Tom was surprised at the interior of the dugout. From the outside it didn't look large enough to accommodate more than three or four men, but there were bunks for eight, and there was ample room for the cooking stove, a dilapidated affair which looked as though it might have come from somebody's scrap-pile and left one of its legs behind it. But there was plenty of "draw" to it, as Monroe came in with his arms full of buffalo chips, filled the stove full, and touched a match to them. On each side of the stove was a blanket, which on being raised proved to conceal little cupboards devoted to various odds and ends. One contained books and magazines, a whip or two, and several pairs of spurs, and in the other were to be found the dishes from which the inmates had eaten breakfast, all neatly washed and put away. Tom was surprised at the air of neatness that everywhere prevailed.
"Oh, you won't find all dugouts like this one," said Monroe. "Some of them are so dirty that you can't find a place to spread your blanket. Mr. Parsons' cook did this work, and all the ole man does is to sit outside and smoke."
"Here comes the ole man now," said Stanley, who had ascended to the top of the stairs and was looking out over the prairie. "He has got a small drove of cattle with him, so we shall have some corral duty to do to-night."
"And I believe he has more than twenty-five head with him," said Mr. Kelley, who dropped everything and came to Stanley's side. "He's got fifty if he's got one. Boys, I guess you had better go out there. They are tired most to death, and we might let them come in and get some supper."
Although the two cowboys had ridden all of fifty miles that day, there was no objection raised to this arrangement. Without saying a word they buckled on their belts containing their revolvers, shouldered their saddles and bridles, and went out behind the hay racks. When they came within sight a few minutes later, they were going at full speed to meet their employer and his cattle.
"Now, maybe you are able to see something off there, but I can't," said Tom, after he had run his eyes in vain over the horizon. "I can't see a single thing."
"Can't you see that long line that looks like a pencil-mark off there?" said Mr. Kelley, trying in vain to make Tom see the object at which he was looking. "Well, it's there plain enough. When you have been on the plains as long as I have, you'll notice all little objects like that one, and, furthermore, you will want to know what makes them. It will be two hours before they come up, and you sit down here on the bench and watch it. I will go down and get some supper."
Tom seated himself on the bench beside the door and tried hard to make out the approaching line of cattle, but could not do it. Finally he was called to supper, and went down saying that he would give his eyes a little rest and then maybe he could see them; but he couldn't do it now.
"Supposing you were in a line of march and had a scout out there where those men are, and he should begin riding in a circle, what would you say?" asked Mr. Kelley.
"I wouldn't say anything," exclaimed Tom. "I wouldn't know what he meant."
"He would mean that there was danger close at hand, and you had better be gathering your cattle up," said Mr. Kelley. "And if they were scattered as far apart as those cattle are, you would want a small battalion of men to answer your orders."
"What would be the danger?"
"From Cheyennes, of course."
"Good gracious! Do they ever come out and threaten a whole ranchful of cattle?"
"Certainly they do. But they are all right now. They haven't had any grievance for a long time, and they are as trustworthy as Indians ever get to be. I wouldn't put any faith in them, however. I'd have been worth half a million dollars if it hadn't been for those pesky redskins."
"Did they steal from you?" asked Tom.
"Yes, they stole me flat, but I got away with my life, and that is something to be thankful for. Now, go out and see if you can find those cattle."
Tom obediently went, and whether it was from the long rest his eyes had had or from some other reason, he distinctly made out a long "pencil line" on the horizon. By watching it closely he finally made out that in certain places the line was interrupted, and finally decided that that was the place where some of the cattle had strayed more than they ought to; and he was confirmed in this idea when he saw a solitary figure move up and turn them in toward the centre. As Mr. Kelley, having finished his dishes, came out and sat down on the bench to enjoy his smoke, he finally made out the two horsemen who rode around the outskirts of the herd and gradually disappeared.
"It won't be long now before the old man will be along," said he. "You will see that he won't ride through the drove, but will come around it. If he should try riding through it, he would have a stampede on his hands that would do your heart good to see."
"Are they as wild as that?" asked Tom, who told himself that he was learning something about the cowboy's business the longer he talked with Mr. Kelley.
"You just bet they are. If you should go among them on foot, you would either stampede them or else they would charge upon you and gore you to death. That's the reason we always use horses in tending cattle."
In about half an hour two horsemen were seen riding around the outskirts of the herd. They took a wide circle, so as not to frighten the cattle, and finally drew a bee-line for the dugout. Mr. Kelley remarked that they were the ones he was expecting, dived down the stairs, and in a few minutes the rattling of dishes was heard as he proceeded with his preparations for a second supper. The horsemen were hungry, or else their animals were, for they occupied much less time in coming in than the cowboys who relieved them, and in short order they were near enough for Tom to distinguish their faces. Tom took a long look at the man who was going to befriend him. He knew who he was, for there was the cut of a leader about him; and when the man rode up and swung himself from his horse with a "How are you, Tom?" it proved to him that Stanley and Monroe had told him something about him.
"Howdy?" shouted a voice from the dugout; and Mr. Kelley stuck his head up through the door. "We're still on hand, like a bad dollar bill. How many cattle have you got out there?"
"Sixty-five; and pretty good luck, too, seeing that they have been stampeded more than forty miles. Where did you pick up this youngster?" added Mr. Parsons, giving Tom's hand a hearty squeeze. "I certainly do not remember seeing him before."
"No, he's a tender-foot. As he didn't know what else to do, he came out here for somebody to grub-stake him."
"Ah!"
"Everyone who knows him has gone back on him," continued Mr. Kelley, "and so he has come out here to see if you won't stake him for a gold mine."
"M-m-m!"
"And as he cured me of the dumb ague by giving me a pitcher of ice-water, I thought I would bring him along."
"Aha!" said the ranchman, who had kept a firm hold of Tom while his right-hand man was speaking. "You claim to be a doctor, do you? Well, we must do something for you. I was a little older than you are when I went into the mountains to seek for a gold mine, and, unfortunately for me, I found it. I smell bacon. Is supper ready yet?"
Mr. Kelley made some sort of incoherent reply which Mr. Parsons and his man understood, for they dived down the doorway, leaving Tom standing alone.
"Unfortunately he got it," Tom kept repeating to himself. "I don't see what there was unfortunate about it, unless he was cheated out of it. If I had as many cattle as he has got out there, and as many men to obey my orders, I should look upon myself as remarkably fortunate."
Tom did not have any opportunity to talk further with Mr. Parsons that night, for as soon as he had eaten supper he went to bed and was soon sleeping soundly. Tom felt the need of slumber, and when he thought he could do so without disturbing anybody, he slipped quietly down the stairs. There sat Mr. Kelley fast asleep on his dry-goods box, holding in his hand the copy of a newspaper about a fortnight old, and which he had been trying to read by the aid of the smoky candle that gave out just light enough to show how dark it was; and as everybody else felt the need of slumber, and gave over to the influence of it wherever they happened to be, Tom threw off his boots and tumbled into his bunk. Once during the night he was aroused by somebody coming in and informing Mr. Kelley that it was twelve o'clock; then there was a stir of changing watches and the camp became silent again. Or no; it wasn't silent. Just after the watches had been changed (for men had to keep track of the cattle during the night and see that nothing happened to stampede them) Tom was treated to a wolf serenade. It began faint and far off, and then all on a sudden broke out so fiercely that it seemed as if the pack had surrounded the cabin and were about to make an assault upon it.
