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The Cloud Computing Journey
Copyright © 2023 Packt Publishing
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted in any form or by any means, without
the prior written permission of the publisher, except
in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical
articles or reviews.
Every effort has been made in the preparation of this
book to ensure the accuracy of the information
presented. However, the information contained in
this book is sold without warranty, either express or
implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing or
its dealers and distributors, will be held liable for any
damages caused or alleged to have been caused
directly or indirectly by this book.
Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide
trademark information about all of the companies
and products mentioned in this book by the
appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt
Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this
information.
Group Product Manager: Niranjan Naikwadi
Publishing Product Manager: Surbhi Suman
Book Project Manager: Arul Viveaun S
Senior Editor: Aamir Ahmed and Nathanya Dias
Technical Editor: K Bimala Singha
Copy Editor: Safis Editing
Proofreader: Safis Editing
Indexer: Hemangini Bari
Production Designer: Aparna Bhagat
DevRel Marketing Coordinators: Namita Velgekar
and Nivedita Pandey
First published: December 2023
Production reference: 1071223
Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.
Grosvenor House
11 St Paul’s Square
Birmingham
B3 1RB, UK
ISBN 978-1-80512-228-9
www.packtpub.com
To my mother, Shashi Gupta, and the memory of
my father, Pritipal Gupta, for their sacrifices and
for exemplifying the power of determination. To
my sons, Yash and Darsh, who made me
understand true love.
 – Divit Gupta

Foreword
It is both an honor and a pleasure to contribute a
foreword to this remarkable technical book penned
by my esteemed colleague, Divit. Having had the
privilege of working alongside Divit during our tenure
at Oracle and being a guest on his insightful podcast
show, I can attest to the depth of his expertise, the
breadth of his vision, and the unwavering passion he
brings to the IT industry.
Divit’s unique ability to seamlessly integrate his
profound knowledge of the IT landscape with a keen
understanding of optimizing narratives for search
reflects his commitment to delivering excellence. This
book stands as a testament to his insatiable thirst for
data, experimentation, and the relentless pursuit of
knowledge – an endeavor that has undoubtedly
enriched the technological discourse.
Throughout our shared experiences, I have
witnessed Divit’s exceptional leadership qualities
firsthand. He not only possesses impressive technical
acumen but also embodies the attributes of a
visionary leader. Divit’s capacity to absorb diverse
ideas, coupled with his decisiveness in making bold
and strategic choices, sets him apart. In the complex
realm of Oracle, he serves as a results-oriented
architect, leading by example and demonstrating an
unparalleled dedication to overcoming challenges.
As you delve into the pages of this book, guided by
Divit’s expertise, I encourage you to absorb the
wealth of knowledge and insights he imparts. It is a
journey led by a seasoned professional who not only
understands the intricate nuances of our dynamic
industry but is also committed to sharing that
understanding for the benefit of all. May this book be
a beacon of enlightenment and inspiration for
technologists, architects, and enthusiasts alike.
Rohit Rahi
Vice president of Customer Success Services, Oracle
America

Contributors

About the author

Divit Gupta, a seasoned IT professional with 20
years of industry expertise, excels in driving strategic
architecture initiatives and providing leadership in
multi-pillar sales cycles. With a global impact, he
spearheads technical partnerships, defines team
vision, and champions new strategic endeavors.
As the host of popular podcasts such as Tech Talk
with Divit, Live Labs with Divit, and Cloud Bites with
Divit, he showcases technological initiatives and
leadership. In 2022–2023, he served as Oracle TV’s
correspondent for CloudWorld. A recognized expert,
Divit presented on Oracle database technology at
Oracle CloudWorld FY 2023.
His passion for knowledge sharing extends to
international conference talks, technical blogs, and
multiple books on emerging technologies. Divit has
been featured in several prominent newspapers and
technology magazines worldwide. Holding over 40
certifications from Microsoft, Oracle, AWS, and
Databricks, he remains at the forefront of
technology.
 I want to thank my friends and family who have
been close to me and supported me.

About the reviewers

Anushree Srivastava is a customer engineer at
Google USA. She is a data and analytics architect
with 15+ years of experience in designing and
implementing data-driven solutions for a wide range
of industries, including digital advertising,
transportation management, banking, life sciences,
insurance, and healthcare.
She has a proven track record of success in data
platform modernization, data integration, and cloud
analytics. She has expertise in Google Cloud
Platform, Informatica PowerCenter, Oracle, Teradata,
Salesforce.com, SAP HANA, BusinessObjects, and
OBIEE.
As well as the aforementioned, she is skilled in data
analysis, data modeling, and ETL development. She
is also experienced in managing and delivering
complex data projects on time and within budget.
Anushree is passionate about using data to solve
real-world problems and improve business outcomes.
She has strong interpersonal and communication
skills, with the ability to work effectively with both
technical and non-technical audiences.
Venkata Ravi Kumar Yenugula is an
Extraordinary Ability (EB1-A) Einstein Visa
recipient from the United States, an Oracle Certified
Master, a co-author, and a technical reviewer. He is
TOGAF-certified, has published 100+ technical
articles, and is an Oracle Open/cloud speaker (x3).
He is an IEEE Senior Member with 26+ years of
multinational leadership experience in the United
States, Seychelles, and India in Banking, Financial
Services, and Insurance (BFSI) verticals.
Venkata has co-authored four books – Oracle
Database Upgrade and Migration Methods; Oracle
High Availability, Disaster Recovery, and Cloud
Services; Oracle GoldenGate with MicroServices; and
Oracle Global Data Services for Mission-Critical
Systems
He was the technical reviewer of four books – Oracle
19c AutoUpgrade Best Practices, Oracle Autonomous
Database in Enterprise Architecture, End-to-End
Observability with Grafana, and Maximum Availability
Architecture (MAA) with Oracle GoldenGate
MicroServices in HUB Architecture.
He is an Oracle Certified Professional (OCP) in
Oracle 8i, 9i, 10g, 11g, 12c, and 19c, and he is also
an Oracle Certified Expert (OCE) in Oracle
GoldenGate, RAC, Performance Tuning, Oracle Cloud
Infrastructure, Terraform, and Oracle Engineered
Systems (Exadata, ZDLRA, and ODA), as well as
being Oracle Security- and Maximum Availability
Architecture (MAA)-certified.
He has published over 100 Oracle technology
articles, including on Oracle Technology Network
(OTN), in ORAWORLD Magazine, on UKOUG, in
OTech Magazine, and on Redgate. He has spoken
three times at Oracle Open World (OOW) in Las
Vegas/San Francisco, US.
Oracle Corporation has published his profile on their
OCM list and in their Spotlight on Success stories.
