Word was spread through the for a mass-meeting this evening to listen to a speech by Horace Greeley; but of far more importance, in Terry's mind, was the news that his father and mother and the Stantons were on the Pike's Peak trail! Yes, sir; coming! They must have cut loose sooner than expected. But when would they arrive at Cherry ?
Mr. Richardson had not said; still, he had said that they were well equipped and were "pushing right along." They could not have arrived yet, of course; the Greeley stage had got in only two or three days ago, and the stage coaches traveled mostly at a and fast so as to cover fifty miles a day, including stops for dinner and sleep. The best teams could cover only twenty miles a day. Anyway, they were coming, and he was wild to tell —and Shep.
So as soon as he might knock off work on the Casey claim he to the cabin, and unloaded the news.
He and Harry united in a war dance. Shep barked. "That," quoth Harry, when they had quieted down again, "is a joke on us." He rubbed his long nose and surveyed Terry quizzically. "Which of us will wear the clean shirt, to receive them in?"
"Dunno," grinned Terry. "But if they don't get here pretty quick there won't be any extra shirt. And one of your boots is gone, already!"
"I know it," admitted Harry. "I'll have to make moccasins. But we can't get clothes till we pay our debt."
"No, sir!" agreed Terry. "We'll have to get that hundred dollars ahead, first." For upon this they were .
"We sure will," confirmed Harry. "We wrote that we were rich with a gold mine, and told your father the hundred dollars would be waiting here for him, and a lot more besides! Huh!"
"They think we're rolling in wealth," asserted Terry. "Now they'll laugh."
"No, I don't believe they'll laugh," said Harry. "We did make a long , though. But chances are they didn't get that letter before they started. We'll write them, to Denver, and just say we're doing well. Then they'll know where we are."
"George'll laugh," insisted Terry. "He'll laugh when he finds you're cooking pies and I'm working by the day for Pat Casey! I told him I'd have a claim ready for him, so he could start in digging."
"Ha, ha!" cheered Harry. "Well, we've got the claims, haven't we? And he can dig all he wants to. We're doing the best we can. You're earning a dollar and a half a day, and I'm the champion cook of the diggin's—I sold three pies and a of biscuits today, all for dust."
"How much've we got in our oyster-can, I wonder?"
"Quite a lot, after you've been paid off," Harry, cheerfully. "But trouble is, flour and apples and and salt cost so plaguey much—and we have to eat, ourselves. So that means coffee and meat and—pshaw! But not a stitch of clothes do we buy, mind you, till we're square with Father Richards."
"Don't believe Dad'll need the hundred dollars," declared Terry.
"Maybe he will and maybe he won't," answered Harry. "But we let on we had a , and now we've got to make good. That's the joke."
"Shucks!" Terry. "We can't go down to Denver or Auraria in these rigs, to meet real folks. We look like—like—I don't know what. Your pants are split clear across the knee."
"No worse split than yours," retorted Harry. "And my best boot is better than your best one!"
"We'll have to stay out of sight in the mountains," asserted Terry, "till we get enough dust to buy clothes with."
"Well," said Harry, "here's where we belong. We're all right for Gregory Gulch—and we don't know when to meet the folks, anyway. By the time they turn up we may have our can heaping full from my pies and your wages, or we may be regularly out the gold from the Golden Prize and the True Blue, and go down to Denver in time to put on broadcloth and brand new boots!"
"If we only had water," sighed Terry.
"That's the one thing that keeps us from being millionaires," sighed Harry. "And it's one thing or another with most people—or else we'd all be millionaires. Counting up beforehand is the easiest part of getting rich."
"Just the same, I know this much," Terry. "Some day all of a sudden George Stanton will come straight into this gulch, with his pick and spade, looking for the gold that he'll say we promised him."
"Then we'll put him to work baking, or digging with you and Pat," laughed Harry.
The mass meeting that evening to hear Horace Greeley speak was a great affair. Everybody went—that is, everybody who wanted to. Clothes did not matter. At least 2,000 people gathered, and they wore all kinds of , from buckskin to rags. They stood about, or sat upon the ground and and logs; and Mr. Greeley, in a long whitish coat, addressed them, after having been given three cheers.
He said that his day's trip through the diggin's had convinced him that this was a gold region as rich as California, and now he was of the opinion that a new State should be formed. He urged the miners to work hard and faithfully, and not drink or gamble. It was work instead of and running about that would make them successful. He hoped that they all would live honest, upright lives, just as though their home folks were with them; and if anybody would not so live, he should be placed upon a horse or and told to ride and not come back. He said that one purpose in his visiting the Pike's Peak country was to find out the truth regarding the mines; but that another purpose was to cross the continent and get information that would hasten the building of a railway—the Pacific Railway, to extend from the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean!
Hooray for Horace Greeley! And again hooray!
Mr. Richardson , and so did Mr. Williams, the Pike's Peak Express Co. , and others. They all were cheered, also.
"It's funny we don't see Sol Judy anywhere, isn't it?" remarked Terry, as after another rousing round of cheers for the visitors, and the Gregory Diggin's, and a new State of Jefferson, the meeting broke up. "I thought we might 'spy him in that crowd."
"So did I," admitted Harry. "But he'll turn up again. He always does."
The Horace Greeley party spent the next day in the diggin's, and then went back to Denver. It was understood that they had to make a favorable report to their papers, saying that there was plenty of gold to be found by those who knew how to find it; but that people who were doing well in business and on their farms in the East ought to stay there instead of starting off on a wild-goose chase.
"That's right," supported Harry. "Only about one person in ten in this very gulch is making any money mining. The rest of us are just living and hoping."
He continued his cooking, and Terry continued to work for Pat. That was hard work, too—all day in the muddy soil, digging, and dumping the heavy spadesful into the , and stirring, and running along to follow the dirt down, and once or twice each day cleaning up the . But Harry had no easy job, either. Fire wood was getting scarcer and needs must be carried farther—and the stove burned a terrible amount. And water must be carried up by the bucket. And Jenny must be attended to, so that she should have water and grazing. And the washing done. And the meals got, the same as ever. And there was the worry over obtaining a supply of flour and dried apples—especially the dried apples, for the pies.
The pies contracted for by Pat were the chief source of income in the cooking line, although occasionally Harry did sell a pie or some bread to other customers. But more women were arriving in the gulch, and they, too, did cooking.
The oyster-can grew heavier only very slowly. What with the high prices of flour and apples and other stuff, and what with the amount of provisions they ate themselves, there really was not so much profit in cooking, after all.
But toward the last week of June Harry calculated that the dust in the oyster-can was approaching the $100 sum. And now they both began to wonder again when the folks and the Stantons would appear.
Then the not unexpected occurred.
Terry was deep down in Pat's pit and lustily, and was already mud and dirt from crown to soles, when from above somebody hailed him. George Stanton, of course! Not only George, but Virgie, too. They were peering in, George afoot and Virgie from the back of the Indian that ............