"What was that?" asked Tom, starting up in alarm.
"It's the pesky coyotes," said Monroe, who was taking off his boots. "We're always glad to hear them, for then we know that there is nothing else about."
"What else do you think might be about?" said Tom, wondering how any lone hunter could find any consolation in such a dismal serenade.
"Indians," said the cowboy shortly. "Good-night."
After that Tom did not sleep very soundly, for at times it seemed to him that some of the fierce animals had come to the door, which stood wide open all this while, and were about to come in. Once he was sure he heard them on top of the cabin, but the others slept on and paid no attention to it, and finally Tom became somewhat accustomed to it. He did not think he had closed his eyes at all in slumber, but when he awoke to a full sense of what was going on, he found that there were only two men left in the cabin, Mr. Parsons and his cook. The former sat on the edge of his bunk pulling on his boots, and the cook was busy with his frying-pan.
"Hallo, youngster!" said Mr. Parsons cheerfully. "You'll have to get up earlier than this if you're going to strike a gold mine. Why, it must be close on to six o'clock."
"I was awfully tired last night, and the wolves kept me awake," said Tom. "I don't see how anybody can sleep with such a din in his ears."
"The time may come when you will be glad to hear them. If there are any Indians around, you won't hear them; just the minute the Indians break loose the wolves all seem to go into their holes; but when the Indians are whipped, they are out in full force."
Tom noticed that the men seemed to be in a hurry, and he lost no time in packing his outfit. He ate breakfast when Mr. Parsons did, sitting down to it without any invitation from anybody, swallowed his coffee and pancakes scalding hot, saddled his horse, and rode away, leaving the cook to straighten affairs in the dugout; and all the while it seemed to him that he hadn't had any breakfast at all. He couldn't see anything of the cattle; but Mr. Parsons put his horse into a lope and proceeded to fill his pipe as he went.
"I suppose you know your cattle have gone this way, don't you?" said Tom.
"Of course I do," answered Mr. Parsons, taking a long pull at his pipe to make sure it was well lighted. "They are ten miles on the way nearer home than we are, and we have got to make that up."
"Do you always drive your cattle into the mountains in winter?"
"Yes, sir. We have had some blizzards here that would make your eyes bung out if you could have seen them, and I would be penniless to-day if my cattle had been caught in them. Some of the cattle ahead of us have been driven forty miles by a blizzard that struck us last fall, and I have just succeeded in finding them. If my neighbor hadn't been as honest as they make them, I wouldn't have got them at all. It would be very easy for him to round them up and brand them over again, and then tell me that if I could find an arrow brand in his herd I could have them."
"How far does your nearest neighbor live from you?"
"Just a jump—fifteen or twenty miles, maybe."
Fifteen or twenty miles! None nearer than that! Tom had found out by experience that distances didn't count for anything on the prairie.
"You said last night, in speaking of your gold find, that, unfortunately for you, you got it," Tom reminded him. "I would like to know what you meant by that. Were you cheated out of it?"
Mr. Parsons replied, with a laugh, that he was not cheated out of it, but, on the whole, it didn't much matter. He took a party of experts up there, and, after working over the mine for a week or more, they gave him twenty thousand dollars for it, of which five thousand went to him and the balance to his employer. That made him lazy—too lazy to go to work. He spent three thousand dollars in grub-staking men to look up claims for him until the end of the year, when he found out that he wasn't making anything by it, so he took the balance of his money and went into the cattle business.
"That gave me my start," said Mr. Parsons in conclusion. "In four years I had made up the money I had spent, and vowed I never would go into it again; but here I am talking of sending you to the mountains."
"Do you think you are not going to make anything by it?"
"Well, yes," said Mr. Parsons, with another laugh. "But I have got to do something to help you. You ride pretty well, and I should think you ought to go into the cattle business."
"Who will take me? Will you?"
"Well, no; I can't. I have had to discharge some parties, not having work for them to attend to, and I don't know how I could use you. I will tell you this much: when you come back in the spring, I will give you a show."
"Thank you," replied Tom. "That's the first encouragement I have had. But you say it took you four years to make up the money you had spent. I'm not going to stay here four years."
"You aint? What are you going to do?"
"I am going to look for that nugget that Elam Storm has lost."
"Oh, ah!" said Mr. Parsons, the expression on his face giving way to one of intense disgust. "Well, you'll never find it."
"Why not? The edge of Death Valley is just crowded with men who haven't given up all hopes of finding it."
"Crowded! Young man, I wonder if you know how big Death Valley is? Crowded! Now and then you'll find a man who still has that nugget on the brain, but if the man who hid it himself, not more than two years ago, can't find it, I think it is useless for others to try. There have been landslides in all the canyons that run through there till you can't rest. I'll tell you what I'll do: if you will find that nugget, I will give you ten thousand dollars for it. That's a better offer than I made you a while ago. And you may keep the nugget besides. If you are around when anybody else digs it up, I will give you five thousand dollars."
There was something in this offer that completely shut off all discussion of the finding of Elam Storm's nugget. Mr. Parsons did not refer to the matter again, and neither did Tom; but the latter still clung to the hope of finding the gold. The nugget was there, or why should so large a number of men be on the lookout for it? And if heshouldhappen to strike it, he would be a rich man. During all his rides he kept that one thought in his mind, and nothing could shake it out. There was one thing that ought to have opened Tom's eyes, and that was that no nugget of gold had been struck in that country for miles around. The nearest place at which any had been found was at Pike's Peak, and that was over two hundred miles away. But Tom didn't know that, and the only thing that kept the cowboys from telling him of it was the fact that when he was in the mountains he would think he was doing something, but if he knew there was no gold to reward his search, he would give up in despair.
It took our party five days to make the journey between the dugout and headquarters, for the cattle were slow of movement, and, besides, they were allowed to graze on the way. About ten o'clock a fierce winter wind, which made Tom bundle his overcoat closer about him and pull his collar up about his ears, sprung up from over the prairie, and the cattle ceased feeding and struck out for a canyon about a mile wide which opened close in front of them. Along this they held their way for five miles and better, until it finally emerged into a broad natural prairie, large enough, Tom thought, to pasture all the cattle in the country, and went to feeding with one of the herds. The air was soft and balmy, and Tom's overcoat was resting across the horn of his saddle. Mr. Parsons pulled up his horse and gazed around him with a smile of satisfaction.
"These cattle are all mine, Tom," said he. "Every horn and hoof you see here has been paid for, and if you want to get in the same way, I will give you a chance when you come back to me in the spring. Monroe, you and Stanley might as well go out and see if you can find anything of that bronco. Tom wants to go away, and we must fit him out early in the morning."
