Elam

“ After all, Senhor Magin, are you the Emperor of Elam?”
The Brazilian laughed.
“Not yet! And naturally it’s nothing to you, when you cash him cheques and sell him tinned cows and quinine. But for a man who perpetually sighs after Europe, Herr Ganz, and for a Swiss of the North, you strike me as betraying a singular lack of sensibility to certain larger interests of your race. However—What concerns me is that you should have confided to this young man, with such a roll of sentimental eyes as I can imagine, that Dizful is still ‘unspoiled’! If Dizful is unspoiled, he might spoil it. ”

“ You can manage, going down. But why do you waste your time in Shustar, with all that is going on in Europe?”
“H’m!” grunted Magin. “What is going on in Europe? A great family is wearing well cut mourning, and a small family is beginning to turn green! How does that affect two quiet nomads in Elam—especially when one of them is a Swiss and one a Brazilian?” He laughed, and lighted a cigar the other offered him. “My dear Ganz, it is an enigma to me how a man who can listen to such a fountain, and admire such stars, can perpetually sigh after the absurdities of Europe! ”

“ Tom slept warm and comfortable that night, and perhaps the simple presence of Elam had something to do with it. A boy who could go through a twenty-mile race with Cheyennes, and have no more to say about it than he did, would be a good fellow to have at his back in case trouble arose. A person would not think he had been through such an encounter, and had seen the bodies of two murdered men besides, for, when he awoke, Elam was sitting up on his blanket and looking at his horse. ”

“ And of herself, for the first time, she kissed him.
She ran her hand caressingly through his hair.
"Your eyes are all gold right now," he said. "I can look in them and tell just how much you love me."
"They have been all gold for you, Elam, for a long time. I think, on our little ranch, they will always be all gold."
"Your hair has gold in it, too, a sort of fiery gold." He turned her face suddenly and held it between his hands and looked long into her eyes. "And your eyes were full of gold only the other day, when you said you wouldn't marry me." ”

“ Elam kept his map constantly at hand and referred to it at every turn in the road. Sometimes he would be gone all day, and we would hear nothing of him until night, when he would come in, ask for supper, and roll himself up in his blanket and go to sleep. Things went on in this way for two weeks, as I said, and then one day, as we were watering our horses at the brook that ran through the canyon, we were suddenly surprised by the appearance of two men who stood on the opposite bank. They were a hard-looking set, but then that was to be expected in a country where all men lived out of doors. ”

“ You will remember that the door of the cabin was open, and that Uncle Ezra heard every word of our conversation. "You didn't steer clear of all trouble by coming out here, did you? Well, never mind. Troubles will come to everybody, no matter what they do. Sit down and tell me all about it. Haven't had any breakfast, have you?"
Elam declared that they had had enough left for breakfast, and produced his pipe and got ready for a smoke, while Tom sat by with his gaze fastened on the fire. I will tell both stories together, for Elam did not touch upon Tom's tale of sorrow at all. ”

“ Mind you, he didn't say this as though he hoped and believed it might be true, but as positive as though he knew it was true."
"Where do you suppose they—I mean his father and the nugget—are now?" asked Ben.
"Pshaw! His father is dead long ago," replied Uncle Ezra, in a very decided tone. "Leastwise the men who went with the wagons are dead, and so old Elam must be dead, too. Don't stand to reason that only one man out of the whole outfit should turn up alive, does it? These things happened thirteen year ago, and Elam is nigh about twenty now, I should say. ”

“ The most of their way led through the gully, and to Tom's delight there was hardly any snow on the way; nor was there any game, although they kept a bright lookout for it. They camped for two nights in the foot-hills, Elam working his way in and out of the gullies, never once stopping and never once getting into a pocket. On the last morning they ate every bit of the corn bread and bacon.
"They aint far off now," said Elam. "About noon we'll be among friends. You will find two boys there just about your size who will give you more insight into this life than I ever could. ”