Table of Contents

Preface
Part 1: Fundamentals and
Components of the Cloud

Fundamentals of Cloud Architecture

Technical requirements
The history of cloud computing
Cloud computing today
Understanding cloud architecture
The benefits of cloud architecture
Cloud architecture best practices
The future of cloud architecture
Summary

Components of a Cloud
Infrastructure
Technical requirements
Essential cloud infrastructure
components
Physical data centers
Virtualization and hypervisors
Networking
Storage
Security
Management and orchestration
Monitoring and analytics
Disaster recovery and backup
Compliance and governance
Overview of virtualization and
containerization
Virtualization in cloud computing
Containerization in cloud computing
Benefits and use cases of virtualization
and containerization
Understanding the difference between
virtualization and containerization
Summary
Other documents randomly have
different content
“Sleep!” he muttered, “I couldn’t sleep if the salvation of the whole
human race hung upon it.” Then: “We’re simpletons, Harry; damned
tenderfoot simpletons! We never ought to have left that claim—both
of us at once. How do we know that there isn’t a land office nearer
than Leadville where it can be registered? How do we know we
won’t find claim jumpers in possession when we go back?”
“Nonsense! You know you are only borrowing trouble. What’s the
use?”
“It’s the suspense.... I can’t stand it, Harry! Go to bed if you feel like
it; I’m going back to the sampling works and see that quartz put
through the mill—see that they don’t work any shenanigan on us. I
believe they’re capable of it. That slant-eyed superintendent asked
too many questions about where the stuff came from to suit me. Go
on to bed. I’ll bring you the news in the morning.”
 V
The level rays of the morning sun were struggling in through a dusty
and begrimed bed-room window when Bromley awoke to find Philip
in the room; a Philip haggard and hollow-eyed for want of sleep, but
nevertheless fiercely, exultantly jubilant.
“Wake up!” he was shouting excitedly. “Wake up and yell your head
off! We’ve struck rich pay in that hole in the gulch!—do you hear
what I’m saying?—pay rock in the ‘Little Jean’!”
Bromley sat up in bed, hugging his knees.
“Let’s see where we left off,” he murmured, with a sleepy yawn. “I
was headed for bed, wasn’t I? And you were chasing back to the
assay shop to hang, draw, quarter and gibbet the outfit if it
shouldn’t give us a fair shake. I hope you didn’t find it necessary to
assassinate anybody?”
“Assassinate nothing!”—the news-bringer had stripped off coat and
shirt, and was making a violent assault upon the wash-stand in the
corner of the room. “Didn’t you hear what I said? We’ve struck it—
struck it big!” Then, punctuated by vigorous sluicings of cold water:
“The ‘Little Jean’s’ a thundering bonanza ... six separate assays ...
one hundred and sixty-two dollars to the ton is the lowest ... the
highest’s over two hundred. And it’s free-milling ore, at that! Harry,
we’re rich—heeled for life—or we are going to be if we haven’t lost
everything by acting like two of the most footless fools on God’s
green earth.”
“‘We have left undone those things which we ought to have done,
and we have done those things which we ought not to have done,
and there is no health in us,’” quoted the play-boy, thrusting his legs
out of bed and groping for his clothes. “For what particular sin do we
pray forgiveness?”
“For leaving that claim of ours out of doors with nobody to watch
it,”—this out of the mufflings of the towel. “It gives me a cold sweat
every time I think of what may have happened since we left; what
may be happening right now, for all we know!”
“What could happen?” Bromley queried. “It is our discovery, isn’t it?
And we have posted it and are here to record it and file on it
according to law.”
“Yes, but good Lord! Haven’t you been in these mountains long
enough to know that possession is nine points of the law where a
mining prospect is concerned? I knew it, but I took a chance
because I thought we had that country over across the range pretty
much to ourselves.”
“Well, haven’t we?”
“No; the woods are full of prospectors over there, so they told me at
the sampling works; we just didn’t happen to run across any of
them. Did you ever hear of a man named Drew?”
“You mean Stephen Drew, the man who bought the ‘Snow Bird’ for
five millions?”
“That’s the man. He happened to be down at the sampling works
this morning when our assays were handed out. I guess I made a
bleating idiot of myself when I saw what we had. Anyway, Mr. Drew
remembered meeting me in the railroad offices in Denver and he
congratulated me. One word brought on another. He asked me if we
wanted to sell the claim, and I told him no—that we were going
back to work it through the winter. He said that was the proper
thing, if we could stand the hardships; that if we did this and pulled
through, he’d talk business with us next spring on a partnership or a
lease.”
“Good—immitigably good!” chirruped Bromley. “And meanwhile?”
“Meanwhile, we take out our legal papers and get back to that gulch
as quick as the Lord will let us. Mr. Drew shook his head when I told
him how we had left things. He said we’d be lucky if we didn’t find a
bunch of mine jumpers in possession when we got back; that there
were plenty of thugs in the mountains who wouldn’t scruple to take
a chance, destroy our posted notice and stick up one of their own,
and then fight it out with us when we turned up, on a basis of might
making right. I mentioned our rights and the law, and he smiled and
said: ‘You are a long way from the nearest sheriff’s office over there,
and you know the old saying—that possession is nine points of the
law. Of course, you could beat them eventually, but the courts are
slow, and you would be kept out of your property for a long time.
Take my advice, and get back there as soon as you can.’ I told him
we’d go back right away and be there waiting for him next spring.”
“Oh, Lord!” Bromley groaned in mock dismay; “have we got to hit
that terrible trail again without taking even a couple of days to play
around in?”
“Hit it, and keep on hitting it day and night till we get there!” was
the mandatory decision. “If you are ready, let’s go and eat. There is
a lot to be done, and we are wasting precious time.”
It was at the finish of a hurried breakfast eaten in the comfortless
hotel dining-room that Bromley took it upon himself to revise the
programme of headlong haste.
“You may as well listen to reason, Phil,” he argued smoothly. “The
land office won’t be open until nine o’clock or after; and past that,
there is the shopping for the winter camping spell. You are fairly
dead on your feet for sleep; you look it, and you are it. You go back
to the room and sleep up for a few hours. I’ll take my turn now—do
all that needs to be done, and call you when we’re ready to pull our
freight.”
Philip shook his head in impatient protest. “I can keep going all right
for a while longer,” he asserted obstinately.
“Of course you can; but there is no need of it. We can’t hope to start
before noon, or maybe later; and it won’t take more than one of us
to go through the motions of making ready. You mog off to your
downy couch and let me take my turn at the grindstone. You’ve jolly
well and good had yours.”
“Well,” Philip yielded reluctantly. Then: “Late in the season as it is,
there will be a frantic rush for our valley as soon as the news of the
‘Little Jean’ discovery leaks out. Mr. Drew warned me of this, and he
cautioned me against talking too much here in Leadville; especially
against giving any hint of the locality. You’ll look out for that?”
