The Claim Jumpers

The next morning the young man had quite regained his good spirits. The

girl, on the other hand, was rather quiet.

Dr. McPherson made no objections to furnishing a copy of the assays.

The records, however, were at the School of Mines. He drove down to get

them, and in the interim the two young people, at Mrs. McPherson's

suggestion, went to see the train come in.

The platform of the station was filled to suffocation. Assuming that

the crowd's intention was to view the unaccustomed locomotive, it was

strange it did not occur to them that the opposite side of the track or

the adjacent prairie would afford more elbow room. They huddled

together on the boards of the platform as though the appearance of the

spectacle depended on every last individual's keeping his feet from the

naked earth. They pushed good-naturedly here and there, expostulating,

calling to one another facetiously, looking anxiously down the

straight, dwindling track for the first glimpse of the locomotive.

Mary and Bennington found themselves caught up at once into the vortex.

After a few moments of desperate clinging together, they were forced

into the front row, where they stood on the very edge, braced back

against the pressure, half laughing, half vexed.

The train drew in with a grinding rush. From the step swung the

conductor. Faces looked from the open windows.

On the platform of one of the last cars stood a young girl and three

men. One of the men was elderly, with white hair and side whiskers. The

other two were young and well dressed. The girl was of our best

patrician type--the type that may know little, think little, say

little, and generally amount to little, and yet carry its negative

qualities with so used an air of polite society as to raise them by

sheer force to the dignity of positive virtues. From head to foot she

was faultlessly groomed. From eye to attitude she was languidly

superior--the impolitic would say bored. Yet every feature of her

appearance and bearing, even to the very tips of her enamelled and

sensibly thick boots, implied that she was of a different class from

the ordinary, and satisfied on "common people" that impulse which

attracts her lesser sisters to the vulgar menagerie. She belonged to

the proper street--at the proper time of day. Any one acquainted with

the species would have known at once that this private-car trip to

Deadwood was to please the prosperous-looking gentleman with the side

whiskers, and that it was made bearable only by the two smooth-shaven

individuals in the background.

She caught sight of the pair directly in front of her, and raised her

lorgnette with a languid wrist.

Her stare was from the outside-the-menagerie standpoint. Bennington was

not used to it. For the moment he had the Fifth Avenue feeling, and

knew that he was not properly dressed. Therefore, naturally, he was

confused. He lowered his head and blushed a little. Then he became

conscious that Mary's clear eyes were examining him in a very troubled

fashion.