“ While the Wafer on the License was still warm, she put on her spangled
Suit, moved to the centre of the Ring, and cracked the Whip.
After than Elam continued to be a Hellion around the Office, but in his private Quarters he was merely Otto, the Trained Seal.
Claudine could make him Bark, play the Cymbals, or go back to the Blue
Bench.
There is one Elam in every Settlement.
All the wise Paper-hangers and the fly Guitar Players had him marked up as a Noodle, but somehow, every time the winning Numbers were hung out, he would be found in Line, waiting to Cash. ”

“ I confess that you don’t look to me like a spy. Spies are generally older men than you, more cooked, as Gaston would say, more fluent in languages. It does not seem to me, either, that even an English spy would go about his affairs quite as you have done. Still, I regret to have to repeat that I dislike your idea of a lark. And not only because you upset nomad chiefs. You upset other people as well. You might even end by upsetting yourself.”
“Who the devil are you?” demanded Matthews, hotly. “The Emperor of Elam?”
“Ha! I see you are acquainted with the excellent Adolf Ganz!” laughed Magin. ”

“ Elam didn't know it, but he was to travel twenty miles at as fast a gait as he had ever ridden it before.
"There goes my luck again," said Tom, as he turned about and returned through the evergreens. "If anything should happen to him, I don't know what I should do. I feel drawn toward the fellow. I will pay attention to what he told me, and in order to put it out of the power of those men to carry off this map and money I will just chuck the bag in here, where I know it is safe." ”

“ Elam began to look wild when he began to talk about the nugget, and Tom was glad to change the subject of the conversation.
"Who is the other fellow?" said he. "You said there were two of them."
"The other fellow is a tender-foot; he don't claim to be anything else. I'll bet you, now that I have got over my excitement, that I have been talking about his father. His father commands a post within forty miles of the place where he is now visiting, but I don't know one soldier from another. ”

“ The foreman heard Uncle Ezra through without interruption, and then turned and gave Elam a good looking over. After that he got up and assisted me with the supper.
"So Elam has really got a map of the place where that nugget is hid?" were the first words he uttered. He didn't seem to care a straw about the Indians, but he did care about the gold. "I wish I knew the man he shot to get it."
After that the evening was just what you would expect of one spent in a hunter's camp, or one passed in a sheep-herder's ranch, which was the same thing. We ate supper ”

“ That was another thing that was against Tom.
"I am afraid I am unlucky, after all," thought he, once more arranging his bunch of furs. "I am sent out into the mountains to prospect for gold, when there isn't any gold in sight except what belongs to Elam, here, and have the promise that when summer comes I shall be given a chance." Then aloud: "Say, Elam, does a fellow have to ride this line at first, and before he can call himself a full-fledged cowboy?"
"Sure," said Elam; "he must get used to everything that is done on the ranch. ”

“ But where's the map?"
"That's so. I think you have got the only one there is in existence."
"I only hope there are other fellows looking for the nugget," said Elam, shifting his rifle from one shoulder to the other, "because we won't have to work where they have been. It will make matters so much easier for us."
After that Elam kept still about the nugget, and during the whole of the twenty miles I never heard him speak of it again. We accomplished the journey just about dark, Elam and I walking all the way, and Tom I know was glad to get back among civilized people once more. ”

“ One of the flags bore the image of a man, without moustaches or beard, dressed in a costume and helmet recalling those of the Circassians.
ELAM, the name given in the Bible to the province of Persia called Susiana by the classical geographers, from Susa or Shushan its capital. In one passage, however (Ezra iv. 9) , it is confined to Elymais, the north-western part of the province, and its inhabitants distinguished from those of Shushan, which elsewhere (Dan. viii. 2) is placed in Elam. ”

“ At last, when everything began to grow indistinct, and Tom had put away his axe and piled up the wood, he looked for Elam again, resolved if he could not see him to go into the cabin, haul in the string, and get his supper; but there was Elam half-way across the prairie, and, furthermore, he was struggling under a weight about as heavy as he could well carry.
"They are wolf-skins," said he, as Tom hurried up to him and took his rifle from his grasp. "I've got eighteen, and two otters. How are you, Tender-foot? ”