This was bringing the matter squarely home to Tom. He was to go away in the morning! He looked up at the mountains, and they seemed so large and he so small by comparison that he shuddered while he thought of getting bewildered in some of those canyons, and lying down and dying there and nobody would know what had become of him. But Mr. Parsons didn't discourage him. He was made of sterner stuff. He looked up and said with an air of determination:
"Yes, I want to get off. The sooner I get to work the sooner I shall be doing something to earn my living."
"That's the idea," said Mr. Parsons. "Stick to that and you will come out all right. Now, let's go home."
Tom waved his hand to the two cowboys, who galloped away in one direction, while he and Mr. Parsons held down the valley, making a wide circuit to get out of reach of the grazing cattle. After going in a lope Mr. Parsons drew up his horse and began to talk seriously to Tom. He told him plainly of the dangers and sufferings which would fall to his lot if he endeavored to carry out his plan, but he did not try to turn him from his purpose. On the contrary, he tried to warn him so that when the dangers came he would be prepared to meet them half-way. He kept this up until the home ranch appeared in view, and then he stopped, for he didn't want the cowboys to hear what he was saying.
This home ranch was not a dugout. There was a neat cabin to take the place of it, and Tom thought some of the cowboys had used an axe pretty well by the way they fashioned the logs and put them together. There were half a dozen hay-racks out behind the house, protected from wandering cattle by rail fences, and there wasn't a thing on the porch, no saddles, bridles, and riding whips, all such things having been put into a cubby-hole in the rear of the house. But it so happened that the cook, who had got there first, had peeled off his coat, and was engaged in straightening things out.
"I never did see such a mess as these fellows leave when I go away for five minutes," said he. "I can't find a thing where it ought to be, though I have hunted high and low for that carving-knife."
Tom took his seat at Mr. Parsons' side while he filled up preparatory to a smoke. There were one or two little things that he wanted to speak to him about.
When Mr. Parsons had fairly settled himself, filled his pipe, lighted it, and fell to nursing his leg as a man might who felt at peace with himself and all the world, Tom said:
"You didn't say anything about my horse in telling me what I should have to get through with. Did you mean that I should leave him at home, and go on foot?"
"I did, certainly," said Mr. Parsons. "You will find that the bronco will go through some places that you will not care to ride, and, besides, you will have one horse less to take care of, and one less to watch."
"Have I got to watch him all the time?"
"Well, yes. You must keep the halter on him all the time, and tie him fast to a tree when you go into camp. If you don't, he will run away and leave you. He'll turn around and take the back track as soon as your pack grows light, and you had better come, too."
"That's what one of the cowboys told me," said Tom. "Now, I have got some money here. I don't suppose it will be of the least use to me in the mountains, and I should like to leave it with somebody."
"All right. Leave your horse and your money with me, and I will take care of them."
"If I don't come back, they are yours," continued Tom. "Now, I should like to have a gun of some sort."
Without saying a word Mr. Parsons went into the house and brought out a rifle and a revolver. Tom took them and examined them, and the way he drew the rifle to his face rather astonished Mr. Parsons. He remarked that he had handled guns before in his day, and Tom told him that he could not remember the time when he did not have a horse and shotgun for his own. His uncle furnished him with all these things.
"Then right there is where you ought to have stayed," said Mr. Parsons, throwing more energy into his tones than he usually did. "I hope you're not going to be sick of your bargain, but I'm afraid you are. Here comes the bronco. Do you think you can manage that fellow?"
The bronco which came up at that moment, with Stanley's lariat fastened about his neck, was like any other horse, only he seemed to be tired. When they stopped him, he lowered his head and drew up one of his hind feet, and closed his eyes as if he were fast asleep. But Tom knew better than to fool with him. He had read enough to know that the word came from the Spanish and meant "wild," and he had got his name from his persistent efforts to keep wild cowboys off his back. He couldn't be ridden, that was the matter with him; but he would carry a pack-saddle all day, and never had been known to leave a man he had accompanied to the mountains. Tom said he thought he could manage him, and patted him all over; but the horse never opened his eyes to look at him.
Preparations were made for getting Tom off as soon as it was light, and by the time darkness fell all was ready. A pack-saddle was brought out which looked as though it had been through two or three wars, and the cook, following the instructions of his master, began to fill it full of provisions, giving no heed to Tom to ask him whether the supplies he furnished suited him or not. He had provided so many men with provender that he thought anything that would do for one would do for another. With darkness came three more cowboys, who listened to what Mr. Parsons had to say, and then greeted Tom very cordially, and wished him unbounded success in his efforts to find Elam Storm's nugget. One man, especially, was particularly interested in Tom's fortunes. He advised him to dig wherever he saw a landslide, and if he happened to hit upon the right place he would strike it sure. The spot where the man hid it was obliterated, but that wouldn't hinder the proper person from unearthing the nugget if he only chanced to dig where it was.
"I have looked for that nugget a good many times, and that is the only thing that has kept me from finding it; I didn't dig where it was," said the man, with something like a sigh of regret. "I know it is somewhere in the mountains, else why should so many persons be looking for it?"
Morning came at last, and after Tom had eaten a hasty breakfast he saw the pack strapped on his bronco; and the whole thing was done so easily, with two experienced cowboys at work, that he regarded it as the least difficult part of his undertaking. He had been told repeatedly to get the pack on right, and not to unhitch his horse until he did it, or the bronco would knock him and his burden into the middle of next week and come home, leaving him to follow after as best he could. But Tom was sure he had it "down fine," and with a cheerful good-by to the cowboys who had assembled to see him off, and a hasty slap on the bronco's flank to help him along, he started gayly for the mountains. When he saw that camp again, he hoped to have the eight thousand dollar nugget stowed away in his pack-saddle.
The first day's work Tom could not complain of. The bronco kept up a lively walk, swinging his head from side to side and turning first into one canyon and then into another, and did not think it necessary to stop for anything to eat until he made his way to a little grove of trees, drew a long breath as he stopped under the shade, and looked around at Tom as if asking him why he didn't take his pack off. Tom leaned his rifle against a log and took his pack off very easily, and the horse immediately began taking his supper. Then Tom picked up his rifle and looked about him.
"I declare! I believe the whole canyon is full of landslides," said he, as he gazed at one pile of rubbish after another filled with logs, rocks, and brush which nature had thrown into the valley, some new and of recent origin, and others bearing the marks of age upon them. "Hold on. Isn't that the mark of a spade over there?"
Tom walked over and looked at it. It was the mark of a spade, sure enough, where a man had commenced digging where the landslide ended, and had thrown out just earth enough to prove that he had been there, and that was all. There were other openings of like character, until Tom counted ten in number. Then he looked up at the huge mass above him, and made an estimate that it would take an army of men, each armed with a spade and pick, to work it all away. These were probably the marks of the elderly man among the cowboys, who told him that the reason he didn't find the nugget was because he didn't dig in the right place. Tom shouldered his rifle, walked back to his log, and sat down.