Bromley laughed. “I’m deaf and dumb—an oyster—a clam. Where
can I find this Mr. Stephen Drew who is going to help us transmute
our hard rock into shiny twenty-dollar pieces next spring?”
Philip gave him Drew’s Leadville address, and then went to climb the
ladder-like stair to the room with the dirty window, where he flung
himself upon the unmade bed without stopping to undress, and fell
asleep almost in the act. When next he opened his eyes the room
was pitchy dark and Bromley was shaking him awake.
“What’s happened?” he gasped, as Bromley struck a match to light
the lamp; and then: “Good God, Harry!—have you let me waste a
whole day sleeping?”
“Even so,” was the cheerful reply. “I’ll tell you about it while you’re
sticking your face into a basin of cold water. To make it short—the
way you did this morning—the cat’s out of the bag. This whole town
knows that there has been a big gold strike made on the other side
of the range. What it hasn’t found out yet is who made the strike, or
where it is located. Mr. Drew put me on.”
“Good Lord!” Philip groaned. “And we’ve lost hours and hours!”
“They’re not lost; they’ve only gone before. Friend Drew is
responsible. He said, since the news had got out, we would better
wait until after dark to make our start, and then take the road as
quietly as we could; so I let you sleep. So far, as nearly as Mr. Drew
could find out, we haven’t been identified as the lucky discoverers.”
“That will follow, as sure as fate!” Philip predicted gloomily.
“Maybe not. While there’s life there’s hope. I’ve paid our bill here at
the hotel, and we’ll go to a restaurant for supper. Everything is done
that needed to be done; claim recorded, grub-stake bought, jacks
packed and ready to move, and a couple of tough little riding
broncos, the horses a loan from Mr. Drew, who pointed out, very
sensibly, that we’d save time and shoe-leather by riding in, to say
nothing of leg weariness. Drew has one of his hired men looking out
for us at the livery stable where the horses and jacks are put up,
and this man will give us a pointer if there is anything suspicious in
the wind. If you are ready, let’s go.”
As unobtrusively as possible they made their way down the steep
stair to pass out through the office-bar-room. As they entered the
smoky, malodorous public room Philip thought it a little odd that
there were no card players at the tables. A few of the evening
habitués were lined up at the bar, but most of them were gathered
in knots and groups about the rusty cast-iron stove in which a fire
had been lighted. With senses on the alert, Philip followed Bromley’s
lead. There was an air of palpitant excitement in the place, and, on
the short passage to the outer door, snatches of eager talk drifted to
Philip’s ears; enough to make it plain that the new gold strike was
responsible for the group gathering and the excitement.
“I’ll bet a hen worth fifty dollars that Hank Neighbors—that big cuss
leanin’ up ag’inst the bar—knows who struck it, and whereabouts it’s
located,” was one of the remarks that he overheard; and, glancing
back from the door, he saw the man to whom the reference was
made—a tall, loose-jointed man, with deep-set, gloomy eyes and a
curling brown beard that masked something more than half of his
face.
Upon leaving the hotel, Bromley led the way down Harrison Avenue
toward a restaurant not far from the stable where their outfit waited
for them. With the mining excitement now at its most populous
height, and the sidewalks filled with restless throngs of men, there
was curiously little street disorder; this though the saloons, dance-
halls and gaming rooms of a wide-open mining-camp city were
running full blast, their garishly lighted entrances lacking even the
customary slatted swing doors of concealment. For the greater part,
the crowds were good-natured and boisterously hilarious; and where
the not too infrequent drunken celebrator came weaving along, the
sidewalk jostlers gave him room, shouting such encouragements as
“Walk a chalk, old boy!” or “Go it while you’re young—when you’re
old you can’t!” One of the staggerers who bumped against Philip and
his partner was repeating monotonously: “’Rah for Jimmie Garfield—
canal boy, b’gosh—nexsht presh’dent!” an exotic injection of the
politics of a campaign year into an atmosphere as remote as that of
another planet from matters political or governmental.
In the side-street restaurant Philip chose a table in a corner and sat
with his back to the wall so that he could see the length and breadth
of the room. The hour was late, and the tables were no more than
half filled; but where there were groups of two or more, there was
eager talk.
“It’s here, too,” Philip commented in low tones, indicating the eager
and evidently excited groups at the other tables.
“It is everywhere, just as I told you. The town is sizzling with it.
When I was a little tad I used to sit goggle-eyed listening to the
tales of a cousin of ours who was one of the returned California
Forty-niners. I remember he said it was that way out there. A camp
would be booming along fine, with everybody happy and contented,
until word of a new strike blew in. Then the whole outfit would go
wild and make a frantic dash for the new diggings. It’s lucky nobody
has spotted us for the discoverers. We’d be mobbed.”
“I wish I could be sure we haven’t been spotted,” said Philip, a wave
of misgiving suddenly submerging him.
“I think we are safe enough, thus far,” Bromley put in, adding: “But
it was a mighty lucky thing that we came in after dark last night with
those sacks of samples. If it had been daytime——”
The Chinese waiter was bringing their order, and Bromley left the
subjunctive hanging in air. Philip sat back while the smiling Celestial
was arranging the table. As he did so, the street door opened and
closed and he had a prickling shock. The latest incomer was a tall
man with sunken eyes and a curly brown beard masking his face;
the man who had been leaning against the bar in the Harrison
Avenue hotel, and who had been named as Hank Neighbors.
“What is it—a ghost?” queried Bromley, after the Chinaman had
removed himself.
“It is either a raw coincidence—or trouble,” Philip returned. “A fellow
who was in the bar-room of the hotel as we passed through has just
come in. He is sitting at a table out there by the door and looking
the room over ... and trying to give the impression that he isn’t.”
“Do you think he has followed us?”
“It is either that or a coincidence; and I guess we needn’t look very
hard for coincidences at this stage of the game.”
“Don’t know who he is, do you?”
“No, but I know his name. It’s Neighbors. Just as we were leaving
the hotel, one of the bar-room crowd named him; pointed him out to
his fellow gossips as a man who probably knew who had made the
new gold strike, and where it is located.”
“Well,” Bromley began, “if there is only one of him——”
“If there is one, there will be more,” Philip predicted. Then, at a
sudden prompting of the primitive underman: “I wish to goodness
we had something more deadly than that old navy revolver we’ve
been lugging around all summer.”
Bromley’s smile was cherubic.
“As it happens, we are perfectly well prepared to back our judgment
—at Mr. Drew’s suggestion. Our arsenal now sports a couple of late
model Winchesters, with the ammunition and saddle holsters
therefor. I bought ’em and sneaked ’em down to the stable this
afternoon.”
Philip looked up with narrowed eyes. “Would you fight for this
chance of ours if we’re pushed to it, Harry?”
Bromley laughed.
“I’ll shoot any man’s sheep that’ll try to bite me. Have you ever
doubted it?”
“I didn’t know.”
