Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1909-10-03

The surveyor himself was at times as much as
a mile or more behind, dumbly waving Glen to
right or left, as he peered through his glass and
set the course by the compass and angles of his
transit. Anon he signaled the two to wait, and
Beth sat down to watch him come, set up, and
wave them onward as before.
She was thus alone, at the end of the chain,
for hours at stretch. AS often as Pratt came
up from the rear and established station for
his instrument, she asked how the line was
working out and what were the prospects for
the end.
Cant tell till we get much closer to the
claim said Pratt with never varying patience.
We'll know before we die
In the heat that poured from sky and rocks
1t might have been possible to doubt the sur
veyor's prediction; but Beth went on Her
exhaustion increased. The glare of the cloud
less sky and greenless earth seemed to burn all
the moisture from her eyes, The terrible 81
lenCe, the dread austerity of mountains so rock
ribbed and desolate, oppressed her with sense
OF awe. She was toiling as many man has
to1led, through the ancient burned out furnace
of gold, so intensely physical all about her,
and also she was toiing no less painfully
through the furnace of gold that love must
ever create as long as the dross must be burned
from human ore, that the bullion of honor 10y
atty, and faith may shine in its purity and
worth.
She began to feel in slight degree the tor
lures that Van, old Gettysburg, Napoleon and
Dave had undergone for many weary years.
that had drawn them relentlessly on in lands
like these; it was more their fate, species of
doom, to which, like the helpless puppets that
we are, we must all at last respond.
She felt new weight in the cruelty whereby
the owners of the Laughing Water claim had
been suddenly bereft of all they possessed,
after all their patient years of serving here in
this arid waste of minerals. The older men in
Vans partnership she pitied. For Van she felt
sense of championing love. His cause was
Il.
could no longer keep alive her hope Her pas
sion to set herself to rights in his mind was
great; but it was secondary after all, to the
love IN her heart, which would not, could not,
die, and, by dint of its intensity, bore her on
ward to fight for his rights.
Alone SO much in that burning land all day,
she had long, long hours in which to think of
Van, long hours in which to contemplate the
silence and the vast dispassion of this mountain
world. Her own inward burning offset the
heat OF air and earth; sense of the aridness
her heart would know without Vans love once
more returned, was counter to the aridness of
all these barren rocks. The fervor of her love
1t was that bore her onward weary, sore, and
dropping
What would happen at the end of the day if
Pratt should confirm the Lawrence survey, be-
slowing the claim on Bostwick and McCoppet
she did not dare to think. Her excitement in
creased with every chain length moving her
onward toward the cove. She did not know
VI
activities SO toisomely climbed, and therefore
had not guide in the world to raise or depress
her hope. There nothing to do but sus-
tain the weary march and await the surveys
end.
A Ii day in Goldite, meanwhile, Van had
been working toward an end. He had two
hundred dollars; the merest drop in the bucket
as he knew, with which to fight the Bostwick
combination, but drop at least with which to
make beginning He was thoroughly aware
that even when the line could be run, estab-
fishing some error fraud on the part of Law
renee, the fight would barely be opened. Nc
Coppet and Bostwick, with thousands of dol
lars at command, could delay him, block his
progress, force him into court, and perhaps
even beat him in the end. The enginery of
dollars, as he knew, was crushing in its might
Nevertheless, if survey showed that the line
had been falsely moved, he felt he could some
what rely upon himself to make the seat of war
too warm for comfort.
There was no surveyor nearer than two hun
dred miles, with Pratt, as Van expressed it,
camping with the foe" He had shaken his
partners untimely from their beds that morn
ing (the trio were mining nights, on the four-t
midnight shift) and busted them all with the
work of the day, by way of making prepara-
tons. He spent nearly twenty silver dollars
on the wire, telegraphing various towns to Sc