"I really believe I have been duped," said he disconsolately. "If the landslides are all like that, I am certainly not going to work to throw them all away just to make eight thousand dollars. Besides, what use will it be to me to work where he has been? I'll go on a little further."
If Tom had any idea of a landslide, it was a little piece of ground which could be thrown away in half a day's time; but the sight of areallandslide was what took his breath away. He didn't eat a very hearty supper after that, for the thought that was uppermost in his mind was that the men who had stood by him, and of whom he had a right to expect something better, had completely fooled him in regard to Elam Storm's nugget. Instead of telling him that there wasn't any show at all of his success, they had fitted him out and sent him away to put in a month of his time. There was one thing about it: he would not go back until every mouthful in the pack-saddle had been eaten. That much he was determined on.
"I had an idea that cowboys were above suspicion, but now I know they are not," said Tom spitefully. "I can waste a month of their grub as well as anybody, and I won't put a spade in the ground until I see some prospects of success."
At the end of a week Tom was still of the same determination, although he saw much to discourage him. It was landslides everywhere, and the mark of a man's spade was on every one; so it showed that the bronco had been over that same ground before. The way was getting lonely, they were getting deeper and deeper into the mountains, and somehow Tom felt very disconsolate. A deep silence brooded over everything—a silence so utterly mysterious that he was not accustomed to it. How gladly he would have welcomed Jerry Lamar and listened to news from home and from the uncle he had deserted. Another week and Tom found himself hopelessly in a pocket. Turn which way he would, there was no chance for him to get out. The man had been there before him—indeed, he seemed to have gone into all the places and thrown out just earth enough to prove that he had been there, but not enough to accomplish anything. It was just enough to let Tom see how useless it was to dig there.
Tom's two weeks of tramping in the mountains had given him a ravenous appetite; his bronco was hitched so that he could not take to his heels and leave his master to find his own way home; and as he sat there on his blanket, dividing his attention between his cup of coffee, hard-tack, and bacon, he thought seriously of going back to headquarters. This was undoubtedly the remotest point reached by the man, and if one of his experience should be frightened out by a few shovelfuls of earth, or scared at finding himself in a pocket, Tom thought himself entitled to follow his lead. It had taken him two weeks to reach the pocket (he had managed to keep close run of the days); it would probably take him fully as long to return, and so he would fill Mr. Parsons' contract anyway. And so it was settled that he was to go home; but there's many a slip between determining upon a thing and doing it. He finished his coffee and bacon, led the horse down to the spring, from which he had scraped the leaves, to give him a drink, and rolled himself up in his blanket to go to sleep with his ready rifle safe beside him.
How long he slept he did not know, but he was awakened about midnight by a sound he had never heard before. It came from his horse, but it wasn't a neigh: it was the sound of fear, and made the cold chills creep all over him. He started up with his rifle in his hand, but did not have time to get off the blanket. Another shriek, which sounded like somebody in fearful bodily agony, came from the bushes, and the next minute the horse was on the ground and struggling in the grasp of some animal or thing which Tom could not remember to have seen or heard of before. It had a long neck, long legs, and a wonderfully high body which was increased materially by a hump on its back. The horse was as nothing in its grasp, and the struggle took place not over ten feet from the blanket on which Tom was sitting.
"Great Moses!" was Tom's mental ejaculation.
He sat for an instant as if spellbound, and then his rifle arose to his face. He was sure he had a good shot at it and expected to see it drop; but instead of that it gave another shriek, tossed the horse away from it, breaking like thread the lariat with which he was confined, and with a single jump disappeared in the bushes. Tom listened, but could hear no sound coming from it to tell what sort of a beast it was. Then he got upon his feet and turned his attention to the wounded horse. He was past the doctor's aid, for he was dead.
"Well, that beats me," said he, going back to the fire and starting it up, so that he could see what sort of wounds the beast had made. "I never heard of an animal like that before."
A good many boys would have been startled pretty near to death by the sudden appearance of an apparition like that. It must be possessed of tremendous power to toss the broncho about as it did, and break the lariat with which he was fastened. No ghost could do that, and neither could a ghost have made that wide and fearful rent that Tom found when he had punched up the fire. Tom thought it best to build up a bright blaze, for he did not know how long it would be before the animal would come back to finish its work. He loaded the rifle carefully and placed the revolver where he could get his hands upon it at a moment's warning. He thought of grizzly bears, but had never heard of them taking to the bushes on account of a single bullet.
"It couldn't have been a panther or a bear, unless my eyes were deceiving me, for it was at least four times as big as the horse," said Tom, picking up a brand from the fire and once more approaching the specimen of the apparition's handiwork. He hadn't been in sight more than a minute, and yet the horse was as dead as a door-nail. "He must have been a flesh-eater, for nothing else that I know of could have made such wounds. I am beat. Now, how am I going to find my way home?"
If Tom had been frightened at first, he was doubly so now. He was so confused he couldn't think. From that hour he sat there on his blanket, and by the time that daylight fell so that he could distinguish objects near him he had made up his mind what he was going to do. He would take everything out of the pack-saddle that he could carry on his back, and make his way out of the pocket the same way he came in. He had remembered enough of his skill in woodcraft to turn and take a survey of his back track, so that it would not appear odd to him when he came to go that way again, and he had no doubt that he would be able to find it. More than that, the bronco had left the prints of his hoofs and had continually browsed on the way, and, taking all these things together, Tom was certain that he could strike the trail.
"It is going to be a tight squawk," he soliloquized, "but I am not lost yet. I only wish I knew what that animal was. It would take a big load off my shoulders if I did."
Tom did not waste any time in forming his bundle, for there were some things about the pocket that he did not care to see. He wanted to get out of sight of every thing that reminded him of his terrible fright. He put all his bacon, hard-tack, and coffee into his blanket, strapped his pot to his belt behind, set his pick, spade, and pack-saddle up where they could be easily found, shouldered his rifle, and, with a farewell glance at the bronco, which had carried his pack so faithfully for him so many miles, he plunged into the bushes and left the pocket behind.
For that one single day everything went well. He found the bronco's hoof prints in the sand, and easily discovered the places where he had been browsing on the way, and as long as these signs remained he couldn't get lost. He even found, too, the place where they had stopped the night before, but going into camp without the presence of the horse was lonesome to him. He saw the place where he had scraped away the leaves from the side of the stream to give him a spot to drink, and found the sapling to which he had hitched him, and the place where he had spread his blanket—but there was little sleep for him that night.
"I wish I knew what that animal was," thought Tom, as he sat on his blanket with his rifle in readiness on his knees. "The more I think of him the more frightened I become. I wish I was safe at headquarters."