“How about you?”
“I have never fired a rifle in my life; not at anything—much less at a
man. But if I had to——”
“I know,” said Bromley with a grin. “You’re a chip off the old Puritan
block. If the occasion should arise, you’d tell your New England
conscience to look the other way, take cold-blooded aim, pull trigger
and let the natural law of expanding gases take its course. But we
mustn’t be too blood-thirsty. If we are followed to-night it needn’t be
a foregone conclusion that the trailers are going to try to take our
mine away from us. It is much more likely they’ll be tagging along to
do a little hurry stake-driving of their own, after we’ve shown them
the place.”
Philip had drained his second cup of coffee. “If you are through?” he
said; and as they left the restaurant he shot a quick glance aside at
the man who either was, or was not, a coincidence. To all
appearances, suspicion had no peg to hang upon. The Neighbors
person was eating his supper quietly, and he did not look up as they
passed him on their way to the street.
At the stable they found Drew’s man; a young fellow who looked like
a horse-wrangler, and who dressed the part, even to a pair of
jingling Mexican spurs with preposterous rowels, and soft leather
boots with high heels.
“Everything lovely and the goose hangs high,” he told them; and as
they were leading the loaded jacks and the saddle animals out: “The
big boss said I was to ride herd on yuh till yuh got out o’ town. He
allowed it’d be safer if yuh didn’t go pee-radin’ down the Avenoo.”
In silence they followed their mounted guide through the lower part
of the town and so came, by a rather long and dodging detour, into
the rutted stage road at some distance beyond the last of the
houses. Here their pace-setter turned back and they went on alone.
It was a moonless night, but they had no trouble in following the
well-used road over the hills and down to the valley of the Arkansas.
At the river crossing, however, the difficulties began. Though hardly
more than a mountain creek at this short distance from its source,
the river still held hazards in places for a night crossing with loaded
pack animals, and it was some little time before they found the
shallows through which they had led the burros the previous
evening. Just as they reached and recognized the crossing place
they heard the sound of galloping hoofs, and Philip jerked his rifle
out of its saddle scabbard and began to fumble the breech
mechanism.
“Don’t shoot!” Bromley warned; and when the single horseman
closed up they saw that he was the guide who had piloted them out
of Leadville.
“Sashayed out to tell yuh there’s a bunch a-trailin’ yuh,” he
announced laconically. “Five of ’em, with Hank Neighbors headin’ the
procession. Must’ve got onto yuh, some way.”
“Did you see them?” Philip asked.
“Passed ’em as I was goin’ back, and circled round to get ahead of
’em.”
“What sort of a man is this Neighbors?”
“Minin’ man, is what he lets on to be.”
“Straight or crooked?”
“You can’t prove nothin’ by me. But if I was you-all, I’d try to make
out to lose him and his pardners in the shuffle somewheres betwixt
here and wherever it is you’re a-headin’ for. I shore would.”
“Have they horses?” Bromley inquired.
“Yep; and three jacks, packed same as yourn.”
“Then they can’t make any better time than we can,” Philip put in.
“That depends on how much time yuh make and how much yuh
lose. But that don’t make no difference. They can trail yuh, if yuh
don’t figger out some trick to throw ’em off.”
“Are they armed?” Philip asked.
The horse-wrangler chuckled at the tenderfoot naïveté of the
question.
“Folks don’t trail round much in this neck o’ woods without totin’
their artillery. Leastways, a hombre like Hank Neighbors don’t. Far as
that goes, you-all seem to be pretty well heeled yourselves.”
“We’ll try to hold up our end of the log,” Philip boasted. Then: “If
they’re chasing us, I guess we’d better be moving along. Much
obliged for your trouble—till you’re better paid. Get hold of that
canary’s halter, Harry, and we’ll pitch out.”
The river crossing was made in safety, and, to their great relief, they
had little difficulty in finding their way to the high basin. Since the
trail threaded a dry gulch for the greater part of the ascent, there
were only a few stretches where they had to dismount and lead the
horses, so not much time was lost. Nevertheless, it was past
midnight when they reached the easier travelling through the basin
toward the pass of the crusted snowdrifts. Riding abreast where the
trail permitted, they herded the jacks before them, pushing on at
speed where they could, and slowing up only in places where haste
threatened disaster.
“What’s your notion, Phil?” Bromley asked, when, in the dark hour
preceding the dawn, they found themselves at the foot of the
precipitous climb to the pass. “Don’t you think we’d better camp
down and wait for daylight before we tackle this hill?”
Philip’s reply was an emphatic negative. “We can make it; we’ve got
to make it,” he declared. “If those people are chasing us, they can’t
be very far behind, and if we stop here they’ll catch up with us. And
if we let them do that, we’d never be able to shake them off.”
“As you like,” Bromley yielded, and the precipitous ascent was
begun.
With anything less than tenderfoot inexperience for the driving
power, and the luck of the novice for a guardian angel, the perilous
climb over a trail that was all but invisible in the darkness would
never have been made without disaster. Convinced by the first half-
mile of zigzagging that two men could not hope to lead five animals
in a bunch over an ascending trail which was practically no trail at
all, they compromised with the necessities and covered the distance
to the summit of the pass twice; once to drag the reluctant broncos
to the top, and again to go through the same toilsome process with
the still more reluctant pack animals. It was a gruelling business in
the thin, lung-cutting air of the high altitude, with its freezing chill;
and when it was finished they were fain to cast themselves down
upon the rocky summit, gasping for breath and too nearly done in to
care whether the animals stood or strayed, and with Bromley
panting out, “Never again in this world for little Henry Wigglesworth!
There’ll be a railroad built over this assassinating mountain range
some fine day, and I’ll just wait for it.”
“Tough; but we made it,” was Philip’s comment. “We’re here for
sunrise.”
The assertion chimed accurately with the fact. The stars had already
disappeared from the eastern half of the sky, and the sharply
outlined summits of the distant Park Range were visible against the
rose-tinted background of the coming dawn. In the middle distance
the reaches of the great basin came slowly into view, and in the first
rays of the rising sun the ground over which they had stumbled in
the small hours of the night spread itself map-like below them. Far
down on the basin trail a straggling procession of creeping figures
revealed itself, the distance minimizing its progress so greatly that
the movement appeared to be no more than a snail’s pace.
“You see,” Philip scowled. “If we had camped at the foot of this hill it
would have been all over but the swearing.”
Bromley acquiesced with a nod. “You are right. What next?”
“We have our lead now and we must hold it at all costs—get well
down into the timber on the western slope before they can climb up
here. Are you good for more of the same?”
“A bit disfigured, but still in the ring,” said the play-boy, with his
cheerful smile twisting itself, for very weariness, into a teeth-baring
grin. Then, as the sunlight grew stronger, he made a binocular of his
curved hands and looked back over the basin distances. As he did
so, the twisted smile became a chuckling laugh. “Take another look
at that outfit on the trail, Phil,” he said. “It’s my guess that they have
a pair of field-glasses and have got a glimpse of us up here.”
