The Clean-up

: The Man From The Bitter Roots

Toy's disappearance was mysterious and complete. There was not a single

clue to show which way he had gone, or how, or why. Only one thing

seemed certain and that was that his departure was unpremeditated.



His potatoes were in a bucket of water, peeled and ready for dinner; the

bread he had set to raise was waiting to be kneaded; his pipe laid on

the window sill while his hoarded trinkets for the little Sun Loon were< r />
still hidden under the pad of the bed in his tent. His fish-pole in its

usual place disposed of the theory that he had fallen in the river, and

although trained eyes followed every trail there was not a single

telltale track. He had vanished as though he had gone straight up.



His disappearance sobered the men. There was something uncanny about it;

they lowered their voices When they speculated and all their latent

superstition arose. Porcupine Jim declared that the place was "hoodooed"

and as evidence enumerated the many accidents and delays. Bruce himself

wondered if the malignant spirit of Slim was lingering on the river to

harry him as he had in life.



Smaltz was now in the power-house doing at last the specific work for

which he had been hired. To all Bruce's questions, he replied that the

machinery there was "doing fine." Down below, the pump-house motors were

far from satisfactory, sparking and heating in a way that Bruce, who did

not know the a, b, c's of electricity, could see was not right. While

the pumps and scrapers were working Banule dared not leave the motors

alone.



Then, after a couple of days' unsatisfactory work, the water dropped so

low in Big Squaw creek that there was only sufficient pressure to use

one scraper. Bruce discharged all the crew save Smaltz, Banule, and

Porcupine Jim, who labored in the kitchen--a living insult to the

Brotherhood of Cooks. While Bruce, by running back and forth between the

donkey-engine and the top sluice-box where the scraper dumped, managed

to do the work of two men ten hours a day.



His nerves were at a tension, for along with the strain of his

responsibilities was the constant fear of a serious break-down. Banule

made light of the sparking motors but the bearings were heating badly,

daily necessitating more frequent stops. When a grounded wire sent the

leaking current through the cable that pulled the scraper, and knocked

Bruce flat, he was not convinced by Banule's assurance that it "didn't

amount to much." It was all evidence to Bruce that fundamentally

something was wrong.



But in spite of the time lost the cut was deepening and the side walls

stood up so that every scraper that emptied into the sluice-boxes was

from the pay-streak. Bruce fairly gloated over each cubic yard that he

succeeded in getting in, for the sample pans showed that it was all he

had hoped for, and more.



If only the riffles were saving it and the tables catching the fine

gold!



This he could not know until the clean-up and he did not mean to stop

until he had brought in the last load he dared before a freeze. So far

the weather had been phenomenal, the exceptional open fall had been his

one good piece of luck. Under usual weather conditions, to avoid

cleaning up through the ice he would have been obliged to have shut down

at least a month before.



So the work kept on intermittently until an incredibly late date in

November. The leaves of the poison oak had turned crimson, the tall

tamaracks in the high mountains were gold, frost crystals glittered each

morning on the planks and boards, but Big Squaw creek kept running

steadily and the sunshine soon melted the skim ice that formed over

night.



By this time Bruce had a fresh worry. It kept him awake hour after hour

at night. The mercury was not looking right where it showed behind the

riffles. It was too lively. There was something in it, of course, but

not enough to thicken it as he had hoped. He could see the flakes of

gold sticking to it as though it had been sprinkled with Nepaul pepper

but the activity of it where it showed in quantity alarmed him more than

he would confess to himself.



The change of weather came in the night. That day he started to

clean-up. A chill wind was blowing from the east and the sky was dark

with drab, low-hanging clouds when Bruce put on his hip-boots and began

to take up riffles. A thin sheet of water flowed through the boxes, just

sufficient to keep the sand and gravel moving down as he took up the

riffles one at a time and recovered the mercury each had contained.



Bruce's feet and fingers grew numb working in the icy water with a

scrubbing brush and a small scoop but they were no colder than the cold

hand of Premonition that lay heavy upon him.



Behind the riffles at the top of the first box the mercury was

amalgam--all that he could have wished for--beyond that point it

suddenly stopped and all that he recovered as he worked down looked to

be as active as when he had poured it from the flask.