Remember that the signs Tom had been following were only one day old, and on the morning of the second day he could not find the place where he had entered the camp. Turn which way he would he could not discover any footprints. He finally concluded that the middle canyon looked more familiar to him than the rest, and, with his heart in his mouth, he struck into it. At the spot where the canyon branched into another he found a little stream which ran in the direction he thought he ought to go, and close beside the stream was a footprint which he took to be his own. He was all right now, and with every mile he travelled the faster he went, in the hope of finding something else that was encouraging, but that solitary footprint was the only thing he saw. There was one thing about it that kept up his spirits, and that was he was following a stream that ran toward the prairie, and he would continue to follow it until the stream or his provisions gave out, and then——Well, that hadn't happened yet, and wouldn't happen till he was where he could get more provisions. He must reach the house or he would lose his horse and $150 in money. He went into camp at a solitary place that night, and, for a wonder, slept soundly.
The next morning he was up bright and early, but he did not seem to have much appetite for breakfast. And it was so every day until a week had passed, and still no change for the better. He was so impatient that he could scarcely go into camp. He was impatient to be journeying along that little stream that seemed to lead him toward the prairie, but every time he looked up and tried to wonder where he was, there were the same gloomy mountains stretched away before him that he had at first seen in the pocket where he had lost his horse. Tom took no note of the fact that his wearing apparel was getting the worse for wear, or that he had left his blanket back at his last camping-place, but he did take notice that his mind was filled with gloomy forebodings. Why could he not climb that mountain on his left and see what was ahead of him? The thought no sooner came into his mind than he banished it, took a drink of fresh water, and started out at a more moderate pace.
"I'm lost," said he, with a sinking at his heart to which he was an entire stranger; "and if I give way to those thoughts, I shall be lost utterly. Why did I not think of my gun?"
Tom dropped his pack by his side and fired and loaded three times as fast as he could make his fingers move. Then he waited again and fired three more; and scarcely had the echoes of the last report died away among the mountains when he heard a faint reply, though it came from so many directions that he couldn't tell from which way it sounded. But he took it to come from down the stream, and, leaving his bundle behind, he started in that direction, raising a shout which, to save his life, he could not utter above a whisper. He ran until he thought he ought to be about where the sound came from, then stopped and fired his gun again, and this time met with an immediate response. It was down the stream, and there was no doubt about it.
"Who-whoop! Where are you?" shouted Tom, so impatient he could scarcely stand still. "I am lost!"
"Follow the stream and you'll strike me," said a voice, and Tom noticed that for a backwoods fellow he talked remarkably plain.
It was three weeks since Tom had seen anybody or heard anyone speak, and his eagerness to see where the voice came from was desperate. Throwing his gun upon the rocks, he broke into another run, and there, just as he turned around an abrupt bend in the canyon, he saw the person to whom it belonged. The speaker stood with his hat and coat off; his pick lay against a stone near by, and the shovel which he had been in the act of using when Tom's rifle shots fell upon his ears was standing upright in the ground; but he had taken precautions for any emergency, for he held his rifle in the hollow of his arm. Beyond a doubt somebody had been grub-staking him for gold, or for something else which he was equally anxious to find. Tom had just wind enough to take note of these things, and then he staggered to a rock near by and seated himself upon it.
"You won't find any gold here," said Tom, resting his elbows on his knees and looking down at the ground.
The stranger uncocked his gun, and, bringing the piece to an order arms, leaned upon it. He looked hard at Tom, but had nothing to say.
"I have been all over this country, but not a cent's worth of gold could I find in it," continued Tom, taking off his hat and drawing his hand across his forehead. "Somebody has duped you just the same as they duped me."
"Where's your gun?" asked the stranger.
"I left it in the bend up there," said Tom, anxious to hear the sound of the voice again. "I was so impatient to get to you that I left it up there. I haven't heard a stranger speak for three weeks."
"Where did you come from?"
"Wait till I get my breath and I will answer all your questions. I came from a pocket back here in the mountains, where I lost my horse. I wish you could have seen that animal, for I don't know what it was: long neck, long head, and a body that looked twice as big as my horse. And then how strong it was! It broke my lariat——"
"What color was it?" said the stranger, beginning to take a deep interest in what his guest had to say.
"I didn't see that it was any other color when compared with my horse. It looked just the same—a dark brown. It had a hump on its back——"
"The Red Ghost, by George!"
Tom started and looked at him in amazement.
"I aint got any business to be digging around here," said the stranger, laying down his rifle and picking up his coat. "We'll go back and get your gun, Tender-foot. How far is that pocket from here?"
"Why, it is a two-weeks' journey," said Tom, who suddenly became aware that he would have to go over that long tramp again. "I never could find my way back there in the world."
"Who sent you into the mountains to dig for my nugget?"
"Your nugget?"
"Them's my very words, stranger."
"Why, who are you?"
"I am Elam Storm, the man who lost the nugget twenty years ago, and who intends to have it back if he has to kill every man this side of the country you came from; and where's that?"
Tom, who had arisen from his rock at the same time the stranger began to put on his coat, stared fixedly at the speaker, and then sat down again. So this was Elam Storm, the man who had a better right to the nugget than anybody else in the world! He was a boy, not more than nineteen or twenty years of age, but he had a face on him which expressed the utmost resolution. And he had the physical power, too, to carry out his determination, for, as he moved around his camp, putting away his tools where he could readily find them, he showed muscles which said that it would not be a safe piece of business for anyone to interfere with that nugget.
"Where did you come from, I asked you?"
"I came from down in Mississippi, where my uncle owns a plantation and a heap of niggers," answered Tom, who did not like the way the boy eyed him when he spoke.
"And right there is where you ought to have stayed," said Elam. "Did you hear anything about the nugget down there?"
"Of course not," replied Tom, surprised at the proposition. "I started to go to Texas, but got on the wrong boat and was brought up here. I couldn't do anything else, and so Mr. Parsons grub-staked me and sent me into the mountains. He lives out that way a short distance."
"How far do you call a short distance?"
"Fifteen or twenty miles, maybe."
"Haw-ha! Man, you're just about a hundred miles from where he lives."
Tom caught his breath, but could say nothing in reply.
"You have been going further and further away from him ever since you lost your horse," continued Elam. "Come on; let's go and get your rifle."
"You say that nugget of yours was lost twenty years ago," said Tom, as he fell in behind Elam, being afraid to do anything else. "You are not that old, are you?"
"Well, not so long as that!" laughed Elam. "It is a long story and will take you a good portion of the evening to listen to it. I will tell it to you to-night. Now, then, which canyon did you come down?"
Tom looked up and found himself confronted by three gullies, which came down and met at that one point. He said he didn't know, but Elam, after looking around a little, started up one with as much confidence as though he had seen Tom when he came out. After some questioning from Tom he showed him a little twig, not larger than a needle, which he had brushed off in his hurried flight after he had thrown down his gun; and a short distance farther on he found the weapon, which Tom, in his excitement, had tossed clear across the creek. Tom was surprised when Elam stepped across the stream and picked up the weapon, and relieved when it was handed over to him with the assurance that it had suffered no injury in its collision with the rocks.
