TO-MORROW
Page: 23

the old days, on the edge of the gold country, away
north there beyond the Rio Gila. I've seen it. A
prospecting engineer in Mazatlan took me along
with him to help look after the waggons. A
sailor's a handy chap to have about you anyhow.
It's all a desert: cracks in the earth that you can't
see the bottom of; and mountains--sheer rocks
standing up high like walls and church spires, only
a hundred times bigger. The valleys are full of
boulders and black stones. There's not a blade of
grass to see; and the sun sets more red over that
country than I have seen it anywhere--blood-red
and angry. It IS fine."

"You do not want to go back there again?"
she stammered out.

He laughed a little. "No. That's the blamed
gold country. It gave me the shivers sometimes
to look at it--and we were a big lot of men together,
mind; but these Gambucinos wandered alone.
They knew that country before anybody had ever
heard of it. They had a sort of gift for prospect-
ing, and the fever of it was on them too; and they
did not seem to want the gold very much. They
would find some rich spot, and then turn their backs
on it; pick up perhaps a little--enough for a
spree--and then be off again, looking for more.
They never stopped long where there were houses;
they had no wife, no chick, no home, never a chum.
You couldn't be friends with a Gambucino; they
were too restless--here to-day, and gone, God
knows where, to-morrow. They told no one of
their finds, and there has never been a Gambucino
well off. It was not for the gold they cared; it was
the wandering about looking for it in the stony
country that got into them and wouldn't let them
rest; so that no woman yet born could hold a Gam-
bucino for more than a week. That's what the
song says. It's all about a pretty girl that tried
hard to keep hold of a Gambucino lover, so that he
should bring her lots of gold. No fear! Off he
went, and she never saw him again."

"What became of her?" she breathed out.

"The song don't tell. Cried a bit, I daresay.
They were the fellows: kiss and go. But it's the
looking for a thing--a something . . . Sometimes