What was wrong? He asked himself every conceivable question as he worked

with aching hands and feet. Had he given the boxes too much grade? Had

he washed too fast--crowded the dirt so that it had not had time to

settle? Was it possible that after all the gold was too light and fine

to save in paying quantities?



Hope died hard and he tried to make himself believe that the lower boxes

and the tables had caught it--that there was more in the mercury than

there looked. But the tension as he took up riffle after rime with the

one result was like watching a long-drawn-out race with all one's

possessions staked on the losing horse.



He took up riffles until it was a physical impossibility to work longer

in the numbing water, his fingers could not hold the scoop. Then he went

to the pump-house and told Banule to telephone Smaltz to shut down.



"He wants to know if you'll be pumpin' again?"



"Yes, after awhile. Tell him to stay there. I'm going to squeeze out the

'quick' I've taken up, but I want to get as near finished to-day as I

can. You come and help me."



As Bruce walked back to the sluice-boxes with bowed head he was thinking

that the day was well suited to the ending of his roseate dreams.

Failure is dull, drab, colorless, and in his heart he had little doubt

that for some reason still to be explained, he had failed. Just how

badly remained to be seen.



Bruce had scooped the mercury into a clean granite kettle and now,

while he held the four corners of a square of chamois skin, Banule

poured mercury from the kettle into the centre of the skin until told to

stop.



"Looks like you ought to get several hundred dollars out of that,"

Banule said hopefully as Bruce gathered the four corners, twisted them

and began to squeeze.



"Yes, looks like I ought to," Bruce replied ironically.



The quicksilver came through the pores of the skin in a shower of

shining globules.



Banule's expression of lively interest in the process was gradually

replaced by one of bewilderment as with every twist the contents kept

squeezing through until it looked as though there would be no residue

left. It was a shock even to Bruce, who was prepared for it, when he

spread the chamois skin on a rock and looked at the ball of amalgam

which it contained.



Banule stared at it, open-mouthed.



"What's the matter? Where's it gone? And out of all that dirt!"



Bruce shook his head; his voice was barely audible:



"I don't know." The sagging clouds were not heavier than his heart--"I

wish I did."



Banule stood a moment in silent sympathy.



"Guess you won't work any more to-day," he suggested.



"Yes; tell Smaltz to start," Bruce answered dully.



"I've got to save the mercury anyhow."



Banule lingered.



"Say," he hesitated--obviously he found the confession embarrassing or

else he hated to lay the final straw upon the camel's back--"just

before you told me to shut down, the motor on the small pump started

sparkin' pretty bad."



"Yes?" Bruce knew that if Banule admitted it was "pretty bad" it was bad

indeed.



"I'll look it over if we can stop awhile."



Bruce shook his head.



"There's not an hour to lose. It's going to storm; I must get done."



"I 'spose we can start." Banule looked dubious. "I'll try it, but I

think we'll have to quit."



Was there anything more that could happen? Bruce asked himself in dumb

misery as he picked up his scoop and brush and mechanically went to work

when the pumps started and the water came.



His feet and hands were soon like ice but he was scarcely conscious of

the pain for his heart-ache was so much greater. As he pursued the

elusive quicksilver and worked the sand and gravel to the end of the box

all he could see was the stack of receipted bills which the work and

plant had cost, in shocking contrast to that tiny ball of amalgam lying

in the chamois-skin on the rock. He had spent all of $40,000 and he

doubted if he would take $20 from the entire clean-up as it now looked.



How could he break the news to Helen Dunbar? Where would he find the

courage to tell the unfriendly stockholders the exact truth? It was a

foregone conclusion that they would consider him a fakir and a crook.



It had to be done. As, in his imagination, he faced the ordeal he

unconsciously straightened up.



"Burt! Burt! come quick!" Banule was waving his arms frantically from

the platform of the pump-house. There was desperation in his cry for

help. He dashed back inside as soon as he saw Bruce jump out of the

sluice-box. Before Bruce reached the pump-house he heard Banule ringing

the telephone violently, and his frenzied shout:



"Shut down, Smaltz! Shut down! Where are you? Can't you hear? For God's

sake shut down, everything's burnin' up!"