"Now, we will let the bundle go," said he. "There is nothing in it that will pay us to go back after it, and I am too tired to go a step farther. I hope your camp isn't a great ways from here."
Elam replied that for him it was "just a jump," but he would walk slowly so as not to tire the pilgrim. He stopped at his camp where he had been digging, and gave Tom a small supply of the corn bread and bacon which he had left over from his dinner, and while Tom was eating it he sat by on a rock with his elbows resting on his knees. Tom ate as though he hadn't had anything for a month, and when his repast was ended, Elam took his spade and pick under one arm, shouldered his rifle with the other, and set off in a way that was calculated to tire any man, no matter how well equipped he might be for travelling. But Tom did not care for that. He wanted to get home,—any place was better than the bare canyon,—where he could lie down and sleep with nothing to bother him. Once in a while Elam turned around and said to him:
"To think that I have been wasting my time for the last month in digging in such places as this! I ought to have been fifty miles from here, for I know about where that canyon of yours is."
"Do you think that that Red Ghost, or whatever you call it——"
Tom happened to look up and saw that Elam was facing him, and was astonished at the expression that came upon his countenance. He would not have believed that one who was so sensible on every other point should be willing to admit that the apparition that had visited him in the pocket and robbed him of his horse was not due to superhuman agency.
"I know how you, Tender-foot, feel about this, but wait until you have a chance to shoot it plumb through the head, and it gets away with it all, and then tell me what you would think," said Elam sullenly. "You probably don't have such things in the settlements, but that's no sign that they aint found out here."
"I had as fair a shot at it as anybody could have," said Tom, "and it wasn't over ten feet from me. I saw the blood spurt out from a hole in its neck, and it flung the horse away from it, broke the lariat, and went into the bushes. But do you think it is guarding that treasure?"
"I know it, and nobody can't make me believe differently. I have seen it often enough, and it has got the mark of three of my bullets on it."
Elam faced about and went on his way at a faster gait than before, and Tom let him go. As eager as he was to learn something about the Red Ghost, he was still more eager to reach a permanent camp where he could lie down and rest. He found that he was pretty nearly barefooted. His sheep's-gray pants hung in tatters about his worn shoes, and Elam had a way of jumping from one stone to another and coming down on top of a log in a manner that he did not like. At length, when the sun began to go down, and Tom experienced some difficulty in finding a place for his feet, Elam stopped on the edge of a natural prairie, and pointed out something a short distance off.
"There's my horse," said he. "And yonder, where that little grove of trees comes down into the prairie, is where my shanty is located. Can you stand it till we get there?"
Oh, yes, Tom could stand it that far. He fell in behind Elam, paying no attention to the horse, which came up and followed along in their rear, pushed his way along the evergreens, and was finally brought to a stand by a door in a substantial log house. It was fastened by a bolt on the inside, but as the string was out, Elam easily opened it.
"You are welcome to the cabin of Elam, the wolfer," said he, leading the way in and pointing to a pile of skins which served him for a bed. "Tumble in there, and don't get up till you get ready."
"Thank you," said Tom, handing his rifle to Elam and throwing himself at length on the couch. "I never was so tired in my life."
Elam had hardly time to set the rifle up in a corner and shut the door before Tom was fast asleep. How long he slept he did not know, but during the whole of it he felt that he was under the care of somebody who could protect him. If there were any ghosts to visit that camp, they would have to strike Elam first.
The first thing he became aware of when he got his eyes fairly opened was that he was so full of aches and pains that he could scarcely move, and the next, that he did not recognize a thing about the establishment. Gradually he raised himself on his elbow, and then Elam Storm came into his mind. He could not remember much of what he had said to Elam during their first meeting,—he must have been about half crazy, he thought, when he talked to him,—but he had said enough to bring him a good bed and a sound sleep besides. He found that his feet had been interfered with—that they felt easier than they did before; and on removing the blanket that had been thrown over them he discovered that his tattered shoes and stockings had been removed; that they had been wiped dry and moved closer to the fire, which had evidently been going at a great rate before it died down to its present bed of ashes. There was plenty of wood right there, and with much extra exertion Tom managed to crawl to it, and by the persistent blowing of a coal into flame he succeeded in starting a fair blaze. Then he contrived to get up. There was a big hunk of johnny cake on the table, a slice of bacon with a knife handy to cut it, and a bag which proved to contain coffee. A further examination showed him that Elam had not gone about his business without leaving a letter behind him to tell where he was. The first was a chunk of bark on which was rudely traced a picture of a man gathering traps. He knew that he was taking the game in, for there was a representation of game in the trap. A second piece of bark lay under the first, and Tom could not for a long time make sense of what it contained. It was blurred, and was intended to represent a man going into camp. In other words, if Elam did not get home by daylight, Tom need not worry about it. The pictures were rudely traced in charcoal, but the drawing was perfect.
"If I had not been tolerably well posted in backwoods lore, I could not have made head or tail out of these pictures," said Tom; and as he spoke he thought over all the lessons he had learned from the Indians and darkies in the swamp. "Elam is going out to gather his traps, and if he does not come home before to-morrow, I need not bother my head about it. What is he going to gather up his traps for? I shall have to wait till he comes home to have that explained, and now I'll go to work and get some breakfast."
Tom had used up nearly all the wood to replenish the fire, and he began casting his eyes about the shanty to see if Elam had another pair of shoes in waiting to be put on when his own boots became wet, and found some moccasons with a pair of stockings neatly folded and hung beside them. Elam had worn them once, but that did not matter. He put them on, and, seeing Elam's axe resting in one corner, caught it up and went out to renew his supply of fire-wood. Hearing the blows of the axe, the horse came up and snorted at him, but could not be induced to come near. This made it plain that the man who attempted to rob Elam would have to leave his horse behind.
Tom chopped until his appetite began to get the better of him, and then went in and busied himself about his breakfast. He left the door open (for all the light that was admitted to the cabin came through a space in the roof over the fireplace through which the smoke escaped), and told himself that for one who had never seen the comforts of civilized life Elam was able to copy pretty close to them. There was a table whose top was made of boards hewed out of a log and smoothed with an axe, and one or two three-legged stools without any backs, which proved that Elam sometimes had company. The clothing he had worn was neatly hung up at one corner of the cabin, and underneath was something which Tom had not noticed before: two bundles of skins, nicely tied up and waiting to be shipped. They were wolf-skins, and close by them lay half a dozen skins of the beaver and otter, not enough to be tied up.
"I know what he meant when he said that I was welcome to the cabin of Elam, the wolfer," said Tom. "Somebody has either grub-staked him and sent him out here to catch wolves or else he is working for himself. Now, where's the spring? I must have some water for my coffee."
