikes, Bob? Tom said you were one of the best experts he knew, ’cause you always got ahead of everybody else.”

“Oh, I’ve had many good finds, but none like this one. Just come along, Bushy, let us hurry; I’m anxious to hand it over and get it off my mind.”

They started out, Rover following close at their heels. Mollie Delaney met them at the door. She had come over to carry a message from Johnny, who could not go to sleep until someone would tell him Bushy did not get hurt and was “good as ever” when she woke up in the morning.

“You tell him,” said Bushy, “that I will come in and see him after I visit the mine that Bob has given me for winning the bet on the broncho. I’ll bring him a specimen with free gold in it. How is your father?”

“Oh! he is being watched by his partner, Bill Sattler, so we are not afraid any more. Bill says Dad may have the delirium tremens next time he takes whiskey. He is in bed now, and Bill is making him take the medicine Shanks left for him.”

Mollie went back to the cabin and Bushy and Bob travelled toward the mining gulch.

“Have you got a family, Bob? Little girls and little boys and a mother and father?”

“I don’t think they are very little now, because it has been years and years since I saw them. My old mother is dead and the last letter the boys wrote me said father was ailing. Guess he ought to be, for he is eighty-five years old.”

“They would like to have you come back, wouldn’t they, Bob?”

“Better believe it! My old wife would cry her eyes out with joy, and the little boys and girls, who are men and women now, would never know their old dad, I am so grizzled and weather beaten.” Bob slyly wiped a tear from his eye and Bushy pretended not to see.

“I am sorry I took you up, and now I wish I hadn’t won,” murmured Bushy, half aloud, and Bob heard and straightened himself with a jerk that meant “steady, old man, don’t you weaken!”

“You needn’t feel one bit sorry, Bushy, because it would have been the same had one of the boys picked me up. A bet is a bet, and not to pay an honest bet is just as bad as horse stealing. I’d feel just as uncomfortable not to pay a bet as a horse-thief must feel when the rope goes curling about his neck.”

“I won it fairly, didn’t I, Bob?” asked Bushy, as they came in sound of the miners’ picks. “If I did not win it perfectly fair and square I don’t want you to give the mine to me.”

“But you did, and I am going to have all the boys who saw you ride the broncho be witnesses to my turning over the new lead to you. I would never sleep easy again if I didn’t pay the bet.”

The excitement of Bushy and her companion was considerably increased by the appearance of two strangers who caught up with them on the road, one of whom said to Bob, “I’ll give you $40,000, here and now, for that find,” and Bob shook his head rather mournfully. Bushy said nothing.

“Hello! here they come,” cried Shanks, which was the signal for everybody in hearing to draw near the rich quartz. All were curious to know if Bob would really keep his word—everybody but the Padre, Shanks, and Tom; they were more curious to see how Bushy would receive the gift.

“I don’t think it a wise thing to have her so tempted,” said Mr. Sukolt, and his face looked troubled.

“Oh, pshaw!” cried Tom. “It was a square thing. If it had happened between two men there would be some tall fighting and perhaps a little lynching if the affair wasn’t done up in business fashion.”

“That’s so! that’s so!” chimed in several of the rough men, “and we will see that she gets the ‘lead,’ too; Bob was a darn fool to make such a bet, but, by George! he must pay his debts.”

“It is a very unfortunate affair,” said the Padre. “This will test my little girl’s nature in a way I would much have preferred to have avoided.”

“Let her alone,” cried Shanks, who was watching Bushy’s every move. “Old Bob is superstitious, and would think the stars would fall on him and kill him if he broke his word.”

Mr. Sukolt felt Bushy’s hand slip into his, and turning he saw her face fairly aglow with happiness.

“Padre!” she cried, “come quick. There is a man here who wants to buy the lead. He has offered Bob $40,000 in cash this minute. It is my mine, you know, and he can’t have it for $40,000, do you hear, Padre?”

