Bankruptcy -- Fiction; Gold mines and mining -- Alaska -- Fiction; Oakland (Calif.) -- Fiction; Western stories; Women pioneers -- Fiction
"I don't even know who you sold her to," was Daylight's answer. "And
what's more, I'm not bothering my head about her. She was your mare,
and it's none of my business what you did with her. You haven't got
her, that's sure and worse luck. And now, while we're on touchy
subjects, I'm going to open another one with you. And you needn't get
touchy about it, for it's not really your business at all."
She waited in the pause that followed, eyeing him almost suspiciously.
"It's about that brother of yours. He needs more than you can do for
him. Selling that mare of yours won't send him to Germany. And that's
what his own doctors say he needs--that crack German specialist who
rips a man's bones and muscles into pulp and then molds them all over
again. Well, I want to send him to Germany and give that crack a
flutter, that's all."
"If it were only possible" she said, half breathlessly, and wholly
without anger. "Only it isn't, and you know it isn't. I can't accept
money from you--"
"Hold on, now," he interrupted. "Wouldn't you accept a drink of water
from one of the Twelve Apostles if you was dying of thirst? Or would
you be afraid of his evil intentions"--she made a gesture of dissent
"--or of what folks might say about it?"
"But that's different," she began.
"Now look here, Miss Mason. You've got to get some foolish notions out
of your head. This money notion is one of the funniest things I've
seen. Suppose you was falling over a cliff, wouldn't it be all right
for me to reach out and hold you by the arm? Sure it would. But
suppose you needed another sort of help--instead of the strength of arm,
the strength of my pocket? That would be all and that's what they all
say. But why do they say it. Because the robber gangs want all the
suckers to be honest and respect money. If the suckers weren't honest
and didn't respect money, where would the robbers be? Don't you see?
The robbers don't deal in arm-holds; they deal in dollars. Therefore
arm-holds are just common and ordinary, while dollars are sacred--so
sacred that you didn't let me lend you a hand with a few.
"Or here's another way," he continued, spurred on by her mute protest.
"It's all right for me to give the strength of my arm when you're
falling over a cliff. But if I take that same strength of arm and use
it at pick-and-shovel work for a day and earn two dollars, you won't
have anything to do with the two dollars. Yet it's the same old
strength of arm in a new form, that's all. Besides, in this
proposition it won't be a claim on you. It ain't even a loan to you.
It's an arm-hold I'm giving your brother--just the same sort of
arm-hold as if he was falling over a cliff. And a nice one you are, to
come running out and yell 'Stop!' at me, and let your brother go on
over the cliff. What he needs to save his legs is that crack in
Germany, and that's the arm-hold I'm offering.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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