Tom easily found the pail of which he was in search, and, going out behind the cabin, he followed the path he had noticed while cutting wood. It ran through a quiet grove of evergreens, and finally ended in a little pool in which Elam found his water. Coming back to the cabin, he could not find any coffee-pot, but he found a pan which seemed to have been used for nothing but coffee, filled it with water, placed it on coals he had raked off to one side, and covered it with one of Elam's pictures. With his breakfast fairly going, with his coffee and bacon on the coals, and his johnny cake and clean dishes on the table by his elbow, he settled back on his stool as complacently as though he had never known anything better.
"I don't know what sort of a conscience Elam's got, but if he's got a tolerably fair one, it seems to me that he ought to be well contented with this life," said Tom. "He was born to this thing, and, consequently, don't know anything better; but as for me, there isn't money enough in it. But, then, he thinks he is going to find that nugget. Well, I'd like to find it myself, but I am not going to bother with it with such a fellow as Elam in the way. I don't want to test those muscles."
Tom had come to that country to make money; he wasn't going to test anybody's muscle in order to make it, but he was going to make it. In spite of all the obstacles that were thrown in his way—and he met with no greater loss than any tender-foot is likely to meet—he carried back to his uncle half as much money as he stole from him, and his uncle was glad to see him, too. This was all in the future, and Tom knew nothing of it. He ate his breakfast with great satisfaction, getting up from the table once in a while to examine something new in Elam's outfit, and when it was done, he washed the dishes and put everything back just as he had found it. Then there was nothing left for him to do but to cut wood until Elam came. The latter would be cold and wet from handling those muddy traps, and there would be nothing wanting but a fire for him to get up to. Every once in a while he dropped his axe and went out to the edge of the evergreens to see if he could discover Elam returning, but always came away disappointed. One thing he continually marvelled at, and that was the scarcity of game. If anyone had told him that he could leave his gun and wander away by himself, he would have thought him foolish; and here he had been alone in the mountains nearly a month and had not seen anything—not even a jack-rabbit—to shoot at. Had it not been for that Red Ghost, or whatever it was, that visited him the night he stayed in the pocket, his gun would have been as clean when he took it back as when he came out with it. 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? Got over your sleep yet?"
Tom replied that he had got all the slumber he wanted, and then went on to tell Elam that he knew where he had gone, and if he did not return that night, he would not have been at all worried about it, and that he had got the knowledge from the pictures he had left on the table, and Elam seemed very much pleased.
"You can't read or write, can you?" asked Tom. "I thought not, but you drew those pictures as though you had taken lessons in drawing. I have got a good warm fire for you."
Although there were many things that he was anxious to question Elam about, Tom did not trouble him until he had had his supper and had shaken up the skins preparatory to enjoying his after-supper smoke. Tom followed his example and stretched himself out beside him, pulling off his moccasons so that he could have the full benefit of the fire.
"Now, Tender-foot, what brought you out to this country?" said Elam, pulling up a bundle of wolf-skins so that he could rest his head upon it. "Tell me the truth and don't stick at nothing."
Tom replied that there wasn't very much to tell, and went on and revealed to Elam as much of his story as he was willing that a stranger should know; but he didn't tell him a word about his fuss with Our Fellows, or of his stealing five thousand dollars, or of his association with gamblers. In short, he gave him to understand that he was hard up, that he wanted to go to Texas and had got on to the wrong boat and been brought up there. He told him the truth about his meeting with Mr. Kelley and his two cowboys, for he did not know but that Elam might see them some day.
"I didn't know a thing about this country," said Tom, in conclusion, "and Mr. Parsons grub-staked me and sent me out to find a gold mine."
"Haw-ha! You had about as much chance of finding gold here as you would in New Orleans," said Elam, as soon as his merriment would allow him to speak. "The only gold here is my nugget, and that was buried two years ago. Didn't he tell you about that?"
"Yes, he told me about the nugget, but he also told me that by digging after it I might strike another gold mine, as some others had done before me. But if I ever go again, I don't want to follow such a man as went before me."
"Who was it? Was it somebody who was working on Parsons' place?"
"Yes. He was an elderly man, who seemed to take more interest in me than anybody else. He told me that the only reason he didn't strike the nugget was because he didn't dig in the right place."
"Haw-ha!" laughed Elam.
"And the only reason he didn't dig in the right place was because the nugget couldn't be thrown out with two or three spadefuls of earth," continued Tom. "I followed along after him for two weeks, and in every camping-place there were two shovelfuls of dirt flung out. If a hen had been scratching for that nugget, she would have made better headway."
"He was on the right track, anyhow," said Elam. "If he had kept on till he came to that pocket, he would have found it. That would have given me a job, for I would a heap sooner find it in the dirt than take it out of a man's pack."
"If a man was to find that nugget——"
"Yes, sir, I would," said Elam savagely. "It is mine, and I'm a-going to have it, I don't care who unearths it. Do you suppose you could find your way back to that pocket?"
"No, sir; I couldn't," said Tom, drawing a long breath of dismay. "In the first place, there's the Red Ghost. If you had seen it——"
"Haven't I seen it?" demanded Elam. "It has got the marks of some of my bullets."
"It must bear the marks of a good many bullets, and I don't see why some of them did not hit it in the proper place. What do you suppose it is, anyway?"
"Why, it's a ghost, I tell you. If it wasn't, some of those bullets would have struck it in the proper spot, I bet you."
"If it's a ghost, you can't kill it."
"Can't, hey? I'll bet you that I can."
"It looked to me just like a camel," said Tom, who did not like the way Elam glared at him every time he struck on this subject.
"A camel! What's them?"
"An animal they make use of in foreign countries to carry heavy burdens for them. But, Elam, how came it to appear to you? It don't show itself to anybody else who hunts in these mountains, does it?"
"Certainly it does. The history of this nugget is known all over the country, and if any man has it on his mind, he may be a hundred miles from here, but that makes no difference; it appears to that fellow and scares him off. Now, wait till I tell you."
This brought Elam to his story, and he entered upon it a good deal as Uncle Ezra did, beginning with the massacre of the soldiers who were sent out to pay the garrison at Grayson, and ending with the fight between the two miners in the mountains. He seemed to know right where the nugget had been ever since it was unearthed. At any rate, he told a pretty straight story, and when it was ended filled up his pipe and looked at Tom to see what he thought about it.
"I did think for a time that I should find my father and the nugget together, and even gave it out among the sheep-and cattle-growers who would listen to me," continued Elam, taking a few long pulls at his pipe. "But I have since given that idea up. I didn't say anything to the men hereabouts, for it kinder ran in my head after a while that they thought I was luny on the subject; so I just kept my ideas to myself. You see, the thing couldn't have gone through so many hands without my hearing something of my father, but, search high or low, I never heared a word about him. The old man is dead. He was killed when the robbers made their assault on the train, and the nugget has been doing all this of itself."
"All what of itself?" asked Tom.
"Why, it has been bobbing up and bobbing down," replied Elam. "One day you know where it is, and by the time you get on the track of it it has gone up, nobody knows where."
For a long time Tom did not say anything. The story seemed so real—as real as that he was sitting on his couch of furs, with his feet tucked under him, gazing hard into the fire. It did not seem possible that the story could get abroad, and so many men believe it, and here this one was known two hundred miles away. There must be something in it.
