第27章 LIKE ARGUS OF THE ANCIENT TIMES(10)

"Don't know about all of three hundred thousand," they told him one morning, at breakfast, ere they departed to their work, "but how'd a hundred thousand do, Old Hero? That's what we figure a claim is worth, the ground being badly spotted, and we've already staked your location notices.""Well, boys," Old Tarwater answered, "and thanking you kindly, all I can say is that a hundred thousand will do nicely, and very nicely, for a starter.Of course, I ain't goin' to stop till I get the full three hundred thousand.That's what I come into the country for."They laughed and applauded his ambition and reckoned they'd have to hunt a richer creek for him.And Old Hero reckoned that as the spring came on and he grew spryer, he'd have to get out and do a little snooping around himself.

"For all anybody knows," he said, pointing to a hillside across the creek bottom, "the moss under the snow there may be plumb rooted in nugget gold."He said no more, but as the sun rose higher and the days grew longer and warmer, he gazed often across the creek at the definite bench-formation half way up the hill.And, one day, when the thaw was in full swing, he crossed the stream and climbed to the bench.Exposed patches of ground had already thawed an inch deep.On one such patch he stopped, gathered a bunch of moss in his big gnarled hands, and ripped it out by the roots.The sun smouldered on dully glistening yellow.He shook the handful of moss, and coarse nuggets, like gravel, fell to the ground.It was the Golden Fleece ready for the shearing.

Not entirely unremembered in Alaskan annals is the summer stampede of 1898 from Fort Yukon to the bench diggings of Tarwater Hill.And when Tarwater sold his holdings to the Bowdie interests for a sheer half- million and faced for California, he rode a mule over a new-cut trail, with convenient road houses along the way, clear to the steamboat landing at Fort Yukon.

At the first meal on the ocean-going steamship out of St.Michaels, a waiter, greyish-haired, pain-ravaged of face, scurvy-twisted of body, served him.Old Tarwater was compelled to look him over twice in order to make certain he was Charles Crayton.

"Got it bad, eh, son?" Tarwater queried.

"Just my luck," the other complained, after recognition and greeting."Only one of the party that the scurvy attacked.I've been through hell.The other three are all at work and healthy, getting grub-stake to prospect up White River this winter.Anson's earning twenty-five a day at carpentering, Liverpool getting twenty logging for the saw-mill, and Big Bill's getting forty a day as chief sawyer.I tried my best, and if it hadn't been for scurvy...""Sure, son, you done your best, which ain't much, you being naturally irritable and hard from too much business.Now I'll tell you what.You ain't fit to work crippled up this way.I'll pay your passage with the captain in kind remembrance of the voyage you gave me, and you can lay up and take it easy the rest of the trip.And what are your circumstances when you land at San Francisco?"Charles Crayton shrugged his shoulders.

"Tell you what," Tarwater continued."There's work on the ranch for you till you can start business again.""I could manage your business for you - " Charles began eagerly.

"No, siree," Tarwater declared emphatically."But there's always post-holes to dig, and cordwood to chop, and the climate's fine..."Tarwater arrived home a true prodigal grandfather for whom the fatted calf was killed and ready.But first, ere he sat down at table, he must stroll out and around.And sons and daughters of his flesh and of the law needs must go with him fulsomely eating out of the gnarled old hand that had half a million to disburse.He led the way, and no opinion he slyly uttered was preposterous or impossible enough to draw dissent from his following.Pausing by the ruined water wheel which he had built from the standing timber, his face beamed as he gazed across the stretches of Tarwater Valley, and on and up the far heights to the summit of Tarwater Mountain - now all his again.

A thought came to him that made him avert his face and blow his nose in order to hide the twinkle in his eyes.Still attended by the entire family, he strolled on to the dilapidated barn.He picked up an age-weathered single-tree from the ground.

"William," he said."Remember that little conversation we had just before I started to Klondike? Sure, William, you remember.You told me I was crazy.And I said my father'd have walloped the tar out of me with a single-tree if I'd spoke to him that way.""Aw, but that was only foolin'," William temporized.

William was a grizzled man of forty-five, and his wife and grown sons stood in the group, curiously watching Grandfather Tarwater take off his coat and hand it to Mary to hold.

"William - come here," he commanded imperatively.No matter how reluctantly, William came.

"Just a taste, William, son, of what my father give me often enough," Old Tarwater crooned, as he laid on his son's back and shoulders with the single-tree."Observe, I ain't hitting you on the head.My father had a gosh-wollickin' temper and never drew the line at heads when he went after tar.- Don't jerk your elbows back that way! You're likely to get a crack on one by accident.And just tell me one thing, William, son: is there nary notion in your head that I'm crazy?""No!" William yelped out in pain, as he danced about."You ain't crazy, father of course you ain't crazy!""You said it," Old Tarwater remarked sententiously, tossing the single- tree aside and starting to struggle into his coat.

"Now let's all go in and eat."

Glen Ellen, California, SEPTEMBER 14, 1916.