The three are much together, I can see, and I
am glad for them all, but chiefly for Craig, whose face, grief-stricken
but resolute, and often gentle as a woman's, will not leave me nor let
me rest in peace.
The note of thanks he sent me was entirely characteristic. There were
no heroics, much less pining or self-pity. It was simple and manly, not
ignoring the pain but making much of the joy. And then they had their
work to do. That note, so clear, so manly, so nobly sensible, stiffens
my back yet at times.
In the spring came the startling news that Black Rock would soon be
no more. The mines were to close down on April 1. The company, having
allured the confiding public with enticing descriptions of marvellous
drifts, veins, assays, and prospects, and having expended vast sums of
the public's money in developing the mines till the assurance of their
reliability was absolutely final, calmly shut down and vanished. With
their vanishing vanishes Black Rock, not without loss and much deep
cursing on the part of the men brought some hundreds of miles to aid the
company in its extraordinary and wholly inexplicable game.
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