a little way up from the trail that goes toward rex monte, not far from the limit of deep snows, there is what looks to be a round dark hole in the side of the mountain. it is really the ruined tunnel of an old mine. formerly a house stood on the ore dump at one side of the tunnel, a little unpainted cabin of pine; but a great avalanche of snow and stones carried them, both the house and the dump, away. the cabin was built and owned by a solitary miner called jerry, and whether he ever had any other name no one in the town below kearsarge now remembers.
jerry was old and lean, and his hair, which had been dark when he was young, was now bleached to the color of the iron-rusted rocks about his mine. for thirty years he had prospected and mined through that country from kearsarge to the coso hills, but always in the pay of other men, and at last he had hit upon this ledge on rex monte. to all who looked, it showed a very slender vein between the walls of country rock, and the ore of so poor a quality that with all his labor he could do no more than keep alive; but to all who listened, jerry could tell a remarkable story of what it had been, and what he expected it to be. very many years ago he had discovered it at the end of a long prospect, when he was tired and quite discouraged for that time. there was not much passing then on the rex monte, and jerry drew out of the trail here in the middle of the afternoon to rest in the shadow of a great rock. so while he lay there very weary, between sleeping and waking, he gazed out along the ground, which was all strewn with rubble between the stiff, scant grass. as he looked it seemed that certain bits of broken stone picked themselves out of the heap, and grew larger, in some way more conspicuous, until, jerry averred, they winked at him. then he reached out to draw them in with his hand, and saw that they were all besprinkled with threads and specks of gold. you may guess that jerry was glad, then that he sprang up and began to search for more stones, and so found a trail of them, and followed it through the grass stems and the heather until he came to the ledge cropping out by a dike of weathered rocks. and in those days the ledge was ah, so rich! now it seemed that jerry was to have a mine of his own. so he named it the golden fortune, and told no man what he had found, but went down to the town which lies in a swale at the foot of kearsarge, and brought back as much as was needful for working the mine in a simple way.
it was nearing the end of the summer, when the hills expect the long thunder and drumming rain, and, not many weeks after that, the quiet storms that bring the snow. jerry had enough to do to make all safe and comfortable at the golden fortune before winter set in. it was too steep here on the hill-slope for the deep snows to trouble him much, so he built his cabin against the rock,[pg 146] with a covered way from it to the tunnel of the mine, that he might work on all winter at no unease because of storms.
it was perhaps a month later, with jerry as busy as any of the wild folk thereabout, and the nights turning off bitter cold with frost. of mornings he could hear the thin tinkle of the streams along fringes of delicate ice. it was the afternoon of a day that fell warm and dry with a promise of snow in the air. jerry was roofing in his cabin, so intent that a voice hailed him before he was aware that there was a man on the trail. jerry knew at once by his dress and his speech that he was a stranger in those parts, and he saw that he was not very well prepared for the mountain passes and the night. he knew this, i say, with the back of his mind, but took no note of it, for he was so occupied with his house and his mine. he suffered a fear to have any man know of his good fortune lest it should somehow slip away from him. so when the stranger asked him some questions of the trail, it seemed that what jerry most wished was to get rid of him as quickly as possible. he was a young man, ruddy and blue-eyed, and a foreigner, what was called in careless miners' talk, "some kind of a dutchman," and could not make himself well understood. jerry gathered that he desired to know if he were headed right for the trail that went over to the bighorn mine, where he had the promise of work. so they nodded and shrugged, and jerry made assurance with his hands, as much as to say, it is no great way; and when the young man had looked wistfully at the cabin and the boding sky, he moved slowly up the trail. when he came to the turn where it goes toward rex monte, he lingered on the ridge to wave good-by, so jerry waved again, and the man dropped out of sight. at that moment the sun failed behind a long gray film that deepened and spread over all that quarter of the sky.
jerry had cause to remember the stranger in the night and fret for him, for the wind came up and began to seek in the cañon, and the snow fell slanting down. it fell three days and nights. all that while the gray veil hung about jerry's house; now and then the wind would scoop a great lane in it to show how the drifts lay on the heather, then shut in tight and dim with a soft, weary sound, and jerry, though he worked on the golden fortune, could not get the young stranger out of his mind.
when the sun and the frost had made a crust over the snow able to bear up a man, he went over the pass to bighorn to inquire if the stranger had come in, though he did not tell at that time, nor until long after, how late it was when the man passed his cabin, how wistfully he turned away, nor what promise was in the air. the snow lay all about the pass, lightly on the pines, deeply in the hollows, so deeply that a man might lie under it and no one be the wiser. and there it seemed the stranger must be, for at the bighorn they had not heard of him, but if he were under the snow, there he must lie until the spring thaw. of whatever happened to him, jerry saw that he must bear the blame, for, by his own account, from that day the luck vanished from the golden fortune; not that the ore dwindled or grew less, but there were no more of the golden specks. with all he could do after that, jerry could not maintain himself in the cabin on the slope of rex monte. so it came about that the door was often shut, and the picks rusted in the tunnel of the golden fortune for months together, while jerry was off earning wages in more prosperous mines.
