Emerging from the lower end of this street he came upon a log cabin where activity still survived. He joined the group before its door.
Inside two cameras were recording some drama of the rude frontier.
Over glowing coals in the stone fireplace a beautiful young girl prepared food in a long-handled frying pan. At a table in the room's centre two bearded miners seemed to be appraising a buckskin pouch of nuggets, pouring them from hand to hand. A candle stuck in a bottle flickered beside them. They were honest, kindly faced miners, roughly dressed and heavily bearded, but it could be seen that they had hearts of gold. The beautiful young girl, who wore a simple dress of blue calico, and whose hair hung about her fair face in curls of a radiant buff, now served them food and poured steaming coffee from a large pot.
The miners seemed loth to eat, being excited by the gold nuggets.
They must have struck it rich that day, Merton Gill divined, and now with wealth untold they would be planning to send the girl East to school. They both patted her affectionately, keeping from her the great surprise they had in store.
The girl was arch with them, and prettily kissed each upon his bald head. Merton at once saw that she would be the daughter of neither;she would be their ward. And perhaps they weren't planning to send her to school. Perhaps they were going to send her to fashionable relatives in the East, where she would unwittingly become the rival of her beautiful but cold-hearted cousin for the hand of a rich young stock-broker, and be ill-treated and long for the old miners who would get word of it and buy some fine clothes from Joe--Buy or Sell, and go East to the consternation of the rich relatives and see that their little mountain flower was treated right.
As he identified this photo-play he studied the interior of the cabin, the rough table at which the three now ate, the makeshift chairs, the rifle over the fireplace, the picks and shovels, the shelf along the wall with its crude dishes, the calico curtain screening off what would be the dressing room of the little mountain flower. It was a home-like room, for all its roughness. Along one wall were two bunks, one above the other, well supplied with blankets.
The director, after a final shot of one of the miners being scalded by his coffee which he drank from a saucer, had said, "All right, boys! We'll have the fight first thing in the morning."Merton Gill passed on. He didn't quite know what the fight would be about. Surely the two miners wouldn't fight. Perhaps another miner of loose character would come along and try to jump their claim, or attempt some dirty work with the little girl. Something like that.
He carried with him the picture of the homey little ulterior, the fireplace with its cooking utensils, the two bunks with their ample stock of blankets--the crude door closed with a wooden bar and a leather latch-string, which hung trustfully outside.
