第30章

Rising abruptly above the zinc village, lay the first of the five great hills, with its open front cut into great terraces, on which the men clung like flies on the side of a wall, some of them in groups around an opening, or in couples pounding a steel bar that a fellow-workman turned in his bare hands, while others gathered about the panting steam-drills that shook the solid rock with fierce, short blows, and hid the men about them in a throbbing curtain of steam.Self-important little dummy-engines, dragging long trains of ore-cars, rolled and rocked on the uneven surface of the ground, and swung around corners with warning screeches of their whistles.They could see, on peaks outlined against the sky, the signal-men waving their red flags, and then plunging down the mountain-side out of danger, as the earth rumbled and shook and vomited out a shower of stones and rubbish into the calm hot air.It was a spectacle of desperate activity and puzzling to the uninitiated, for it seemed to be scattered over an unlimited extent, with no head nor direction, and with each man, or each group of men, working alone, like rag-pickers on a heap of ashes.

After the first half-hour of curious interest Miss Langham admitted to herself that she was disappointed.She confessed she had hoped that Clay would explain the meaning of the mines to her, and act as her escort over the mountains which he was blowing into pieces.

But it was King, somewhat bored by the ceaseless noise and heat, and her brother, incoherently enthusiastic, who rode at her side, while Clay moved on in advance and seemed to have forgotten her existence.She watched him pointing up at the openings in the mountains and down at the ore-road, or stooping to pick up a piece of ore from the ground in cowboy fashion, without leaving his saddle, and pounding it on the pommel before he passed it to the others.And, again, he would stand for minutes at a time up to his boot-tops in the sliding waste, with his bridle rein over his arm and his thumbs in his belt, listening to what his lieutenants were saying, and glancing quickly from them to Mr.Langham to see if he were following the technicalities of their speech.All of the men who had welcomed the appearance of the women on their arrival with such obvious delight and with so much embarrassment seemed now as oblivious of their presence as Clay himself.

Miss Langham pushed her horse up into the group beside Hope, who had kept her pony close at Clay's side from the beginning; but she could not make out what it was they were saying, and no one seemed to think it necessary to explain.She caught Clay's eye at last and smiled brightly at him; but, after staring at her for fully a minute, until Kirkland had finished speaking, she heard him say, ``Yes, that's it exactly; in open-face workings there is no other way,'' and so showed her that he had not been even conscious of her presence.But a few minutes later she saw him look up at Hope, folding his arms across his chest tightly and shaking his head.``You see it was the only thing to do,'' she heard him say, as though he were defending some course of action, and as though Hope were one of those who must be convinced.``If we had cut the opening on the first level, there was the danger of the whole thing sinking in, so we had to begin to clear away at the top and work down.That's why I ordered the bucket-trolley.As it turned out, we saved money by it.''

Hope nodded her head slightly.``That's what I told father when Ted wrote us about it,'' she said; ``but you haven't done it at Mount Washington.''

``Oh, but it's like this, Miss--'' Kirkland replied, eagerly.

``It's because Washington is a solider foundation.We can cut openings all over it and they won't cave, but this hill is most all rubbish; it's the poorest stuff in the mines.''

Hope nodded her head again and crowded her pony on after the moving group, but her sister and King did not follow.King looked at her and smiled.``Hope is very enthusiastic,'' he said.``Where did she pick it up?''

``Oh, she and father used to go over it in his study last winter after Ted came down here,'' Miss Langham answered, with a touch of impatience in her tone.``Isn't there some place where we can go to get out of this heat?''

Weimer, the Consul, heard her and led her back to Kirkland's bungalow, that hung like an eagle's nest from a projecting cliff.

From its porch they could look down the valley over the greater part of the mines, and beyond to where the Caribbean Sea lay flashing in the heat.

``I saw very few Americans down there, Weimer,'' said King.``Ithought Clay had imported a lot of them.''

``About three hundred altogether, wild Irishmen and negroes,''

said the Consul; ``but we use the native soldiers chiefly.They can stand the climate better, and, besides,'' he added, ``they act as a reserve in case of trouble.They are Mendoza's men, and Clay is trying to win them away from him.''

``I don't understand,'' said King.

Weimer looked around him and waited until Kirkland's servant had deposited a tray full of bottles and glasses on a table near them, and had departed.``The talk is,'' he said, ``that Alvarez means to proclaim a dictatorship in his own favor before the spring elections.You've heard of that, haven't you?'' King shook his head.

``Oh, tell us about it,'' said Miss Langham; ``I should so like to be in plots and conspiracies.''