The Wedge of Gold Part 3

The men awoke early, and, as Sedgwick had predicted, by six o'clock, the superintendent of the mine came down and went to the end of the drift.

On his return to the lower station of the shaft, Sedgwick approached him, and holding out the bit of lagging, said in a low voice: "Mr. Mackay, there are a few words written on that. Will you not kindly carry them to the surface and read them?" Mr. Mackay took it and put it in the pocket of the gray s.h.i.+rt which he always wore in the mine, saying jokingly: "Tobacco needed on your watch?" "Worse, even," answered Sedgwick, and walked away.

When the men were allowed to go above ground, five days later, they found that Consolidated Virginia had jumped from $4 to $11 per share. Sedgwick and Browning went straight to the bank and asked how their accounts stood. They found that $2,800 from one credit, and $3,200 from the other had been withdrawn. They looked at each other and smiled, but said nothing. Pa.s.sing outside, they exchanged opinions and both concluded that if Mackay had bought the stock promptly, it must have doubled already.

But both agreed that they would say nothing; rather, would let matters drift. So days and weeks rolled by, until finally the stock touched $30 per share, when one morning each received a note to call at the bank.

They went together, and were informed that 2,000 (old) shares of Consolidated Virginia had been placed to their credit, and that it was at their discretion to realize upon it, or permit it to remain longer.

The news fairly took their breath away.

"How about making $30,000 at $4 per day, Jim?" said Browning.

"How about 5,000, the old barrister's step-daughter, and the downs in Devons.h.i.+re, Jack?" said Sedgwick.

They went to their room in the lodging house to talk over what was best to do.

"When we sell," said Sedgwick, "I am going to Ohio."

"And I to old England," said Browning.

"And how can we give any expression of our grat.i.tude to John Mackay?"

asked Sedgwick.

"Let us go down and tender him half our stock," said Browning.

"A good thought," said Sedgwick. So down to the Consolidated Virginia office they went at once. They gained an instant interview with Mr.

Mackay, and, thanking him warmly, told him they had thought it over, and determined that he was ent.i.tled to half their shares.

"That's clever of you, boys," said Mackay, "but that is too big a commission. How much did you say the order on the splinter had brought you?"

Sedgwick replied that they had 2,000 shares, and that the stock was selling at $30 on a rising market.

"Well," answered Mackay, "that will be $10 for one, will it not?"

They answered, "Yes."

The Bonanza King thought for a moment, and then said: "It is this way, boys. I have been picking up a few shares of the stock on my own account lately, and do not need any ready money at present, but there are a good many sick and bruised miners down in the hospital. If, when you sell, you can see your way clear to send them down a few dollars, that will do more good than to divide with me, for I would be liable to lose the money any day in these crazy stocks."

They thanked him with swimming eyes and broken voices, and started to retire, when he called them back, and said: "I bought that stock because I noticed that you were not just like some of the others down in the mine, and I knew if the money should be lost you would neither of you reproach me. But I called you back to tell you that while I do not think there is any hurry about selling your stocks, dealing in mining shares is a risky business, as a rule, especially when you have nothing but a guess to go on; and I do not believe I would, if in your places, take that up for a business."

Then some one else came in, and the miners retired.

They determined not to sell just then, and both went back to work at 4 in the afternoon of that day.

The young men continued their daily toil. After the stock reached $35 per share, it hung at that figure for a long time, but they felt no uneasiness. They saw the hurry of the work in opening the Consolidated Virginia and the C. & C. shafts; they saw a new great quartz mill being erected, but they saw something else which pleased them much more, which was that the more the great ore body was sunk and drifted upon, the bigger it grew. In the early winter of 1874-5, the stock began to climb up. It jumped to $80, then $85; then, almost in a day, to $115, and so on up to $220. The strain on the minds of the two young miners was very great, but they held on. There was another little lull, and then towards spring it started up again.

When it reached $480, Browning said to Sedgwick: "Bless my soul, Jim, I have not slept for three nights. I have been thinking that hundreds of people have been waiting for the stock to touch $500, and when it does, they will unload and break it down. Had we not better sell? It will give us as much money as we can manage."

"I guess you are right, Jack" said Sedgwick. "I believe it will still go a good deal higher, but if it does, let those who buy our stocks make it.

As you said, it will bring us as much money as we can manage. It takes a brave man to sell on a rising market. Let us be brave."