He was ringing as though he would have torn the box loose from the wall

when Bruce reached the pump-house door. Bruce turned sick when he heard

the crackling of the burning motors and saw the electric flames.



"Somethin's happened in the power-house! I can't ring him! He must have

got a shock! Until I know what's wrong, I don't dare shut down for fear

I'll burn everything out up there!"



"Keep her going!" Bruce bounded through the door and dropped from the

platform. Then he threw off his hat as he always did when excited, and

ran. And how he ran! With his fists clenched and his arms tight against

his sides he ran as though the hip-boots were the seven-league boots of

fable.



In the stretch of deep sand he had to cross the weight was killing. The

drag of the heavy boots seemed to pull his legs from their sockets but

he did not slacken his pace. His breath was coming in gasps when he

started up the steep trail which led from the sand over a high

promontory. He clutched at bushes, rocks, anything to pull himself up

and the pounding of his heart sounded to him like the chug of a

steamboat, before he reached the top.



The veins and arteries in his forehead and neck seemed bursting, as did

his over-taxed lungs, when he started stumbling and sliding down the

other side. It was not the distance he had covered which had so winded

him, nor even the terrific pace, but the dragging weight of the

hip-boots. They felt as though they were soled with lead.



He imagined that he had crawled but as a matter of fact the distance

would never be covered in the same space of time again.



The perspiration was trickling from his hair and through his thick

eyebrows when he reached the boat landing where ordinarily they crossed.

He brushed it out of his eyes with the back of his sleeve and stared at

the place where usually the boat rode. It was gone! Smaltz had taken it

instead of the overhead tram in which he always crossed.



There was no time to speculate as to Smaltz's reason. He kept on running

along the river until he came to the steps of the platform where the

heavy iron cage, suspended from a cable, was tied to a tree. Bruce

bounded up the steps two at a time and loosened the rope. It was not

until then that he saw that the chain and sprocket, which made the

crossing easy, were missing. This, too, was strange. There was no time

for speculation. Could he cross in it hand over hand? For answer he put

his knee on the edge and kicked off.



The impetus sent it well over the river. Then it struck the slack in the

cable and slowed up. Bruce set his teeth and went at it hand over hand.

The test came when it started up grade. No ordinary man could have

budged it and Bruce pulled to the very last ounce of his strength. He

moved it only an inch at a time--slipping back two inches frequently

when he changed hands.



If he lost the grip of both hands for a single second and slid back to

the middle of the slack he realized that he was too near exhausted to

pull up again, so, somehow, he hung on, making inarticulate sounds as he

exerted superhuman strength, groaning like an animal loaded beyond its

limit. If only he could last!



When he reached the platform on the other side he was just able to throw

an arm around the tree and crawl out while the ponderous iron cage

squeaking on the rusty cable rolled back to the middle of the river,

where it swung to and fro.



Bruce gathered himself and tried to run. His legs refused to obey his

will and he had to fall back to a walk. He hung over from the waist like

a bent old man, his arms swinging limply at his sides.



He knew from the small amount of water going over the spillway that the

machinery was still running and as he drew nearer to the power-house he

could hear the hiss of the 200-feet head as it hit the wheel.



He dreaded entering for fear of what he should see. He had little doubt

but that Smaltz was dead--electrocuted--roasted. He expected the

sickening odor of burning flesh. He had been so long in getting

there--but he had done his best--the power must be shut off first--he

must get to the lever--if only he could run. His thoughts were

incoherent--disconnected, but all of Smaltz. Smaltz had been loyal;

Smaltz never had shirked; but he never had shown Smaltz the slightest

evidence of friendship because of his unconquerable dislike.



Bruce was reproaching himself as he stepped up on the wooden casing

which covered the pipes and nozzles inside the power-house. There he

stopped and stood quite motionless, looking at Smaltz. Smaltz's face

wore a look of keenest interest, as with one shoulder braced against the

side of the building, his hands in his pockets, he watched the plant

burn up.



Down below, Banule had thrown out the switch and the machinery was

running away. A rim of fire encircled the commutators. The cold, blue

flame of electrical energy was shooting its jagged flashes from every

piece of magnetic metal it could reach, while the crackling of the

short-circuited wires was like the continuous, rattling reports of a

rapid-fire gun.