all his days jerry could not quite get his mind away from the earlier promise of the mine, and as often as he thought of that he thought of the stranger whom he had sent over the trail on the evening of the storm. gradually it came into his mind in a confused way that the two things were mysteriously connected, that he had sent away his luck with the stranger into the deep snow. for certainly jerry held himself accountable, and in that country between kearsarge and the coso hills to be inhospitable is the worst offense.
every year or so he came back to the mine to work a little, and sometimes it seemed to promise better and sometimes not. finally, jerry argued that the luck would not come back to it until he had made good to some other man the damage he had done to one. this set him looking for an opportunity. jerry mentioned his belief so often that he came at last, as is the way of miners, to accept it as a thing prophesied of old time. afterward, when he grew old himself, and came to live out his life at the golden fortune, he would be always looking along the trail at evening time for passers-by, and never one was allowed to go on who could by any possibility be persuaded to stay the night in jerry's cabin. often when there was a wind, and the snow came slanting down, jerry fancied he heard one shouting in the drift; then he would light a lantern and sally forth into the storm, peering and crying.
about that time, when he went down into the town below kearsarge once in a month or so for supplies, the people smiled and wagged their heads, but jerry conceived that they whispered together about the unkindness he had done to the stranger so many years gone, and he grew shyer and went less often among men. so he companioned more with the wild things, and burrowed deeper into the hill. his cabin weathered to a semblance of the stones, rabbits ran in and out at the door, and deer drank at his spring.
from the slope where the cabin stood, the trail, which led up from the town, winding with the winding of the cañon, went over the pass, and so into a region of high meadows and high, keen peaks, the feeding-ground of deer and mountain sheep. the ravine of rex monte was the easiest going from the high valleys to the foothills, where all winter the feed kept green. every year jerry marked the trooping of the wild kindred to the foothill pastures when the snow lay heavily on all the higher land, and saw their returning when the spring pressed hard upon the borders of the melting drifts. so, as he grew older and stayed closer by his mine, jerry learned to look to the furred and feathered folk for news of how the seasons fared, and what was doing on the high ridges. when the grouse and quail went down, it was a sign that the snow had covered the grass and small seed-bearing herbs; the passing of deer—shapely bulks in a mist of cloud—was a portent of deep drifts over the buckthorn and the heather. lastly, if he saw the light fleeting of the mountain sheep, he looked for wild and bitter work on the crest of kearsarge and rex monte. it was mostly at such times that jerry heard voices in the storm, and he would go stumbling about with his lantern into the swirl of falling snow, until the wind that played up and down the great cañon, like the draughts in a chimney, made his very bones a-cold. then he would creep back to drowse by the warmth of his fire and dream that the blue-eyed stranger had come back and brought the luck of the golden fortune. so he passed the years until the winter of the big snow. it was so called many winters after, for no other like it ever fell on the east slope of kearsarge.
it came early in the season, following a week of warm weather, when the sky was full of a dry mist that showed ghostly gray against the sun and the moon; great bodies of temperate air moved about the pines with a sound of moaning and distress. the deer, warned by their wild sense, went down before ever a flake fell, and jerry, watching, shivered in sympathy, recalling that so they had run together, and such a spell of warm weather had gone before a certain snow, years ago before the luck departed from the golden fortune. as the fume of the storm closed in about the cabin, and flakes began to form lightly in the middle air, the old man's wits began to fumble among remembrances of the stranger on the trail, and he would hearken for voices. the snow began, then increased, and fell steadily, wet and blinding.
the third night of its falling jerry waked out of a doze to hear his name shouted, muffled and feebly, through the drift. so it seemed to him, and he made haste to answer it. there was no wind; on the very steep slope where the cabin stood was a knee-deep level, soft and clogging; in the hollows it piled halfway up the pines. jerry's lantern threw a faint and stifled gleam. there was no further cry, but something struggled on the trail below him; dim, unhuman shapes wrestled in the smother of the snow. jerry sent them a hail of assurance cut off short by the white wall of the storm.