So they gave the order for the sale of the stock, but that day it jumped to $520, and when the returns were made, they found to their credit, $1,040,000. The stock touched $900 per share a few days later.

The result well-nigh paralyzed them. "At $4 per day, this is not bad, Browning," said Sedgwick.

"This secures the hill farm of old Jasper--three hundred acres at forty dollars per acre--does it not, Sedgwick?" said Browning.

They ordered $10,000 to be placed to the credit of the hospitals and bought exchange on New York and London for $1,000,000. The rest they took with them in money.

In dividing there was a little dispute. Browning insisted that he was ent.i.tled to only forty-six and two-thirds per cent. of the amount, as his money was as seven to eight of Jim's.

"Why will you bother me with those vulgar fractions, Browning? Try to be a gentleman," said Sedgwick. "We share alike on this business, remember that; and say what a country this is to get rich in at four dollars a day!"

So it was settled. Their friends were told they had made a little stake, and were going home; the good-byes were spoken, and the young men turned their faces eastward.

CHAPTER IV.

SMILES AND TEARS.

While riding through Nevada, Browning, after a long look from the car window, said:

"By Jove, Jim, but is not this a desolate region? It is as though when the rocky foundation had been laid, there was no more material to furnish this part of the world with, and the work stopped."

"Yes, Jack," was Sedgwick's answer. "I knew an old man once. He was very aged and most decrepit. His face was but a ma.s.s of wrinkles; his back was bent; he always wore a frown on his face, and every relative he had wished that he was dead. But his bank account was a mighty one; he had given grand homes and plenty of money to each of his six children; he still possessed a fortune so large that his neighbors could not estimate it. I never look out upon the face of Nevada that I do not think of that old man.

"The fairest structures in San Francisco were built of the treasures taken from Nevada hills; clear across the continent, in every great city are beautiful blocks which are but Nevada gold and silver converted into stone and iron and gla.s.s; in every State are fair homes which were bought or redeemed with the money obtained here in the desert. Beyond that, the money already supplied from Nevada mines has changed the calculations of commerce, and made itself a ruling factor in prices; it has given our nation a new standing among the nations of the world; because of it, the lands are worth more money even in the Miami Valley where I was born; because of it, better wages are paid to laborers throughout our republic; it has been a factor of good, a blessing to civilization; and yet Eastern people revile Nevada and look upon it as did the relatives of the old man I was telling you of, because it is wrinkled and sere and always wears a frowning face."

As Sedgwick and Browning neared Chicago, the former began to grow restless, and finally said:

"Jack, old friend, you must go home with me. It is something I dread more than riding mustangs or fighting cowboys. It is more than five years since I went away, and it will be just worse than a fire in a mine to face."

Browning agreed that a few days more or less would not count. "Because,"

he said, "if Rose Jenvie is still Rose Jenvie, it will not much matter; if Rose Jenvie is not Rose Jenvie, then, by Jove, every minute of delay in knowing that fact is good. Besides, you know, I want to see that three-hundred-acre farm of old Jasper's on the hill which you are to buy."

They remained a few hours only in Chicago, and took the evening train for the valley of the Miami. The next morning, about seven o'clock, they left the cars at a little village station, and started on foot for the old home of Sedgwick, a mile away.

"Browning," said Sedgwick, "it was mighty kind of you to come with me.

I ran bare-footed over this road every summer day of my boyhood. In that old school-house I could show you notches which I cut in the tables and benches, and it seems now as though I was choking." They came to the old churchyard. "Hold, Jack," said Sedgwick, "let us go in here and look to see if any more graves have been added since I went away."

They climbed the fence, and Sedgwick led the way to a plot of ground where there were three headstones. "Thank G.o.d, there are no new graves,"

he said. "This was my sister; this, my baby brother, and this, my mother," pointing to the names on the headstones. "Had my mother been alive, I would long ago have come back."

Then, with more calmness, he turned his steps back to the road, but he was shaking in every limb when he opened the old gate and walked up toward the house. The path was lined with lilacs in full bloom, and a robin in a tree near by was calling her mate. "The same old lilacs, the same old redbreast, Browning," he said, with white lips.

He did not stop to knock, but pushed the door suddenly open and strode within. Walking up to an old man, who was reading his Bible, he said, "Father, I am sorry that I fought the mulatto, if it grieved you, but the black rascal deserved it, all the same."