There was something terrifying in the sight of the racing machinery,

something awe-inspiring in the spectacle of a great power gone mad. The

wind from the round blur that represented the fly-wheel was a gale and

in the semi-dusk,--Smaltz had closed the double-doors--the leaping

flames and the screech of the red-hot bearings made the place an

Inferno.



For a moment the amazing, unexpected sight deprived Bruce of the power

to move. Then he jumped for the lever and shut down. It was not until

the machinery responded that Smaltz turned. His yellow-brown eyes

widened until they looked round. He had not counted on anyone's being

able to cross the river for fully half an hour.



If Smaltz had been the villain of fiction, he would have been a coward

as well. But Smaltz was not a coward. It is true he was startled--so

startled that his skin turned a curious yellow-green like a half-ripe

pear--but he was not afraid. He knew that he was "in for it." He knew

that something was going to happen, and quick. That Bruce was sitting on

the wooden casing quietly pulling off his heavy boots did not deceive

him in the least.



It was as still as the tomb in the power-house when Bruce stood up and

walked toward Smaltz. Grimy streaks of perspiration showed on his

colorless face, from which every drop of blood seemed to have fled, and

his black eyes, that shone always with the soft brilliancy of a warm,

impulsive nature and an imaginative mind, were glittering and

purposeful.



Smaltz stood his ground as Bruce advanced.



"Why didn't you answer that telephone, Smaltz?"



In feigned surprise Smaltz glanced at the box.



"I declare--the receiver's dropped off the hook!"



Bruce ignored the answer; he did not even look, but stepped closer.



"Why didn't you shut down?"



Smaltz summoned his impudent grin, but it wavered and faded under

Bruce's burning eyes even while he replied in a tone of injured

innocence--



"How should I know? The bell didn't ring--Banule hadn't told me to."



Bruce paid no attention to the foolish excuse. He demanded again:



"Why didn't you shut down, Smaltz?"



"I've told you once," was the sullen answer.



Bruce turned to the telephone and rang the bell hard.



"Hello--hello--hello!" came the frantic reply.



"Can you swim, Banule?"



"Yes."



"Then take it where the cable crosses the river. Come quick." He put the

receiver back on its hook and stepped to the lever. Smaltz's eyes opened

wide as Bruce shoved it hard. He stared as though he thought Bruce had

gone out of his mind. Then the dynamos began to pick up.



"What you goin' to do?" he shouted above the screech of the belting and

the hot bearings.



"You're going to tell the truth!" The last vestige of Bruce's

self-control vanished. His voice, which had been nearly a whisper, was

like the sudden roar of a deep-hurt bear. His dark face was distorted to

ugliness with rage. He rushed Smaltz--with his head down--and Smaltz

staggered with the shock. Then they grappled and went down. Once more it

was pandemonium in the power-house with the screeching of the red hot

bearings and the glare of the crackling blue flames that meant the final

and complete destruction of the plant. Over and over the grimy,

grease-soaked floor of the power-house they rolled and fought. Brutally,

in utter savagery, Bruce ground Smaltz's face into the rough planks

littered with nails and sharp-copper filings, whenever he

could--dragging him, shoving him, working him each second a little

closer to the machinery with the frenzy of haste. He had not yet

recovered from his run but Smaltz was no match for his great strength.



A glimmer of Bruce's purpose came to Smaltz at last.



"What--you tryin'--to do?" he panted.



Bruce panted back:



"I'm going to kill you! Do you hear?" His eyes were bloodshot, more than

ever he looked like some battle-crazed grizzly seeing his victim through

a blur or rage and pain. "If I can--throw you--across those

commutators--before the fireworks stop--I'm goin' to give you fifteen

hundred volts!"



A wild fright came in Smaltz's eyes.



"Let me up!" he begged.



For answer Bruce shoved him closer to the dynamo. He fought with fresh

desperation.



"Don't do that, Burt! My God--Don't do that!"



"Then talk--talk! She's going fast. You've got to tell the truth before

she stops! Why did you burn out this plant?"



Smaltz would not answer. Bruce lifted him bodily from the floor. In the

struggle he threw out a hand to save himself and his finger touched the

spring that held the carbons. He screamed with the shock, but the blue

flashes were close to his face blinding him before he suddenly relaxed:



"I'm all in. I'll tell."



