helped nor hindered–but you know you may help by and by. It would have
all happened just so, if we had never begun to dig that hole. That is
only a drop. Work away. I still have hope that something will occur to
relieve me. At any rate we must not give up the mine, so long as we have
any show.”
Alas! the relief did not come. New misfortunes came instead. When the
extent of the Bigler swindle was disclosed there was no more hope that
Mr. Bolton could extricate himself, and he had, as an honest man, no
resource except to surrender all his property for the benefit of his
creditors.
The Autumn came and found Philip working with diminished force but still
with hope. He had again and again been encouraged by good “indications,”
but he had again and again been disappointed. He could not go on much
longer, and almost everybody except himself had thought it was useless to
go on as long as he had been doing.
When the news came of Mr. Bolton’s failure, of course the work stopped.
The men were discharged, the tools were housed, the hopeful noise of
pickman and driver ceased, and the mining camp had that desolate and
mournful aspect which always hovers over a frustrated enterprise.
Philip sat down amid the ruins, and almost wished he were buried in them.
How distant Ruth was now from him, now, when she might need him most.
How changed was all the Philadelphia world, which had hitherto stood for
the exemplification of happiness and prosperity.
He still had faith that there was coal in that mountain. He made
a picture of himself living there a hermit in a shanty by the tunnel,
digging away with solitary pick and wheelbarrow, day after day and year
after year, until he grew gray and aged, and was known in all that region
as the old man of the mountain. Perhaps some day–he felt it must be so
some day–he should strike coal. But what if he did? Who would be alive
to care for it then? What would he care for it then? No, a man wants
riches in his youth, when the world is fresh to him. He wondered why
Providence could not have reversed the usual process, and let the
majority of men begin with wealth and gradually spend it, and die poor
when they no longer needed it.
Harry went back to the city. It was evident that his services were no
longer needed. Indeed, he had letters from his uncle, which he did not
read to Philip, desiring him to go to San Francisco to look after some
government contracts in the harbor there.
Philip had to look about him for something to do; he was like Adam;
the world was all before him whereto choose. He made, before he went
elsewhere, a somewhat painful visit to Philadelphia, painful but yet not
without its sweetnesses. The family had never shown him so much
affection before; they all seemed to think his disappointment of more
importance than their own misfortune. And there was that in Ruth’s
manner–in what she gave him and what she withheld–that would have made
a hero of a very much less promising character than Philip Sterling.
Among the assets of the Bolton property, the Ilium tract was sold, and
Philip bought it in at the vendue, for a song, for no one cared to even
undertake the mortgage on it except himself. He went away the owner of
it, and had ample time before he reached home in November, to calculate
how much poorer he was by possessing it.
CHAPTER L.
It is impossible for the historian, with even the best intentions,
to control events or compel the persons of his narrative to act wisely
or to be successful. It is easy to see how things might have been better
managed; a very little change here and there would have made a very,
different history of this one now in hand.
If Philip had adopted some regular profession, even some trade, he might
now be a prosperous editor or a conscientious plumber, or an honest
lawyer, and have borrowed money at the saving’s bank and built a cottage,