“Bushy, child, Bushy! what has gotten into you; do you really intend to hold the old man to his foolish bet?”

“Of course I do, Padre,” and she dragged him hurriedly to the fresh-dug hole that was causing such excitement; Tom, Shanks, and seven other miners following.

“By rights it is not my mine,” old Bob was saying, with a dreary little smile on his bronzed face. “If I considered it my lead you could have it for that amount, sir, and I would start for the States at sunrise to-morrow.” The tremolo in his voice seemed to strike a sympathetic chord in everybody’s heart but Bushy’s. She shocked them all by her sudden interruption with:

“But it is not his mine, sir, and I’ll not take a cent less than $50,000. I know enough about veins, sir, to feel certain that rock will yield the owner who works it $100,000 in no time. Look at the width of the white quartz vein, and see, it branches out in two great arms, big tunnelling to the right and left, then following the main vein down. There will be three mines in one. Is it not so, Padre?”

Bushy talked so excitedly and seemed so oblivious of the fact that the greater she made the mine out, the more poor Bob suffered for his folly; that Mr. Sukolt was stunned by this new evidence of avarice in his little girl’s heart.

“You are right as to the three veins,” answered Mr. Sukolt, after digging about awhile with his stick; everybody closing about to see and listen. “Are you an old miner, sir?” he asked, turning to one of the new-comers, the one who had offered the $40,000.

“We are both Californians and working our way home with success in our pockets. I did not intend to mine any more, but it’s as fascinating as gambling. I offer $40,000 for this strike. I have the amount here,” and he tapped the great leather belt that girdled him, which seemingly carried nothing but revolvers.

“Bob, it is my mine, is it not?” cried Bushy, running to him and throwing her arms about his waist. “Remember, Bob, bad luck will come to you if you don’t pay your bets.”

“Yes, yes, I know; and I was only weakening because I just thought for a minute how near I had come to seeing my old woman once more.”

“Let her alone,” said Shanks, “the child is up to something. I see it in the peculiar glitter of her eye. She would tell us if she had a chance, I think, but she can’t here, you see. Let her alone. It is like playing euchre when she has called for her partner’s best card, and will play it alone.”

“Yes, let her alone,” grumbled the miners, some of them ugly with jealousy, and others with drink. So, while Bushy and Bob were having their talk, the miners flocked about the fresh-dug hole and gossiped on the value of the find.

“Boys,” cried old Bob at last, as he and Bushy joined them, “I want you all to be witnesses to the fact that I now give up all claim to the mine and hand it over to Bushy Sukolt, in payment of the bet, lost two weeks ago, when she rode my wild colt, White Face.”

“Hurrah for Bob!” shouted the miners.

“You are a fool,” said the two Californians.

“Can’t help what any of you think!” muttered Bob, as he signed a written statement made out in pencil, on the leaf of a memorandum book, by one of the boys who insisted that Bushy should have something more than their word for security. “I feel better, any way. I may have been a fool to make the bet, but, by Jove! I don’t agree with you that it is acting the fool to pay it.”

“I’ll prove to you that it is,” said the man from California. “I’ll give the little girl $50,000—that is her price, I believe.”

Every eye was turned on Bushy. Mr. Sukolt’s face was ashen white, the excitement was intense. Shanks walked over and stood close to Bushy, but said nothing. Tom got shaky in his legs, and squatted down on a rock near the mine. Bob trembled so that when he handed the paper to Bushy, she took his hand as well as the paper, and held it fast. Thus, clinging to his arm and hand, she replied, in a clear, firm voice: “I’ll take it, sir, if you can pay me this very minute.”

“You are all witnesses that this is no child’s play,” spoke up the California miner as he began to unbuckle his huge leather belt.

“I’ll see that it is not,” said Shanks, who immediately tore out two leaves from his note-book and made out the necessary papers to render the sale legal.

“Fix it so he can’t back out, Shanks,” said Bushy.