Bruce let him drop back hard upon the floor and thrust a knee into his

chest.



"Goon, then--talk!"



The words came with an effort; he seemed afraid of their effect upon

Bruce, then, uncertainly:



"I--was paid."



For the fraction of a second Bruce stared into Smaltz's scared face.

"You were paid," he repeated slowly. "Who--" and then the word came

rapier-like as had the thought--"Sprudell!"



"He told me to see that you didn't start. He left the rest to me." With

sullen satisfaction: "And it's cost him plenty--you bet--"



Inexplicable things suddenly grew clear to Bruce.



"You turned the boat loose in Meadows--"



"Yes."



"You wrecked it on that rock--"



"Yes."



"You fouled the mercury in the boxes?"



"Yes."



"And Toy!" The look of murder came back into Bruce's face, his hand

crept toward Smaltz's throat. "Don't lie! What did you do to Toy?"



Smaltz whispered--he could barely speak--"I'm tellin' the truth--it was

an accident. He jumped me--I threw him off and he fell in the

sluice-box--backward--I tried to save him--I did--that's straight."

Smaltz kept rolling his head back and forth in an oil-soaked spot where

a grease cup leaked. Bruce's knee was grinding into his ribs and chest

and his fingers were tightening on his throat.



Bruce raised himself a little and looked down at Smaltz. As he stared at

the smudged, bleeding face and into the yellow-brown eyes with their

dilated pupils, the rage in his own gave place to a kind of intense

curiosity, the scrutiny one gives to a repulsive and venomous insect or

reptile he has captured. He was trying to impress upon his own mind the

incredible fact that this human being, lying helpless beneath him,

watching him with questioning fear, had ruined him without the least

personal malice--had robbed him of all he had strained, and worked, and

fought for, for pay! It seemed like a preposterous, illogical dream; yet

there he lay, alive, real, his face less than two feet from his own.



Finally, Bruce took his knee from his chest and got up. Smaltz pulled

himself to his feet and stood uncertainly.



"Well--I suppose it's jail." There was sullen resignation in his voice.



Bruce stopped the machinery without answering. Then he folded his arms

and leaned his broad shoulders against the rough boards of the

power-house while, eying Smaltz, he considered. A year ago he would have

killed him--he would have killed him begging on his knees, but taking a

human life either makes a man callous or sobers him and the remorse

which had followed the tragedy in the cabin was a sensation Bruce never

wanted to experience again.



Penitentiaries were made for men like Smaltz--but in a country of long

and difficult distances, with the lax courts and laws indifferently

enforced, to put Smaltz where he belonged was not so simple as it might

sound. It required time and money; Bruce had neither to spare.



It was so still in the power-house that the ticking of the dollar watch

hanging on a nail sounded like a clock. Smaltz shifted feet nervously.

At last Bruce walked to the work-bench and took a carpenter's pencil

from a box and sharpened it. He smoothed out some wrapping paper then

motioned Smaltz to sit down.



"I want you to write what you told me--exactly--word for word. Write it

in duplicate and sign your name."



Consternation overspread Smaltz's face. A verbal confession to save

himself from being electrocuted was one thing, to put it in black and

white was quite another. He hesitated. Bruce saw the mutiny in his face;

also the quick, involuntary glance he gave toward a monkey-wrench which

lay on the end of the work-bench within his reach.



Rage burned up in Bruce again.



"Don't you know when you've got enough?" He stepped forward and removed

the heavy wrench from Smaltz's reach. "I'll give you just one minute by

the watch there to make up your mind. You'd better write, for you won't

be able when I'm through!"



They measured each other, eye to eye again. Each could hear the

breathing of the other in the silence while the watch ticked off the

seconds. An over-sanguine pack-rat tried to scramble up the tar-paper

covering on the outside and squeaked as he fell back with a thud, but

the face of neither man relaxed. Smaltz took the full limit of the time.

He saw Bruce's fingers work, then clinch. Suddenly he grinned--a

sheepish, unresentful grin.



"I guess you're the best man," He slouched to the bench and sat down.



