CHAPTER XIX

COMMERCE AT HEART'S DESIRE

_Showing Wonders of the Thirst of McGinnis, and the Faith of Whiteman
the Jew_

There was a barber at Heart's Desire, a patient though forgotten man,
who had waited some years in the belief that eventually a patron would
come into his shop in search of professional services. No one did
come, but still the barber hoped. He was one of those who had clamored
most loudly for Eastern Capital. After the town meeting the courage of
the barber failed him. He declared himself as at length ready to
abandon his faith in Heart's Desire, and to depart in search of a
community offering conditions more encouraging. In this determination
he was joined by Billy Hudgens of the Lone Star, a man also patient
through long years of adversity, who now admitted that he might be
obliged to close up and move to Arizona.

The news of these impending blows fell upon a community already gloomy
and despondent. Some vague, intangible change had come over Heart's
Desire. The illusion of the past was destroyed. Men rubbed their
eyes, realizing that they had been asleep, that they had been dreaming.
There dawned upon them the conviction that perhaps, after all, the old
scheme of life had not been sufficient. The lotus plant was robbed of
its potency.

It was at this time that McGinnis came to town. His advent was the
most fortunate thing that could have happened. Certainly, it was
hailed with joy and accepted as an omen; for, as was known of all men
over a thousand miles of mining country in the Rockies, McGinnis was
the image and emblem of good luck.

Not that this meant prosperity for McGinnis himself, for that gentleman
continued in a very even condition as to worldly goods, being steadily
and consistently broke,--a sad state of affairs for one who had brought
so much happiness to others. History proved to the point of proverb
that whenever McGinnis visited a camp,--and he had followed scores of
strikes and stampedes in all the corners of the metalliferous
world,--that camp was destined to witness a boom at no distant day.

McGinnis was not actually a newcomer at Heart's Desire, but upon the
contrary one of the autochthones of that now decadent community. He
was a friend and former bunk-mate of old Jack Wilson, discoverer of the
Homestake mine. Five years ago, however, at the breaking of the
Heart's Desire boom, he had silently stolen away, whether for Alaska or
the Andes no one knew nor