“Fix it so she can’t back out, Shanks,” said the California miner, imitating Bushy’s voice as best he could. This made everybody laugh, even old Bob smiled faintly—he was literally being held up by Bushy, who for some reason would not let him sit down as Tom had done.

“Will you hurry, please!” said Bushy, and the man counted out: “Thirty, forty, forty-five, fifty—there, young lady, is the $50,000 in cash, for which I shall take, in exchange, the Bushy Mine, for that is what I shall call it.”

“Now, Daddy Bob,” she said turning to the old man, who still trembled at her side, “I want to buy White Face, for that wild animal brought me all my good luck.”

Daddy Bob looked puzzled, but Shanks threw up his hat with a regular war-whoop. He saw at last through Bushy’s way of doing business. He brought out his note-book again, and with a face beaming with delight, said: “How much do you intend to offer for White Face?”

“Just $45,000!”

Daddy Bob sank in a heap at her feet. Tom tumbled off his rock and went rolling into the new mine. Exclamations of surprise burst from the lips of every miner. Bushy raised her eyes and glanced at her father; he was watching her and only smiled, but that was enough for Bushy. She knew he was pleased.

“Make out the bill of sale, Shanks. Be quick, please,” said Bushy, and she stooped down to help Daddy Bob to his feet again. With one hand she clung to her dress, full of gold and money, and with the other she led the old man to a rock near the Padre, and there they counted out the cash—Mr. Sukolt looking smilingly on.

“Thirty, forty, forty-five—there, Daddy Bob, is $5,000 more than what you would have got, had you not paid the bet, for I heard you tell that man you would take $40,000 if the mine were yours. I held on, you see, and can give you $45,000 and keep $5,000 for myself, which is good pay for riding on a bucking broncho. Don’t you think so, Padre?”

Mr. Sukolt put his big hand over Bushy’s brown one, and squeezed it, but he said not a word, he was watching Daddy Bob. Bushy took the bill of sale, and piled the money into Bob’s shaking hands.

“Don’t forget, Daddy, that you go East by sunrise to-morrow morning.” Daddy could not stand it any longer, he bent his aged form, and kissed Bushy on the forehead and burst into tears.

“It is quite fair, is it, Mr. Sukolt?” he stammered at last as he dried his eyes on his coat-sleeve and looked wonderingly at the money.

“Quite fair,” spoke up the Padre, who now held his daughter on his knee, and had both her arms about his neck.

“Boys, do you think it fair?”

“She’s a brick,” cried one.

“A jolly business woman,” said the travelling companion of the California purchaser to Bob. “She managed to make you pay the bet and at the same time hand you $5,000 more than you would have got at your own bargain, and she pockets $5,000 for herself. Of course it’s fair!”

Thus assured that it was all right to sell the colt for so much money, Daddy Bob put away the $45,000, and told the boys he would really start next day for the East and his family.

The miners gave three cheers for Bushy before going back to work, and Tom whittled out the words, “Bushy Mine” on a pine-log and stood it up as a mark for the new owner. Mr. Sukolt told Tom to go back with Bushy and take care of the $5,000, and then get dinner and bring it out to the boys in tin buckets. On their way home Tom said:

“How did you happen to be so smart, Bushy? It didn’t seem natural,” and he laughed heartily.

“Well, Tom,” she replied, “I heard one of the California men say to the other ‘bid $40,000 and go up as high as $50,000 before giving it up.’ That is what made me so brave. You didn’t think I was going to keep the money, did you, Tom?”

“Darned if I knew!” said Tom, and they both laughed.

“Well,” said Bushy to the California man, as he passed them on the road a few minutes later, “Daddy Bob was not such a fool as you thought to prove him, was he?”

“Oh, Daddy was all right,” replied the man, laughing aloud, “the little girl was the one who gulled me.”

Bushy talked it all over with her father that night. He did not tell her he had feared that she would give way to the glittering temptation.