Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1900-09-27
Copyrighted, 1900: Daily Story Pub Coz

.And 1T was coal?" I demanded eagerly.
I was sorry to press the old man so
closely for the exact TRUTH, but I had
probably a more practical interest in
his narrative than anybody who had
ever listened to it. For I owned a mod
est acreage of that prairie myself and I
had a romantic curiosity to know h
was under the surface. Fol this rea-
son I had hunted III, Barden-uuaint and
broker enthusiast-"Must-be-COal' they
had called him in Plattevilie for twenty
years. The prospector had grown so ac-
cushioned to light treatment of his hobby
THAT / was naturally received at first as
just one more heartless scoffer. But he
must have noted a note OF sincerity In
my questions. for before many minutes
I'VE sat cheek by jowl upon the sidewalk,
and he was only relating in the dusk the
progress of his boring of ten years be-
fore, but was exploiting his whole theory
of river valley coal beds. In better days
and better strength he had made pill
grimages to most of the great coal mines
lying near Nebraska. walked every
foot of the way" said he, with quiet
pride. WAS gone two years from home,
host my eye in an accident in the Bloss
mine."
There was a story sequent of that,
too. 1t was said the woman he loved re-
fused to marry a distigured mar.
Then you came back TO Platteville sat-
tsfied-?"
Eyes. came back satisfied we was on
the risht side o. tn river for it." I soon
noticed that he never said the word
'coal" If he could avoid it.
But lately he had one othelr interest,
come to contend with the coal hope for
supremacy in his life. Besides the no
tiOn of hearing Barden's account of the
drilling, 1 had a desire ii possible to see
something of young Walt, who lived with
him. l had seen the youth about town
with a girl of singu,ar beauty and had
partaken so far of the village gossip as
to know that the young persons were en-
gagged to be married. How genuine was
my interest in the prospector's account
will appear when I say that I very soon
forgot the lovers and all else not closely
pertaining to the sinking of the shat and
it's result. Inch by inch, through sand
and water, gravel, clay, more water
down forty feet I followed in ina gina
tion the course of the steel-fett alter
lately hope and disappointment as in
Barden's subdued voice these were
echoed across ten years. At length he
told how the drill threw up "a little piece
of black stuff bout as big as that,"-he
held up a Scared hand, the thumb to
the first joint thrust out between the
fingers.
"Was it coal?"
He hesitated, hunting, no doubt, for
language shat would be conscientious
n at the gttme time favorable. Then
he answered slowly:
'Er-well. I wasn't quite sure-an
them "a was with me couldn't just make
nut for certain, so we carried to MuZzy-
the blacksmith. He worked in the mines
once, and Muzzy took it and chewed 1t
up, nd-we called 1T COAL"
When one feels like signing and laugh
ing both at once the proper cue is
num- Not until a long pause did I
venture to ask, Have you never followed
dt up?"
ooh, it's no use without a diamond
drill. The drill I had thai time I made
myself. It would take a good point to
reach the-4to get down to it.
"How much would a drill cost?" I was
prepared for four figures.
swell a good one would cost nigh up
to seventy-ive dollars, prob'ly."
1 ground my heel in the sand. This
was bankruptcy.
He must have felt the circuit of SYM
pathy to be established between us, for
he said in a contiding half whisper:
Would you-like to come out-an' see
the hsle?"
He led me into a narrow garden. There
in the midst OF tomato vine, was the ex-
~cavation, sol1e four or five feet across
the top. Rarden paused on the edge of it,
as he might have paused at a graves
edge. There was more light here, the
pace being open ITO the stars. n I scru-
tinized his face and figure. He was bent,
his hair and beard We're grizzled. He
began showing me in detail exactly how
he had gone about to sink his drill. Pres
emily l heard footsteps, and turning de-
serted two figures coming through the
gateway. Garden, for all that he was
rather deaf, heard them abot as soon as
I did. He left off his narrative abruptly.
."Ahoy!" he called.
"so-ro!' came the answer in a boyish
base, and 'Hello!" in a clear treble that
gave me a pleasant start.
TITS Wait and Laura said Barden.
"Come along, and have a visit with US
all.." =
After the lovers left I turned to the
prospestor:
1.-THE wedding will be soon?"
"Christr.as Eve" said he-tthe little
gals idea. She says, 4 like good time
heaped up tnick-not spread out thin,'
says she, SO Christmas Eve it's to be-"
I left Nefqra ska the next week. I had
a delightful summons to the wedding, but
when the holidays anne it was impossi-
bile for me to leave New York. The re-
m.ainder of the narrative I give as it was
siven me on my visit the following sum-
aner.
Tt seems the prospector for two years
rad been s~ecretly saving, a very few
Go'ars each veal, toward the price of
a diamond Grill. The fund grew with
Idtiful G'ow1ess: in the year of the we'd
cling it was still several dollar short OF
the requisite amount. But out of the
past two crops he had also boarded a
little corn for the day of a better price.
In the fall of this year the better price
prevailed. BY drawing ever so little on
the current crop the drill fund could be
completed.
But there was a new light in Barden's
face.
Meanwhile Walt and Laura had a Sc
cret of their own. In the early days OF
their be.rothal Laura. suggested that in
stead Of giving each other gifts, they
save what little money they could, and
buy something for him. Only one some-
thing there was, of curse, for him.
So, aside from Waits main ~econoniiz-
ing, with a view to his establishment,
they, too. were saving.
AS December came On, the young peo-
pie attempted to draw the p~rospector out
on the subject Of drills. Wait thought