He was still writing when Banule came, breathing hard and still dripping

from his frigid swim. He stopped short and his jaw dropped at seeing

Smaltz. He was obviously disappointed at finding him alive.



Smaltz handed Bruce the paper when he had finished and signed his name.

Neither the writing or composition was that of an illiterate man. Bruce

read it carefully and handed it to Banule:



"Read this and witness it."



Banule did as he was told, for once, apparently, too dumfounded for

comment.



"Now copy it," said Bruce, and Smaltz obeyed.



When this was done, signed and witnessed Smaltz looked up

inquiringly--his expression said--"What next?"



Bruce stepped to the double doors and slid the bolt.



"There's your trail--now hit it!" He motioned into the wilderness as

he threw the doors wide.



Incredulity, amazement, appeared on Smaltz's face.



In the instant that he stood staring a vein swelled on Bruce's temple

and in a spasm of fury he cried:



"Go, I tell you! Go while I can keep my hands off you--you--" he

finished with an oath.



Smaltz went. He snatched his coat from its nail as he passed but did not

stop for his hat. It was not until he reached the slab which served as a

bridge over the water from the spillway that he recovered anything of

his impudent nonchalance. He was in the centre of it when he heard

Banule say:



"If it ud be me I'd a put a lash rope round his neck and drug him up

that hill to jail."



Smaltz wheeled and came back a step.



"Oh, you would, would you? Say, you fakir, I'm glad you spoke. I almost

forgot you." There was sneering, utter contempt in Smaltz's voice.

"Fakir," he reiterated, "you get that, do you, for I'm pickin' my

words and not callin' names by chance. You're the worst that ever come

off the Pacific coast--and that's goin' some."



He turned sharply to Bruce.



"You know even a liar sometimes tells the truth and I'm goin' to give it

to you straight now. I've nothin' to win or lose. This machinery never

will run. The plant was a failure before it was put up. And," he nodded

contemptuously at Banule, "nobody knew it better than that dub."



"Jennings," he went on "advised this old-fashioned type of machinery

because it was the only kind he understood and he wanted the job of

putting it up, honestly believin' at the time that he could. When he

realized that he couldn't, he sent for Banule to pull him through.



"Jennings failed because of his ignorance but this feller knows, and

whatever he's done he has done knowin' that his work couldn't by any

chance last. All he's thought of was gettin' the plant up somehow so it

would run temporarily--any old way to get through--get his money, and

get out. He's experimented continually at your expense; he's bungled the

job from beginning to end with his carelessness--his 'good enough' work.



"You were queered from the start with them armatures he wound back there

on the Coast. He and Jennings took an old fifty horse-power motor and

tried to wind it for seventy-five. There wasn't room for the copper so

they hammered in the coils. They ruptured the insulation in the armature

and that's why it's always short-circuited and sparked. He rated it at

seventy-five and it's never registered but fifty at its best. He rated

the small motor at fifty and it developed thirty--no more. The blue

print calls for 1500 revolutions on the big pump and the speed indicator

shows 900. Even if the motors were all right, the vibration from that

bum foundation that he told you was 'good enough' would throw them out,

in time.



"All through he's lied and bluffed, and faked. He has yet to put up his

first successful plant. Look up his record if you think it ain't the

truth. What's happened here is only a repetition of what's happened

everywhere he's ever been. It would be a fortune if 'twas figured what

his carelessness has cost the men for whom he's worked.



"In the eyes of the law I'm guilty of wreckin' this plant but in fact I

only put on the finishin' touches. I've shortened your misery, Burt,

I've saved you money, for otherwise you'd have gone tryin' to tinker it

up. Don't do it. Take it from me it isn't worth it. From start to finish

you've been stung."



He turned mockingly to Banule:



"As we know, Alphy, generally there's a kind of honor among crooks that

keeps us from squeakin' on each other, but that little speech of yourn

about takin' a turn of a las' rope round my neck kind of put me on the

prod. That virtuous pose of yours sort of set my teeth on edge, knowin'

what I do, and I ain't told half of what I could if I had the time.

However, Alphy," he shot a look at Bruce's face, "if you'll take the

advice of a gent what feels as though a log had rolled over him, you'll

sift along without puttin' up any holler about your pay."