Philip looked, and what he saw made him scramble to his feet and
shout at the patient jacks, lop-eared and dejected after their long
night march. The group on the distant trail was no longer a unit.
Three of the dots had detached themselves from the others and
were coming on ahead—at a pace which, even at the great distance,
defined itself as a fast gallop.
 VI
With the vanguard of the army of eager gold-hunters fairly in sight,
the two who were pursued cut the summit breathing halt short and
resumed their flight. Avoiding the sand-covered snowdrifts in which
they had come to grief on the journey out, they pushed on down the
western declivities at the best speed the boulder-strewn slopes and
craggy descents would permit, postponing the breakfast stop until
they reached a grassy glade well down in the foresting where the
animals could graze.
After a hasty meal made on what prepared food they could come at
easily in the packs, and without leaving the telltale ashes of a fire,
they pressed on again westward and by early afternoon were in the
mountain-girt valley of the stream which had been their guide out of
the western wilderness two days earlier. Again they made a cold
meal, watered and picketed the animals, and snatched a couple of
hours for rest and sleep. Scanting the rest halt to the bare necessity,
mid-afternoon found them once more advancing down the valley,
with Philip, to whom horseback riding was a new and rather painful
experience, leading his mount.
One by one, for as long as daylight lasted, the urgent miles were
pushed to the rear, and after the sun had gone behind the western
mountains they made elaborately cautious preparations for the
night. A small box canyon, well grassed, opened into the main valley
on their left, and in this they unsaddled the horses and relieved the
jacks of their packs and picketed the animals. Then, taking the
needed provisions from one of the packs, they crossed the river by
jumping from boulder to boulder in its bed, and made their camp fire
well out of sight in a hollow on the opposite bank; this so that there
might be no camp signs on the trail side of the stream. But in the
short pipe-smoking interval which they allowed themselves after
supper, Bromley laughed and said: “I guess there is a good bit of the
ostrich in human nature, after all, Philip. Here we’ve gone to all sorts
of pains to keep from leaving the remains of a camp fire in sight,
when we know perfectly well that we are leaving a plain trail behind
us for anybody who is even half a woodsman to follow. That’s a
joke!”
“Of course it is,” Philip agreed; and for a time before they
extinguished the fire and recrossed the river to roll up in their
blankets in the box canyon where the animals were grazing, they
discussed the pressing matter of trail effacement without reaching
any practical solution of the problem.
The next morning they were up and on their way in the earliest
dawn twilight. As yet, there were no signs of the pursuit. The
mountain silences were undisturbed save by the drumming thunder
of the swift little river and the soft sighing of the dawn precursor
breeze in the firs. Convinced that all the haste they were making
was clearly so much effort thrown away unless they could devise
some means of throwing their followers off the track, they resumed
the camp-fire discussion, falling back in the end, not upon
experience, which neither of them had, but upon the trapper-and-
Indian tales read in their boyhood. In these, running water was
always the hard-pressed white man’s salvation in his flight, and, like
the fleeing trapper, they had their stream fairly at hand. But the
mountain river, coursing along at torrent speed, and with its bed
thickly strewn with slippery boulders, was scarcely practicable as a
roadway; it was too hazardous even for the sure-footed broncos,
and entirely impossible for the loaded jacks.
Next, they thought of cutting up one of the pack tarpaulins and
muffling the hoofs of the animals with the pieces, but aside from the
time that would be wasted, this expedient seemed too childish to
merit serious consideration. In the end, however, chance, that sturdy
friend of the hard-pressed and the inexperienced, came to their
rescue. Some seven or eight miles beyond their night camp they
came upon a place where, for a half-mile or more, the left-hand
bank of the stream was a slope of slippery, broken shale; the tail of
a slide from the mountain side above. Bromley was the first to see
the hopeful possibilities.
“Wait a minute, Phil,” he called to his file leader; “don’t you
remember this slide, and how we cursed it when we had to tramp
through it coming out? I’ve captured an idea. I believe we can delay
this mob that’s chasing us, and maybe get rid of it for good and all.
Is the river fordable here, do you think?”
Philip’s answer was to ride his horse into the stream and half-way
across it. “We can make it,” he called back, “if we can keep the jacks
from being washed away.”
“We’ll take that for granted,” said Bromley. “But we don’t need to go
all the way across. Stay where you are, and I’ll herd the rest of the
caravan in and let it drink.”
This done, and a plain trail thus left leading into the water, Bromley
explained his captured idea. While they couldn’t hope to make a
roadway of the stream bed for any considerable distance, it was
quite possible to wade the animals far enough down-stream to
enable them to come out upon the shale slide. After they had been
allowed to drink their fill, the expedient was tried and it proved
unexpectedly successful. On the shale slide the hoof prints vanished
as soon as they were made, each step of horse or burro setting in
motion a tiny pebble slide that immediately filled the depression.
Looking back after they had gone a little distance they could see no
trace of their passing.
“This ought to keep the mob guessing for a little while,” Bromley
offered as they pushed on. “They’ll see our tracks going down into
the creek, and think we crossed over. They’ll probably take a tumble
to themselves after a while—after they fail to find any tracks on the
other side; but it will hold ’em for a bit, anyway. Now if we could
only scare up some way of hiding our tracks after we get beyond
this slide——”
Though the continuing expedient did not immediately suggest itself,
the good-natured god of chance was still with them. Before they
came upon ground where the tracks of the animals would again
become visible, they approached the mouth of one of the many side
gulches scarring the left-hand mountain, and in the gulch there was
a brawling mountain brook with a gravelly bottom.
“This looks as if it were made to order, don’t you think?” said Philip,
drawing rein at the gulch mouth. “If we turn up this gulch we can
walk the beasts in the water.”
“But that isn’t the way we want to go,” Bromley objected.
“I’m not so sure about that. The map shows our valley lying on the
other side of this southern mountain range. The route we took,
coming out, was along two sides of a triangle, following the streams
—which is the long way around. I’m wondering if we couldn’t cut
straight across and save a lot of time. We’ve climbed worse
mountains than this one looks to be. And there’s another thing: we
can take the water trail up this gulch for a starter, and the chances
are that we’d lose the hue and cry that’s following us—lose it
permanently. What do you say?”
“I’m good for a try at it, if you are,” was the prompt reply; and so,
without more ado, the route was changed.
For the first half-mile or so through the windings of the gulch they
were able to hide their tracks in the brook bed, but the farther they
went, the rougher the way became, until finally they had to drag the
horses and pack animals up out of the ravine and take to the
mountain slopes, zigzagging their way upward as best they could
through the primeval forest. Luckily, though there were craggy
steeps to be climbed with shortened breath, perilous slides to be
avoided, and canyon-like gulches to be headed at the price of long
detours, they encountered no impassable obstacles, and evening
found them far up in the forest blanketing of the higher slopes, with
still some little picking of grass for the stock and with plenty of dry
wood for the camp fire which they heaped high in the comforting
assurance that its blaze would not now betray them.
