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Page 49
"I'm afraid," he said, with a forced laugh, "that I was a little
too hasty in disposing of your goods and possessions. We could
have kept afloat a little longer."
"It's all the same," she said, with a slight laugh; "it's jest as
well we didn't look too comf'ble--to HIM."
He did not reply; he did not dare to look at her. Yes! It was the
same coquette he had seen last night. His first impressions were
correct.
The canoe came on rapidly now, propelled by a powerful arm. In a
few moments it was alongside, and its owner leaped on the platform.
It was the gentleman with his trousers tucked in his boots, the
second voice in the gloomy discussion in the general store last
evening. He nodded simply to the girl, and shook Hemmingway's hand
warmly.
Then he made a hurried apology for his delay: it was so difficult
to find "the lay" of the drifted cabin. He had struck out first
for the most dangerous spot,--the "old clearing," on the right
bank, with its stumps and new growths,--and it seemed he was right.
And all the rest were safe, and "nobody was hurt."
"All the same, Tom," she said, when they were seated and paddling
off again, "you don't know HOW NEAR YOU CAME TO LOSING ME." Then
she raised her beautiful eyes and looked significantly, not at HIM,
but at Hemmingway.
When the water was down at "Jules'" the next day, they found
certain curious changes and some gold, and the secretary was able
to make a favorable report. But he made none whatever of his
impressions "when the water was up at 'Jules','" though he often
wondered if they were strictly trustworthy.
THE BOOM IN THE "CALAVERAS CLARION"
The editorial sanctum of the "Calaveras Clarion" opened upon the
"composing-room" of that paper on the one side, and gave apparently
upon the rest of Calaveras County upon the other. For, situated on
the very outskirts of the settlement and the summit of a very steep
hill, the pines sloped away from the editorial windows to the long
valley of the South Fork and--infinity. The little wooden building
had invaded Nature without subduing it. It was filled night and
day with the murmur of pines and their fragrance. Squirrels
scampered over its roof when it was not preoccupied by woodpeckers,
and a printer's devil had once seen a nest-building blue jay enter
the composing window, flutter before one of the slanting type-cases
with an air of deliberate selection, and then fly off with a vowel
in its bill.
Amidst these sylvan surroundings the temporary editor of the
"Clarion" sat at his sanctum, reading the proofs of an editorial.
As he was occupying that position during a six weeks' absence of
the bona fide editor and proprietor, he was consequently reading
the proof with some anxiety and responsibility. It had been
suggested to him by certain citizens that the "Clarion" needed a
firmer and more aggressive policy towards the Bill before the
Legislature for the wagon road to the South Fork. Several Assembly
men had been "got at" by the rival settlement of Liberty Hill, and
a scathing exposure and denunciation of such methods was necessary.
The interests of their own township were also to be "whooped up."
All this had been vigorously explained to him, and he had grasped
the spirit, if not always the facts, of his informants. It is to
be feared, therefore, that he was perusing his article more with
reference to its vigor than his own convictions. And yet he was
not so greatly absorbed as to be unmindful of the murmur of the
pines without, his half-savage environment, and the lazy talk of
his sole companions,--the foreman and printer in the adjoining
room.
"Bet your life! I've always said that a man INSIDE a newspaper
office could hold his own agin any outsider that wanted to play
rough or tried to raid the office! Thar's the press, and thar's
the printin' ink and roller! Folks talk a heap o' the power o' the
Press!--I tell ye, ye don't half know it. Why, when old Kernel
Fish was editin' the 'Sierra Banner,' one o' them bullies that he'd
lampooned in the 'Banner' fought his way past the Kernel in the
office, into the composin'-room, to wreck everythin' and 'pye' all
the types. Spoffrel--ye don't remember Spoffrel?--little red-
haired man?--was foreman. Spoffrel fended him off with the roller
and got one good dab inter his eyes that blinded him, and then
Spoffrel sorter skirmished him over to the press,--a plain lever
just like ours,--whar the locked-up form of the inside was still
a-lyin'! Then, quick as lightnin', Spoffrel tilts him over agin it,
and HE throws out his hand and ketches hold o' the form to steady
himself, when Spoffrel just runs the form and the hand under the
press and down with the lever! And that held the feller fast as
grim death! And when at last he begs off, and Spoff lets him
loose, the hull o' that 'ere lampooning article he objected to was
printed right onto the skin o' his hand! Fact, and it wouldn't
come off, either."
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