"Well," said Elam, "do you think I am crazy?"
"I don't know what to think," said Tom. "Such a story never got wind in the settlements."
"Of course it didn't. There's a heap more things that happen out here than you think for. There isn't one man in ten who would believe about that ghost."
"No, sir," said Tom emphatically. "And I don't know what to believe about it, either, and I have seen it. Are you going up there to that pocket?"
"I am going to start day after to-morrow if you will show me the way. When I strike the nugget, I will give you half."
The proposition almost took Tom's breath away. All that amount of money for facing the Red Ghost! Now that he had got safely out of reach of it and had heard so much about its going everywhere it pleased, here to-day and a hundred miles away to-morrow, Tom was obliged to confess that there was more of a ghost about it than he was at first willing to suppose. But there was his horse with the broken lariat! No ghost could do a thing like that.
"You see, I shall spend to-morrow in gathering in my traps," said Elam. "I may not come back, you know, and I don't want to leave them out where everybody can steal them, and when they are all in, I shall be ready to start."
When Elam said this, Tom picked up a burned chunk, threw it on the fire, and laid down again. If Elam thought he wasn't going to come back, what was the use of his visiting the pocket? Tom had about concluded that he would not go.
"No, I may not come back," said Elam, anxious that Tom should learn just how desperate the undertaking was, "and while I don't want to have my traps stolen, I want to leave them where someone can use them. Then I will pack my spelter on my horse and go to the nighest post—it is just a jump from here—and trade it off for provisions. We can easy get them as far as here."
"Yes; but what will you do from here on? You won't have any bronco to carry them for you."
"We will pack it on our backs. It's a poor hunter who can't go into the woods and carry provisions enough for two weeks."
"And what if the Red Ghost appears? The first thing it will pitch into will be ourselves. I don't think I will go. I have got all over prospecting for gold, and wish that summer might come so that I can go to work herding cattle."
"Well, I know what will happen to you then," said Elam.
"Well, what will happen to me then?" said Tom, after waiting for his companion to finish what he had on his mind.
"You'll go plumb crazy; that's what will happen to you. You will be set to riding the line——"
"What's that?" interrupted Tom.
"Why, riding up and down a fence, or rather where the fence ought to be, to see that none of your cattle break away. It will take you two days to make a trip, and you will get so tired of it that you will finally skip out and leave the line to take care of itself. But all right. You go to bed and sleep on it, and if it doesn't look better in the morning, I'll say no more about it. I will go by myself."
With something like a sigh of regret Elam turned over and prepared to go to sleep. There was no undressing, no handling of blankets, but just as he was he was all ready to go to slumber. Tom felt sorry for him, and, besides, he knew how Mr. Parsons and the cowboys would look upon such a proceeding if it should once get to their ears. And he didn't see any way to prevent it. If Elam's story was able to travel for two hundred miles, the idea that he was afraid to face the Red Ghost would travel, too, and then what would be his prospect of getting employment with Mr. Parsons? And, besides, there was a chance for him to go "plumb crazy" while riding the line and seeing that the cattle did not break through. 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. He must begin at the lowest round of the ladder and work his way up."
"Well," said Tom to himself, "I just aint a-going to do it. I'll just go to sleep on it now, and if the thing looks better to me to-morrow than it does to-night, I'll stick to your heels."
While Tom was thinking about it, he fell asleep. When he awoke the next morning, it was broad daylight, but he was alone. Elam must have moved with stealthy footsteps while he was getting breakfast; but there was everything on the table just as he found it on the previous morning, and the pictures which Elam had drawn, and which Tom had placed on the wall so that they could be easily seen, had been taken down and put where he had seen them the day before.
"I hope to goodness that I will get through with my sleep after a while," thought Tom, as he proceeded to put on his moccasons. "He has gone out to gather the rest of his traps, and I am left to decide whether or not I will go with him. Well, I will go. If that fellow is not afraid of the ghost, I'm not, either. I know it isn't a ghost, but he thinks it is, and we'll see who will show the most pluck."
Tom went about his business with alacrity, and in an hour the breakfast was eaten and the dishes put away. Then he had nothing to do but to cut a supply of wood for Elam, though he didn't know how it was going to be of any use to him, seeing that he was going to the mountains; but it was better than sitting idle all day, and so Tom went at it, throwing the wood as fast as he cut it in under the eaves of the cabin, where it would be protected from the weather. At last the wood that was down was all cut, and Tom, leaning on his axe with one hand, and scratching his head with the other, was looking around to determine what tree ought to come down next, when he happened to glance toward the path where it emerged from the evergreens and ran up to the door of the house, and discovered two men standing there with their arms at a ready. If they had tried to come up under cover of his chopping they had succeeded admirably. They might have approached close to him, and even laid hold upon him, and Tom never would have known it until he found himself in their grasp.
Of all the sorry-looking specimens that Tom had ever seen since he came West these were the beat. Elam would have been ashamed to be seen in their company. His clothes were whole and clean, while these men had scarcely an article between them that was not in need of repairs. Their hats, coats, and trousers ought long ago to have gone to the ragman; and as for their boots—they had none, wearing moccasons instead. Tom felt that something was going to happen. He knew he was growing pale, but leaned with both hands upon his axe and tried not to show it.
"Howdy, pard?" said one of the men, looking all around.
"How are you?" said Tom.
He would have been glad to step into the cabin and get his rifle, but he noticed that the men stood between him and the doorway.
"Whar's your pardner?" asked the man.
"He is around here somewhere," said Tom, shouldering his axe and starting for the door. "What do you want?"
"I want to know if you have anything to eat? We have been out looking for some steers that have broke away, and we've got kinder out of our reckonin'."
"Who are you working for?"
"For ole man Parsons. Our horses got away from us, too, and didn't leave us so much as a hunk of bacon."
"I don't believe a word of your story," said Tom, who knew from the start that the man was lying. "But come in. I reckon Elam would give you something if he was here, though, to tell you the truth, we haven't got much."
"So Elam is your pardner, is he?"
"You seem to know him pretty well."
"Oh, yes. Elam and I have been hunting many a time."
"He's liable to come back at any minute," returned Tom, who wished there was some truth in what he was saying. "He has just stepped out to look at some traps. I don't see what keeps him so long, for of course you will be glad to see him."
Tom had by this time got inside the cabin, closely followed by the two men, who, he noticed, did not go very far from the door. One of them hauled a stool up beside it and sat down where he could keep a close watch on everything that went on outside, and the other kept so close to Tom that the latter could not have used his axe if he had tried it. Tom wanted to get his hands on his rifle, but one of the men had placed himself directly in front of it so that his broad shoulders were between him and the weapon. The men pushed back their hats and took a survey of the interior of the cabin while Tom was getting down the side of bacon, and finally one of them discovered the pile of wolf-skins which Elam had tied up and left in the corner. With a smile and a muttered ejaculation he walked over and examined it.