It was after they had cooked and eaten their first hearty meal of the
toilsome day, and had stretched themselves luxuriously before the
fire for the evening tobacco-burning, that Bromley said: “How about
it, Philip?—are you getting a bit used to the millionaire idea by this
time?”
Philip shook his head slowly.
“No, Harry; I can’t fully realize it yet. For a little while after I saw the
figures of those assays I thought I could. But now it seems more like
an opium dream. It doesn’t seem decently credible that after only a
short summer’s knocking about in these hills, two raw green-horns
like ourselves could stumble upon something that may change the
entire scheme of things for both of us for the remainder of our lives.
It’s fairly grotesque, when you come to think of it.”
“Well, I guess it isn’t a dream, at any rate. Mr. Drew gave me a good
bit of his time day before yesterday; went with me to the land office,
and afterward helped me in the horse market where I bought the
extra burro. He asked a lot of questions; about the width of the vein,
how far we had traced it, and how fair or unfair we’d been to
ourselves in picking the samples; and after I had answered him as
well as I could, he said, in effect, that we had the world by the neck,
or we would have, if the ‘Little Jean’ pans out anywhere near as
good as it promises to.”
Again Philip shook his head. “I’m not at all sure that I want to grab
the world by the neck, Harry. That doesn’t seem like much of an
ambition to me.”
“All right; say it doesn’t. What then?”
“Oh, I don’t know. If the miracle had happened a year or so ago ...
but it didn’t; so what’s the use?”
“Go on and turn it loose,” Bromley encouraged. “Set the clock back a
year or so and let us see what it strikes.”
“I had a few ideals then; modest ones, I guess you’d call them. I’d
had to break my college course in the third year—family matters. At
that time I wanted nothing so much as to go back and finish; and
perhaps have a try for a Ph.D. degree afterward.”
“And past that?”
“More of what you’d call the modesties, I guess: a teaching job in
some college back home, or something of that sort; a job in which
I’d have some leisure for reading, thinking my own thoughts, living
my own life.”
“No wife and kiddies in the picture?” Bromley asked, with his most
disarming smile.
“No; not then.”
The play-boy laughed softly. “No sentimental foolishness for the
austere young student and pedagogue, of course. But the ‘not then’
tells a different story. You’ve met the incomparable ‘her’ in your later
avatar?”
It was some measure of the distance he had come on the road to
freer human expression that Philip did not at once retreat into the
speechless reticences.
“Yes,” he said: “I’ve met a girl.”
“The ‘angel’ you spoke of, the night you fed a hungry hold-up?”
“Don’t get it wrong. She is not so angelic that she can’t be perfectly
human.”
“But didn’t you say you’d met her only twice?”
“I did; and the saying still holds true.”
“Bowled you over like a shot, did she? I’d never have believed it of
you, Philip.”
“You needn’t believe it now. There was no ‘bowling over’ about it. I
first met her on the train coming to Denver—with her family; sat
with her for part of an afternoon. She isn’t like any other girl I’ve
ever known.”
“And that is as far as you’ve gone? You are a cold-blooded fish,
Philip, dear. But we were talking about futures. I take it the teaching
job in a New England college doesn’t appeal to you now; or won’t if
our mine keeps its promise?”
“Honestly, Harry, I can’t see very far ahead. I’m not at all sure that I
want to go back and finish my college course. There is nothing truer
than the saying we have hurled at us all the time out here—that the
West lays hold of a man and refuses to let go; that you may be as
homesick as the devil, but you’ll never go home to stay. But this is
all dream stuff—this talk. We haven’t got the millions yet. Even if the
mine is as rich as it seems to be, we may find jumpers in possession,
and so many of them that we can’t get away with them.”
“That’s so. ‘There’s many a slip,’ as we read in the copy-books.”
For a time the high-mountain silence, a silence curiously bereft of
even the small insect shrillings of the lower altitudes, enveloped
them. The cheerful fire was beginning to fall into embers when Philip
began again.
“A while back, you thought the money fever was getting hold of me,
Harry, but I hope you were wrong. Of course, there are things I
want to do; one in particular that money would help me to do. It
was my main reason for heading west from New Hampshire a little
less than a year ago.”
“Is it something you can talk about?”
“I guess so—to you,” and, breaking masterfully through whatever
barrier of the reticences remained, he told the story of his father’s
disappearance, of the cloud which still shadowed the Trask name, of
his own unshakable belief in his father’s innocence, and, lastly, of his
determination to find the lost man and to clear the family name.
“You see how the money will help; how I couldn’t hope to do much
of anything without money and the use of my own time,” he said in
conclusion. Then, the ingrained habit of withdrawal slipping back
into its well-worn groove: “You won’t talk about this, Harry? You are
the only person this side of New Hampshire who knows anything
about it.”
“It is safe enough with me, Phil; you ought to know that, by this
time. And here is my shy at the thing: if it so happens that the ‘Little
Jean’ is only flirting with us—that we get only a loaf of bread where
we’re hoping to hog the whole bakery—you may have my share if
your own isn’t big enough to finance your job. I owe you a good bit
more than the ‘Little Jean’ will ever pan out on my side of the
partnership.”
“Oh, hell,” said Philip; and the expression was indicative of many
things not written down in the book of the Philip who, a few months
earlier, had found it difficult and boyishly embarrassing to meet a
strange young woman on the common ground of a chance train
acquaintanceship. Then, “If you’ve smoked your pipe out, we’d
better roll in. There is more of the hard work ahead of us for to-
morrow.”
But the next morning they found, upon breaking camp and emerging
from the forest at timber line, that the blessing of good luck was
with them still more abundantly. With a thousand and one chances
to miss it in their haphazard climb, they had come upon an easily
practicable pass over the range; and beyond the pass there was a
series of gentle descents leading them by the middle of the
afternoon into a valley which they quickly recognized as their own.
Pushing forward at the best speed that could be gotten out of the
loaded pack animals, they traversed the windings of the valley with
nerves on edge and muscles tensed, more than half expecting to
find a struggle for re-possession awaiting them in the treasure gulch.
At the last, when the more familiar landmarks began to appear,
Philip drew his rifle from its holster under his leg and rode on ahead
to reconnoitre, leaving Bromley to follow with the jacks. But in a few
minutes he came galloping back, waving his gun in the air and
shouting triumphantly.
“All safe, just as we left it!” he announced as he rode up. And then,
with a laugh that was the easing of many strains: “What a lot of
bridges we cross before we come to them! Here we’ve been
sweating blood for fear the claim had been jumped—or at least I
have—and I don’t suppose there has been a living soul within miles
of it since we left. Kick those canaries into action and let’s get along
and make camp on the good old stamping ground.”
