"You spider-legged young reptile!" cried he, with perfect good humor, but at the same time shaking a threatening finger at me. "Don't you dare to laugh at my schemes; especially this one. For this is a brand-new idea, and a very important one to you. I'm leaving to-morrow night for Colorado."
"Are you?" I cried, a good deal surprised by this sudden announcement. "When did you decide upon that?"
"To-day. I got a letter this afternoon from my friend, Sam Warren, the assayer, written from Mosby if you know where that is."
I shook my head.
"I didn't suppose you did," remarked Uncle Tom. "It is a new mining camp on one of the spurs of Mescalero Mountain in Colorado, and in the opinion of Sam Warren my old schoolmate, you know it has a great future before it. So he has written me that if I have the time to spare I had better come out and take a look at it."
Uncle Tom's business was that of a mining promoter, the middle man between the prospector and the capitalist, a business in which his ability and his honorable methods had gained for him an enviable reputation.
"So you have decided to go out, have you?" said I.
"Yes," he replied. "I leave to-morrow evening and you are coming with me."
As may be imagined, I opened my eyes pretty widely at this unfolding of the "brand-new idea."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"Look here, Frank, old chap," said he, seating himself on the edge of the table and becoming confidential. "You've stuck to your books very well if anything, too well. Now, I've had my eye on you ever since the hot weather last summer, and it strikes me you need a change you are too pale and altogether too thin."
Being fat and "comfortable" himself, Uncle Tom was disposed to regard with pity any one, like myself, whose framework showed through its covering.
"But " I began; when Uncle Tom headed me off.
"Now you be quiet," said he, "and let me finish. I've had some such idea brewing in my head for some time; it isn't a sudden freak, as you imagine. I've considered the matter carefully, and I've come to the conclusion that you'll lose nothing by the move. In fact, what you will lose by missing a month or so of schooling will be more than made up to you by the eye-opener you will get in making this expedition."
"How so?" I asked.
"You will make the acquaintance of a young State just learning to walk alone for, as you know, it was only last year that Colorado came into the Union; you will see a new mining camp, and rub up against the men, good, bad and indifferent, who go to make up the community of a frontier town; and more than that, you will get at first hand, what you never could get by sitting here and reading about it, a correct idea of the country traversed by the explorers Pike, Frémont and the rest of them.
"I am honestly of opinion, Frank," he went on, seriously, "that this is an opportunity not to be neglected. At the same time, old fellow, as it is your education and not mine that is under discussion, I consider that you have a right to a voice in the matter; so I'll leave you to think it over, and to-morrow at breakfast you can tell me whether you are coming or not."
With that, Uncle Tom slipped down from the table, walked out and shut the door behind him. That was his way: he was always as sudden as a clap of thunder.
Anybody will guess that my books did not receive much more attention that evening. For an hour I paced up and down the room, considering Uncle Tom's proposition. It was true that I did feel pulled down by the effects of the hot weather, combined with a pretty close application to my books, and I had no doubt that the expedition proposed would do me a world
of good; though whether my education would be benefited in like manner I was not so sure as Uncle Tom seemed to be.
But though I did my best honestly to consider the question in all its aspects, there can be little doubt that my inclinations whether I was aware of it or not colored my judgment, so that my final decision was just what might have been expected in any active boy of sixteen. As the clock struck ten I ran down-stairs and informed Uncle Tom that I was going with him.
It is not necessary to go into all the details of our journey, though to me, who had never before been a hundred miles from home, everything was new and everything was interesting. It is enough to say that, leaving the train at the foot of the mountains for the railroad then went no further we engaged places in the mail-carrier's open buckboard, and after a very rough and very tiring drive of a day and a half we at last reached our destination and were set down at the door of a house outside which hung a "shingle" bearing the legend, "Samuel Warren, Assayer and U. S. Dep. Min. Surveyor."
It will be remembered that one of Uncle Tom's reasons for breaking into my school term was that I should rub up against the citizens comprising a frontier settlement. He could hardly have contemplated, however, that I should come in contact with quite so many of them quite so early in the day as I did.