“ You could not have told that a man had passed through there in one year or ten, the weather had so completely done away with all his work. But it did not make any difference to Elam. Sometimes he would be gone before we were up, but he always came back to supper, which we took pains to have good and hot for him. We never made any enquiries, for he knew just how impatient we were, and he would not keep us waiting a moment longer than was necessary. We had been in the canyon six weeks, and, to tell you the truth, Tom and I were getting pretty tired of the search. ”

“ Near the middle of the valley were two men who were stretched out on the ground, dead. There was nothing on them to indicate who they were, but Elam had no difficulty in recognizing them.
"Well, it is better so," said he sorrowfully. "The Indians have got you, and that's all there is of it. Now my furs have gone, and I shall have to go to Uncle Ezra's to get a grub-stake." ”

“ I don't see any nugget."
"We haven't had any luck at all," said Elam. "We ate up the grub, and now I am going to cattle-herding."
"Elam," said Uncle Ezra severely, "you are not telling me the truth! There is something back of this."
"All right. Come out and see for yourself."
Tom and I removed the saddles from our horses, and at the same time Uncle Ezra came out and began his examination. With the very first move he made he hit the nugget. I never saw a man more completely taken aback than he was. ”

“ Afterwards when they went back to Elam, Bêl-eṭir, his father, died in Elam; and he in Marchesvan [pg 363] brought letters to me, and to Aplîa, the governor, we sent the letters on by Daru-Sharru, the body-guard. After some broken lines:
“Now a certain servant of ... came with him to Erech.” we read:
If he say to the king, my lord: “I have come from the land of Elam,” let not the king, my lord, believe him. From the time when in the month of Marchesvan, he brought the letters and we sent them to the king, my lord, until now, he has not returned to Elam. ”

“ Here's a tender-foot come out here to see the country——"
"All right. Go on, and let him dig away some of the landslides until he gets sick of them. He won't get nothing, I bet you. Now, suppose you take your creeters and go on your way. We can have a fair view of you for a quarter of a mile, and that's all we want."
Elam at once picked up his gun, mounted his horse and rode away, leading one of the mules, leaving Tom and I to follow at our leisure. ”

“ The antics he went through were enough to make the hunters laugh.
"What do you think now about my being crazy?" demanded Elam. "I've shot at that thing, and I don't see why I didn't get him; but I can see now why it was. He was so big that a bullet had to be put in the right place to get him."
"That's about the case with everything I have shot, Elam," said the foreman. "I had to put the ball in the right place, or I didn't get him. But you have removed a heap from my mind. Who shot him?"
"Here's the man, right here." ”

“ An occasional report of a carabine, followed by an answering yell, came faintly to his ears, thus proving beyond a doubt that the savages had "scattered," thus making it a matter of impossibility to hunt them. After that Elam came back and loafed around the stockade to see what he could find that was worth looking at. The doors of the officers' apartments were wide open, and, although they were very plainly furnished, Elam looked upon it as a scene of enchantment. ”

“ Elam had set out to relieve his mind, and he did it; and as there was no one else to talk to, he addressed his remarks to the orderly.
"The major needn't blame me if some of them fellows gets hurt," said he. "I tried to set the law to going and couldn't do it. I'll never ask a soldier to do anything for me again. I can take care of myself. I don't see what you fellows come out here for anyway, except it is to wear out good clothes and keep grub from spoiling. That's all the use you be." ”

“ CHAPTER XIV. ELAM UNDER FIRE.
"Yes, that's bad business," the sutler continued. "They steal furs and pass them off as their own. I couldn't do that."
"But this is the fourth time they have robbed me," Elam went on. "You have handled skins that they took from me last winter. They'll try to sell them at this store, most likely. There aint no traders here, are they? I aint seen any of them hanging around."
"No; they have been scarce of late," answered the sutler, who would have been glad to know that none of the fraternity would ever show their faces in that country again. ”