 VII
The autumn days were growing perceptibly shorter when the
discoverers of the “Little Jean” lode began to make preparations to
be snowed in for the winter in the western mountain fastnesses. By
this time they had heard enough about the mountain winters to
know what they were facing. With the first heavy snowfall blocking
the passes they would be shut off from the world as completely as
shipwrecked mariners on a desert island. But hardships which are
still only anticipatory hold few terrors for the inexperienced; and
with the comforting figures of the assays to inspire them, they
thought more of the future spring and its promise than of the lonely
and toilsome winter which must intervene.
Since there was still sufficient grass in sheltered coves and forest
glades to feed the stock, they postponed the journey which one of
them would have to take to find winter quarters for the animals. The
delay was partly prudential. Though each added day of non-
interference was increasing their hope that their ruse at the shale
slide had been completely successful in throwing their pursuers off
the track, they had no reason to assume that the Neighbors party
would turn back without making an exhaustive search for the new
“rich diggings”; and Philip was cannily distrustful of the Neighbors
purpose.
“It may be just as you say: that they are merely hungry gold-
chasers, breaking their necks to be the earliest stake-drivers in a
new district; but then, again, they may not be,” was the way he
phrased it for the less apprehensive Bromley. “If they happen to be
the other sort—the lawless sort—well, with both of us here to stand
up for our rights, they’d be five to our two. We can’t afford to make
the odds five to one. I’d rather wait and take the horses and jacks
over the range in a snow storm than to run the risk of losing our
mine.”
“Meaning that we needn’t lose it if we can muster two to their five?”
said Bromley, grinning.
“Meaning that if anybody tries to rob us there’ll be blood on the
moon. Get that well ground into your system, Harry.”
“Ho! You are coming on nicely for a sober, peaceable citizen of well-
behaved New England,” laughed the play-boy. “But see here, didn’t
you tell me once upon a time that you had never fired a gun? If you
really believe there is a chance for a row, you’d better waste a few
rounds of ammunition finding out what a gun does when you aim it
and pull the trigger. It’s likely to surprise you. I’ve shot ducks in the
Maryland marshes often enough to know that pretty marksmanship
is no heaven-born gift.”
“Thanks,” returned Philip grimly. “That is a sensible idea. Evenings,
after we knock off work, we’ll set up a target and you can give me a
few lessons.”
Making the most of the shortening days, they had become pioneers,
felling trees for the building of a cabin, and breaking the two
broncos, in such primitive harness as they could contrive out of the
pack-saddle lashings, to drag the logs to a site near the tunnel
mouth. Like the drilling and blasting, axe work and cabin building
were unfamiliar crafts, to be learned only at a round price paid in the
coin of aching backs, stiffened muscles and blistered palms.
Nevertheless, at the end of a toiling fortnight they had a one-room
cabin roofed in, chimneyed and chinked with clay, a rude stone forge
built for the drill sharpening and tempering, and a charcoal pit dug,
filled and fired to provide the forge fuel. And though the working
days were prolonged to the sunset limit, Philip, methodically
thorough in all things, did not fail to save enough daylight for the
shooting lesson, setting up a target in the gulch and hammering
away at it until he became at least an entered apprentice in the craft
and was able to conquer the impulse to shut both eyes tightly when
he pulled the trigger.
They were bunking comfortably in the new cabin when they awoke
one morning to find the ground white with the first light snowfall. It
was a warning that the time had come to dispose of the animals if
they were not to be shut in and starved. In his talk with Bromley,
Drew, the Leadville mine owner, had named a ranch near the mouth
of Chalk Creek where the borrowed saddle horses could be left, and
where winter feeding for the jacks might be bargained for; and after
a hasty breakfast Philip prepared to set out on the three-days’ trip to
the lower altitudes.
“I feel like a yellow dog, letting this herding job fall on you, Phil,”
protested the play-boy, as he helped pack a haversack of provisions
for the journey. “I’d make you draw straws for it if I had the slightest
idea that I could find the way out and back by myself.”
“It’s a stand-off,” countered the potential herd-rider. “I feel the same
way about leaving you to hold the fort alone. If that Leadville outfit
should turn up while I’m away——”
“Don’t you worry about the Neighbors bunch. It’s been three full
weeks, now, with no sign of them. They’ve lost out.”
“I’m not so sure of that. Better keep your eye peeled and not get too
far away from the cabin. If they should drop in on you——”
“In that case I’ll man the battlements and do my small endeavors to
keep them amused until you put in an appearance,” was the
lighthearted rejoinder. “But you needn’t run your legs off on that
account. They’ve given us up long ago.” Then, as Philip mounted
and took the halter of the horse that was to be led: “Are you all set?
Where’s that old pistol?”
“I don’t need the pistol. If I’ve got to walk back, lugging my own
grub and blankets, I don’t want to carry any more weight than I
have to.”
“Just the same, you’re going prepared to back your judgment,”
Bromley insisted; and he brought out the holstered revolver and
made Philip buckle it on. “There; that looks a little more shipshape,”
he approved. “Want me to go along a piece and help you start the
herd?”
“Nothing of the kind,” Philip refused; and thereupon he set out,
leading the extra horse and driving the jacks ahead of him.
It was his intention to back-track over the trail by which they had
first penetrated to their valley in the late summer, and being gifted
with a fairly good sense of direction, he found his way to the foot of
the first of the two enclosing mountain ranges without much trouble.
But on the ascent to the pass the difficulties multiplied themselves
irritatingly. The trail was blind and the snow was fetlock deep for the
animals. The led horse was stubborn and hung back; and wherever
a widening of the trail permitted, the jacks strayed and scattered.
Philip’s temper grew short, and by the time he had reached the high,
wind-blown, boulder-strewn notch which served as the pass over the
spur range, he was cursing the scattering burros fluently and
fingering the butt of the big revolver in an itching desire to bullet all
three of them.
“Damn your fool hides!” he was yelling, oblivious of everything but
the maddening impossibility of towing the reluctant bronco astern
and at the same time keeping the long-eared stupidities ahead in
any kind of marching order; “Damn your fool——”
He stopped short, swallowing the remainder of the shouting
malediction and flushing shamefacedly under his summer coat of
tan. Seated beside the trail on a flat-topped boulder from which the
snow had been brushed was a thick-chested, bearded giant of a man
making his much-belated midday meal on a sandwich of pan-bread
and bacon; a grinning witness of the outbreak of ill-temper. As Philip
drew rein the giant greeted him jovially.
“Howdy, pardner! Yuh must ’a’ had a heap o’ book-learnin’ to be
fitten to cuss thataway. Don’t blame yuh, though. It’s one hell-
sweatin’ job to herd canaries when they ain’t got no packs on ’em.”
