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<3Y Alexander Lowe/1
Strange how men will spill lifeblood and stain their hands indelibly for gold that can neither buy a life nor eradicate the stain. Not only on the crowded city marts do men cut men's throats for the sake of their pelf. Out on the wide, wealthvirgin prairies, in the shade of monumental, treasure-trove mountains, the same ungodly lust prevails. Every man's hand is raised; every man's pick gropes for the pay-dirt of his brother.
Eavesdropping, unconsciously at first, then with burning consciousness, Dan Higby overheard the staunch pardners, Jim and Harry, exulting over their strike. Their honest, toilgood faces were flushed with the triumph, rightly earned by the sweat of their bodies and the prayer of their souls. They drank the raw, white whisky, toasting high this starradiant success. Higby listened gluttonously, taking in each detail — going over with them, for no good purpose, the work-laden days; the finding; the panning out ; the staking of the claim, and even this festal moment on the way to the filing of the claim. Higby 's lips moved drily; his shifty eyes glistened, bead-like, in his perspiring countenance.
" 'Taint filed yet!" he muttered— " 'taint— filed— yet!" Then he applied one eye to the keyhole again
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and strained his ears. Harry was filling the glasses again, generously. Jim was saying, voice a trifle quavery: "I've sent for Mary and Nancy — cant wait till they share, too. They've waited a mighty long time for this, pard. Now they'll have it — Gawd love 'em ! ' '
Higby waited no longer. He saw that the two were good for an hour more, reminiscing over the past, exultantly anticipating the gold-lined future. He slunk off in the direction of the claim. When Jim and Harry, hilarious, boyishly elated, returned to the prospect, the claim had been filed — by Daniel Higby — and that claimjumper squatted on the ground, surveying them with cunning, possessive leer. He reckoned without red blood — but he was sober (temporarily) and fired by greed, yet cooler than the work-weary young miners who hurled themselves at him. Guns were drawn, and when the smoke cleared away and the muttered, gasping oaths subsided and the huge, somber mountains frowned mightily down once more, Harry lay dead, Jim had disappeared, and Higby squatted again before the stolen claim, eyes bloodshot, hands bloodstained, soul blood-dyed.
"Will y'u quit lazing round here, Nance Waring, and earn ycur keep for once ? ' ' The high-pitched, strongly