The Mason County journal. [volume] (Shelton, W.T.) 1886-1927, 1890-10-17


him and come home, bat they never ven
tured to suggest it again. Old miners
passing by looked at the claim and said
there was no gold left Men who had
had thousands of dollars from her hus-
band, and owed their entire fortunes to
him, at last refused to give him credit
for sack of -four or side of bacon.
"You stick by the mine, Wash; fll
stick by you," was all that Jennie said.
She never told her husband that she
had gone to her brother, who was rich,
and asked him for little money to
carry them through the winter. mot
for that spendthrift Missourian to
waste" was his answer HE can clerk
in my store if he will give up his fool
iShness.'
Somehow the camp was down on
| Wash. He had given away loads of
money, but always after fashion of his
own. When old Doc Selby was knocked
out by the leading saloon keeper, and
nearly died in the snow, Wash took him
up, learned his history, and sent enough
money to his family East to educate his
children. That was we'll enough, but
he told the saloon-keeper that he fought
ter be hung" and in the present crisis
the old fellow was not idle in advising
people to let that fool Missourian alone.
There had been some who would have
stood by Wash in different fashion.
and "seen him through" to their last
dollar or last drop of blood. But none
OF them were left in the old camp; they
were scattered over the Pacific Coast
from Panamint to Cassiar; some of them
lay silent under pine-tree slabs on the
hills west of the river.
Wash's hair grew gray and thin. He
stopped lower and lower. Deep lines
were craven in his face, and his eyes be-
came fierce and terrible. Men met him
in the gulches trapping game. or down
in the streams with his fish-nets, and
passed him by without a word. Pros
pectors, elm bling over the hills, heard
the sound of his pick as he toiled in his
tunnel, and laughed him to scorn ''Be-
cause he found few pockets, he is bor-
ing right into the granite. Crazy as a
loon, and his wife as bad. Her rela tions
have done every thing to help them
offered them a farm and the best kind
of a show down in the Valley
1t was an afternoon in October. The
saloon-keeper sat on the bench by his
door reading newspaper. He heard a
noise at the head of the street; the vii
lage boys were shouting: ''Here comes
the crazy Missourian miner" Wash,
ragged and miserable, came into sight,
and, after moments hesitation, spoke
to him:
Evening, Mr.. Riley"
81 can't do any thing for YOU
''Mr. Riley, listen to me. 1 ha:n't a
cent in the world. We've sold all our
goods and worked in the mine together
this month. Jennie's held the drill
while druv it. l can't get pound of
powder, but the holes are all set in the
face. ready. Something tells me that
this time it will touch gold. l can feel
1T just ahead. I've felt it all along;
but now it's right thar, within reach OF
one more blast. l tell you, Riley, 1
know it's thar"
| You're crazy, Wash"
'Riley, you've got money. Give me
one key of powder, an Pll make you a
rich man. Pll q We you half we take out.
You don't know how. Eve worked this
year. I've hammered from daylight to
dark, gone hungry and slept cold, an
fell down in a dead faint time and time
over. Put your hand thar" He siezed
the saloon-keeper's hand and held it on
his breast. The man felt Wash's heart
sway several inches, as if it had torn
loose from it's place, and it's wild, loud
throbbing was like the beating of a
mighty engine. ''Thar," said Wash,
'you see 1 amt for long. That mines
for my wife. She's stayed with it and
with me. ought to have dropped it
and put my pride down long ago, but
now it's too late. Riley, will you let me
have the POWDER"
ssNo"
Wash looked at his old enemy and
turned away. He had already tried
others. the store-keeper, the hotel
owner and every miner he could find.
They thought it was foolishness and
worse. There had been many things
said about that crazy Wash who mar.
/ AAOu yOuhS WOAdu duu ulduO u0I
work like slave in his worthless claim
and some of them were flung out at him
that afternoon.
81 tell you, Wash" said one, 'sthe in.
sane asylum is the place for you, and
the boys will have to get you there and
send your wife home"
So far astray does the Judgment Of
men and of communities sometimes
wander! No one in all that camp I'M
derstood the proud, unyielding soul thai
had set itself to wrestle with Nature
and her secret The afternoon wore on
into night, and night into moraing, and
morning, noon and afternoon built VI
another day. Wash did not come back
Some boys climbed the hill and went
into the tunnel. There lay Wash, dead
at the further end of the drift, his picl
in his hapd. He had gone back to break
his own way into the treasure-house, but
his heart had burst in the midst of
giant stroke, and he had fallen across
his own weapon. There his wife had
found him, and she, too, weak and sick
and heart-broken, lay in faint over his
body.
Ophir Camp woke with start to some
dim sense of its crime. Tender hands
carried Wash ard his wife out of the
tunnel, and did all that could be done
for the poor woman.
A dozen men went back into the tun-
mel from which they had taken the dead
man, and looked at the place where his
last falteriug shock had glanced on the
finty rock.
''Boys," said one, cpl never forget
that 1 told Wash he couldn't have any
more powder, not if he died in his tun-
mel We'll set off them last hlaStcholeS