Philip stared hard at the big man, his excellent memory for faces
serving him slowly but surely. When he spoke it was to say: “People
are always telling us this is a little world, and I’ll believe it, after this.
Don’t you remember me?—and the K.P. train last spring?”
The thick-chested giant got upon his feet
“Well, I’ll be dawg-goned! Sure I ricollect! You’re the young feller I
told to hump hisself and go sit with the li’l’ black-eyed gal that had
the sick daddy. Put ’er there!” and he gave Philip’s hand a grip that
made the knuckles crack.
Philip slid from the saddle, smiling a sheepish apology.
“Sorry I had to come on the scene swearing like an abandoned
pirate, but these chicken-brained jacks have just about worn me out.
Queer we should stumble upon each other in this God-forsaken
place. Where do you come from?”
“Hoofed it up from the Aspen diggin’s. Aimin’ to get out o’ the woods
afore I get snowed under and can’t. You ain’t had all the bad luck.
Yiste’day I lost my canary, pack, blankets and all, in the Roarin’ Fork.
Li’l’ cuss slipped and rolled into the creek and I didn’t get to save
nothin’ but the old Winchester I was totin’ and a li’l’ bite o’ bread
and meat I had in my pockets. Box o’ matches went with the hide
and taller, and I’d ’a’ slep’ cold last night if I hadn’t run onto a bunch
o’ Leadville men back yonder a piece and hunkered down afore their
fire.”
Philip started at the mention of the Leadville men, but he deferred
the question that rose instantly to his lips.
“You are going out by way of the pass over the main range at the
head of Chalk Creek?” he asked.
“Aimin’ to get out thataway; yes.”
“All right; I’m headed that way, too, and, as you see, I have one
more horse than I can ride. I’ll give you a lift, if you say so.”
The big man’s laugh was like the rumbling of distant thunder.
“If I say so? Say, young feller me lad, I ain’t got but one mouth, but
I reckon if I had a dozen of ’em they’d all be sayin’ so at once,” he
affirmed gratefully. “Want to pitch out right now?”
“No; I’ll eat first. Didn’t want to stop until I got to the top of the
pass.”
Philip unslung his provision haversack and spread the contents on
the flat rock. Over the meal, which he invited the wayfarer to share
with him, he got the story of the bearded man’s summer; weary
months of prospecting in the western slope wilderness with nothing
to show for it, not even the specimens from the few putative
discoveries he had made, since these had gone to the bottom of the
Roaring Fork with the drowned burro.
“Hard luck,” Philip commented, when the brief tale of
discouragement had been told. “What will you do now?”
“Same as every busted prospector does: hunt me a winter job in a
smelter ’r stamp-mill and sweat at it till I get enough spondulix
ahead to buy me another grub-stake.”
“Go to work as a day-laborer?”
“You’ve named it. Minin’s the only trade I know; and the mills ain’t
payin’ miner’s wages for shovelin’ ore into the stamps.”
“Why don’t you try for a job in one of the big mines?”
The giant’s laugh rumbled again.
“Not me—I ain’t that kind of a miner—ain’t wearing no brass collar
for a corp’ration! Gone too long without it. But lookee here, you ain’t
told me nothin’ about yerself. I didn’t allow you was aimin’ to turn
into a mount’in man when I rid the cars with yuh last spring.”
“I wasn’t,” said Philip; and thereupon he gave a short account of the
summer’s wanderings up to, but not including, the discovery of the
“Little Jean,” and entirely omitting all mention of Bromley’s part in
the wanderings. That his story did not explain his presence on the
outward trail with two saddle horses, three jacks and no tools or
camp equipment, he was well aware; but the canny traditions were
warning him not to betray the carefully guarded secret of the “Little
Jean” to a chance travelling companion.
“Tough luck, all round,” said the big man half absently; and Philip
saw plainly enough that he was trying to fit the present moment’s
inconsistencies into the story. Then: “Still and all, somebody’s had
good luck over here in this hell’s back kitchen. I heard about it in the
camp o’ them Leadville pardners last night.”
“What did you hear?” Philip asked, and his nerves were prickling.
“They said two young fellers, tenderfoots, both of ’em, hoofed it into
Leadville two-three weeks ago with some stuff that run away up
yonder in the assays—rotten quartz and free gold.”
“Well,” said Philip, still with nerves on edge, “that sort of thing is
happening every day, isn’t it? What more did you hear?”
“They was talkin’ ’mongst theirselves—not to me. The news had
leaked out, like it always does, and they’d trailed the young fellers, a
ridin’ two broncs and herdin’ three loaded jacks, acrosst the range
and over here. Then they’d lost the trail somehow. From what I
picked up, I allowed they was aimin’ to stay till they found it ag’in, if
it took all winter.”
Philip’s tongue was dry in his mouth when he said: “Whereabouts
were these Leadville people camped?”
“About ten mile north, at the mouth of a li’l’ creek that runs into the
Fork.”
There was one more question to be asked, and Philip was afraid to
ask it. Yet he forced himself to give it tongue.
“You say you camped with these fellows last night. What kind of a
crowd was it?”
The big prospector was staring at the three jacks and two horses as
if he were mentally counting them.
“Jist betwixt you and me and the gate-post, it’s a sort o’ tough
outfit. Hank Neighbors is headin’ it, and if half o’ what they tell
about him is so, he’s plum bad medicine.”
“Not prospectors, then?”
“W-e-l-l, you might call ’em so; but I reckon they’re the kind that lets
other folks do most o’ the hard work o’ findin’ and diggin’.”
“You mean they’re ‘jumpers’?”
“Least said’s soonest mended. But if I had a right likely prospect
anywheres in these here hills, I’d shore hate like sin to have ’em run
acrosst it.”
Philip’s resolve was taken upon the instant. From what had been
said he knew precisely where the Neighbors camp was; it was only a
few miles below the gulch of the “Little Jean”; so few that the
campers may well have heard the crashes of the evening rifle
practice. And Bromley was standing guard alone.
“See here,” he began, suddenly reversing all former resolutions of
canny secrecy; “I don’t know you—don’t even know your name. But
I believe you are an honest man, and I’m going to tell you
something: I’m one of the tenderfoots Neighbors is trying to trail.”
The wayfaring prospector greeted the information with a wide-
mouthed smile.
“Yuh didn’t hardly need to tell me that—with them five critturs
standin’ there a-hangin’ their heads, and you without any camp stuff
’r tools, and with two saddle hosses where yuh didn’t need only one.
What’s yer game?”
Being fairly committed now, Philip went the entire length—with
nothing hopeful to build upon save the big miner’s rough chivalry as
he had seen it manifested in the Kansas Pacific day-coach months
before. Frankly filling the blanks he had left in his earlier account of
the summer’s experiences, he wound up with an anxious question: