Nevada

Jerden. All right: I'll find my man without your help; but, if you should change your minds, there's a thousand dollars for the man who gives information.

Tom and Vermont (draw revolvers, cover Jerden, and speak together). You get!

(Jerden turns, and runs up run, against Silas, who is descending.)

Silas. Look out for paint. (Exit Jerden.) Seems to be in a hurry. (Comes down to stage.) How are you, boys? White, black, and yellow. The widow said she had an assortment of colors, and here they are. Put up your shooting-irons, gentlemen: I'm a friend of the widow's. I left my card here an hour ago. (Points to rock.)

Tom. Any friend of the widow's is heartily welcome.

Vermont. From the east, stranger?

Silas (sets paint-pail down near rock). Switcham, Vt. Name, Silas Steele. Occupation, painter and decorator. For further particulars seek any prominent bowlder, and look out for paint.

Jube. Golly! dar's a heap er talent in dat ar brush, I know; fur I used to whitewash myself.

(Win-Kye edges up to paint, examines it, takes brush, and daubs a little on rock during the following scene, dropping it, and taking it up as Silas turns and watches him.)

Silas. Whitewash yourself? You took a big contract.

Tom. Stopping with the widow?

Silas. No: only a chance acquaintance. She came from Vermont.

Vermont. So did I.

Silas. Did you? Then, you're the man I've been looking for.

Vermont (starts). Eh?

Silas. My old man took it into his head about twelve years ago to start west, minin'; and we've never seen him from that day to this. Nice old fellow, the deacon, but queer. Started off without so much as a good-by, Hannah, and has been lost to his family, the church, and Switcham, ever since. But we heard from him occasionally in the shape of gold-dust to mother, but no word or clew to his whereabouts. Mother's worried so, I've come out here to look him up if he's alive. Any of you know Deacon Steele?

Jube. Deacon who? Golly! we's all out ob deacons: dey fall from grace when dey git out here.

Vermont. You're wasting time, youngster: the deacon's dead and buried.

Silas. You knew him?

Vermont. No: but deacons die young here.

Tom. Perhaps 'tis Nevada.

Vermont and Jube. Nevada!

Silas. Who's Nevada?

Tom. The mystery of the mines: you may meet him here to-day, to-morrow in some gloomy gulch, – a ragged, crazy miner, seeking, as he has sought for ten years, a lost mine.

Silas. A lost mine?

Tom (C.) This was his story as I have heard it from old miners. He was known among them a dozen years ago, as a quiet, reserved man, working by himself, wandering off prospecting alone. At times they missed him. He had been off for a week, when, one night, he came in staggering, faint from the loss of blood, with a deep wound in his head, and the wild air of a maniac. From his broken speech, they gathered this: He had found indications of gold, had opened a tunnel, and worked far in, all by himself, mind, following some theory of his own, when suddenly, with his pick, he loosened a stone above his head, which fell and crushed him; not, however, until he had caught one glimpse of a rich vein of gold. Poor fellow, he could never find his way back, and none of his mates could help him. They would have believed his story to be but the wild speech of his wandering mind, had they not found in his tangled hair, mingled with dirt and blood, flakes of gold.

Vermont. Poor old chap.

Silas. With a gold-mine in his hair. Rich old beggar.

Tom. Nevada is no beggar; though no cabin is shut against him, no miner's friendly hand withheld. He will neither eat nor sleep until he has earned both food and shelter. For a willing mate in an ugly tunnel, with a steady grip and a strong arm, give me Nevada.

Nevada (outside). Who calls Nevada? (Dashes down run, and stands C.; music pianissimo.) Nevada, the gold king. My dominions are beneath the hills, stretching away in veins broad and deep, so rich that I could overturn empires; but I am shut out, the golden doors are closed against me, and the key, the key, is lost. (Puts his hand to head, drops his head, and comes down slowly; music stops.)

Tom. Ah! it's one of his off days. Nevada, old man, don't you know me?

Nevada (slowly raises his head, looks wildly at Tom, then his face brightens). Tom, Tom Carew. (They shake hands warmly.) You want me. Many a day we have worked together. (Looks round.) And here's Vermont.

Vermont (grasping his hand). Right here, pard.

Nevada. Ah! old grizzly and – woolly.

Jube. Dat's me to a har.

Nevada. And little pigtail.

Win-Kye. Piggee tail velly well, John; alle same you, John?

Nevada. I'm hungry and tired, Tom: give me a pick.

Tom. Not to-night, old friend: you shall go to my ranch, and to-morrow —

Nevada. To-morrow. (Looks about wildly. All draw away from him. Music pianissimo.) To-morrow I must go back, back along the ravine, three miles, then climb the bowlders, to where that fallen giant lies across the stream; over it to the gorge a mile beyond, and then – and then I'm lost – straight ahead to the right, to the left, again and again, no trail, no trace; and yet 'tis there, ever before my eyes, the wealth of a kingdom, the jewel of Nevada, lost to me forever. (Covers his face with his hands.)

Tom. Ah! if we could only keep him from that lost mine.

Silas. What a wreck! But he's not the first man crazed by gold.

Nevada. Far off, a mother and her child wait anxiously for my coming, – wait for the gold I promised them. I left the little one sleeping in her cradle. Oh! when shall I see my little child again? (Music stops.)

(Enter, from cabin, Mosey, with a change.)

Moselle (running to him). Now, Nevada, here I am. Have you, too, missed me?

Nevada (looking into her face anxiously). I know that voice and that face.

Moselle. Of course you do. It's the same voice that has sang you to sleep many and many a time, and it's the same face you have kissed often. Why don't you now?

Nevada (takes her face between his hands, and kisses her forehead). It's little Moselle back from school.

Moselle. With a head full of knowledge, and a heart bubbling over with fun.

Vermont. And when the two get working together, this camp will be a howling wilderness, you bet.