there was a little sag in the hill-front where the trail turned off to the cabin, and here the moist snow fell in a lake, into which the trail ran like a spit, and was lost. down this trail at the last fierce end of the storm came the great wild sheep, the bighorn, the heaviest-headed, lightest-footed, winter-proof sheep of the mountains that god shepherds on the high battlements of the hills. down they came when there was no meadow, nor thicket, nor any smallest twig of heather left uncovered on the highlands, and took the lake of soggy snow by jerry's cabin in the dark. they had come far under the weight of the great curved horns through the clogging drifts. here where the trail failed in the white smudge they found no footing, floundered at large, sinking belly-deep where they stood, and not daring to stand lest they sink deeper. if any cry of theirs, hoarse and broken, had reached old jerry's dreaming, they spent no further breath on it. by something the same sense that made him aware of their need, jerry understood rather than saw them strain through the falling veil of snow. it was a sharp struggle without sound as they won out of the wet drift to the firmer ground. they went on like shadows pursued by the ghost of a light that wavered with the old man's wavering feet. it was no night for a man to be abroad in, but jerry plowed on in the drift till he found the work that was cut out for him. there where the snow was deepest, yielding like wool, he found the oldest wether of the flock, sunk to the shoulders, too feeble for the struggle, and still too noble for complaining. how many years had jerry waited to do a good turn on the trail where he had done his worst: and in all these years he had lost the sense of distinction which should be[pg 156] between man and beast. he put his shoulder under the fore shoulder of the sheep, where he could feel the heart pound with certain fear.
jerry knew the trail, as he knew the floor of his mine, by the feel of the ground under him, so as he heaved and guided with his shoulder, the great ram grew quieter and lent himself to the effort till they came clear of the swale, and the sweat ran down from jerry's forehead. but the bighorn could do no more. in the soft fleece of the snow he stood cowed and trembling. the snow came on faster, and wiped out the trail of the flock; he made no motion to go after. such a death comes to the wild sheep of the mountains often enough: to fail from old age in some sudden storm, to sink in the loose snow and await the quest of the wolf, or the colder mercy of the drift. he turned his back to the storm which began to slant a little with the rising wind, and looked not once at jerry nor at the hills where he had been bred. but jerry cast his eye upon the sheep, which was full heavier then than he, and then up at the steep where his cabin stood, remembering that he had nothing there that might serve a sheep for food. then he bent down again, and by dint of pulling and pushing, and by a dim sense that began to filter through the man's brain to the beast, they made some progress on the trail. they went over broken boulders and floundered in the drifts, where jerry half carried the sheep and was half borne up and supported by the spread of the great horns. they crossed pine creek, which ran dumbly under the snow, housed over by the stream tangle. the flakes hissed softly on jerry's lantern and struck blindingly on his eyes, but ever as they went the sheep was eased of his labor, grew assured, and carried himself courageously. finally they came where the storm thinned out, and whole hill-slopes covered with buckthorn and cherry warded off the snow by springy arches, and jerry drew up to rest under a long-leaved pine while the sheep went on alone, nodding his great horns under the branches of the scrub. he neither lingered nor looked back, and met the new chance of life with as much quietness as the chance of death. jerry was worn and weary, and there was a singing in his brain. the pine trees broke the wind and shed off the snow in curling wreaths. it seemed to the old man most good to rest, and he drowsed upon his feet.
"if i sleep i shall freeze," he said; and it seemed on the whole a pleasant thing to do. so it went on for a little space; then there came a shape out of the dark, a hand shook him by the shoulder, and a voice called him by name. then he started out of dreaming as he had started at that other call an hour ago, and it seemed not strange to him, the night, nor the storm, nor the face of the blue-eyed man that shone out of the dark, but whether by the light of his lantern he could not tell. he shook the snow from his shoulders.
"i have expected you long," he said.
"and now i have come," said the stranger and smiled.
"have you brought the luck again?"
"come and see," said the man.
then jerry took his hand and leaned upon him, and together they went up the trail between the drifts.
"you bear me no ill-will for what i did?" said jerry.
and the stranger answered, "none."
"i have wished it undone many times," said the old man. "i have tried this night to repay it."
"by what you have done this night i am repaid," said the stranger.
"it was only a sheep."
"it was one of god's creatures," said the man.
so they went on up the trail, and it seemed sometimes to jerry that he wandered alone in the dark, that he was cold, and his lantern had gone out; and again he would hear the stranger comfort and encourage him. at last they came toward the cabin, and saw the light stream out of the window and the fire leap in the stove. then jerry thought of the mine, and that the stranger had brought back the luck again. it seemed that the young man had promised him this, though he could not be sure of that, nor very clear in his mind on any point except that he had come home again. but as he drew near, it seemed a brightness came out of the tunnel of the mine, a warmth and a great light. as he came into it tremblingly, he saw that the light came from the walls, and from the lode at the far end of it, and it was the brightness of pure gold. and jerry smiled and stretched out his arms to it, making sure that the luck had come again.
after the week of the big snow there were people in the town who remembered jerry, and wondered how he fared. so when the snow had a crust over it, they came up by the windy cañon and sought him in his house, where the door stood open and a charred wick flared feebly in the lamp, and in his mine, where they found him at the far end of the tunnel, and it seemed as if he slept and smiled.
"it is a worthless lode," they said, "but he loved it."
so they took powder and made a blast, and with it a great heap of stones, shutting off the end of the tunnel from the outer air, and so left him with his luck and the golden fortune.
