CHAPTER XVA RUDE AWAKENING“Look out!” was White’s warning to Lieutenant Wingate, as the guide sprang forward to the man on the ground.“Is he dead?” called Elfreda, getting up to go forward to the visitor’s assistance.“No. Stay where you are for the present, please.” The camp was silent for a moment, then White stood up. “It’s Jim Haley!” he announced. “And he has been pretty roughly used.”“The Man from Seattle!” cried the girls. Elfreda was at his side instantly.“Is he wounded?” she asked.“I think not,” replied the guide.“See if he has any peanuts with him,” advised Stacy Brown.“Stacy!” Hippy’s voice was stern, and the fat boy subsided.A quick examination by White and Miss Briggs failed to reveal any wounds. They brought water, and Elfreda bathed Haley’s face, which, though bloody, was only scratched, probably by contact with bushes. It took but a short time to revive him, his trouble being almost wholly exhaustion. Grace hastened to make a pot of tea, which Haley gulped down and instantly recovered himself.“Sorry I lost my samples, or I’d not have been in this shape,” he said, grinning.“What happened to you?” Hippy asked.“Same old story. The mountain ruffians wanted peanuts, so they tackled me. One taste of the International’s product and men will commit murder to get more of it. I threw away all I had, and they’re picking them up along the trail. It was the only way I could get rid of the scoundrels. Then I got into more trouble. A pack of wolves got the scent of the peanuts and they tackled me, too, but I hadn’t any of the International’s product to throw to them, so I had to run for it. They chased me nearly all the way in. ‘Good for man and beast’ is the slogan that I shall send on to the International for use in their publicity matter.”The girls were now laughing heartily, but, as they recalled the manner of Haley’s leaving them, they subsided abruptly. Haley’s now merry eyes caught the significance of the change.“I’m Done For!”“What have I said or done now? Is it because I have no peanuts for you good people?”“I think the young ladies would like an explanation of your sudden departure the other night,” spoke up Hippy Wingate.“Were I to tell you that I ran away because I was afraid, you probably would not believe me, so I’ll not tell you that. There are some things one can speak of freely, and others that he cannot. This latter happens to be my difficulty now. If you feel that you do not want me, of course I shall not impose upon you. I thank you, but I warn you that you are not to enjoy any of the International’s product until you reach home. They eat ’em alive up here.”“You are quite welcome to remain as long as you wish. Please stay over Sunday with us, Mr. Haley,” requested Grace. “We hope to have a spread for our Sunday dinner,” she added laughingly.“You win, Mrs. Gray. Unfortunately, my International raiment is in a sad condition, but if you will lend me a pair of shears I’ll cut off the ragged ends and try to make myself presentable.”The girls, at this juncture, bade the men good-night and turned in, for there were not many hours left for sleep, and they were now very tired after the exciting night through which they had passed.A few words passed between the guide and the peanut man, and Ham White listened with a heavy frown on his face.“I won’t do it!” he exclaimed. “Do you think you would were you in my position?”“If the International’s product didn’t pay me I should,” answered the peanut man, with a twinkle in his eyes.“Oh, hang the International!” retorted White. “I give you fair warning that I’ll not double-cross these young women for you or for any of your confounded outfit. I’ve done enough already, and I am thinking of going to them and making a clean breast of what I have done and then get out.”“Don’t be a fool, White. Here! Read this.” Haley extended a folded slip of paper to the guide, who opened and read it, the frown deepening on his forehead.White handed back the slip of paper, and resting his chin in the palm of his hand sat regarding the distant campfire thoughtfully, for they had withdrawn out of earshot of the camp for their conversation.“Very well!” agreed Hamilton White after a few moments’ reflection. “I might as well be hanged for a sheep as a wolf, but if anything happens here as a result I shall tell why. Remember that, Haley.”“Oh, well, what’s a bag of peanuts more or less?” was the enigmatic reply of the Man from Seattle. “I’ll take a nip of sleep, if you don’t mind, and be on my way, but notfaraway.”The queer visitor took the blanket that had been given to him, and, walking back into the forest a short distance from the camp, lay down and went to sleep. The guide did not turn in at all, but sat silently in the shadows, rifle at his side, thinking and listening. Thus the rest of the night passed, and day began to dawn.With the breaking of the day Hamilton White climbed the miniature mountain, and drawing a single-barreled glass from his pocket began studying the landscape. A tiny spiral of smoke about two miles to the north claimed his instant attention. He studied it for a few moments. At first the smoke was quite dark, then the spiral grew thin and gray as it waved lazily on the still morning air.“Someone is building a breakfast fire,” he muttered. “And they know how to build a fire, too. That may be Haley’s crowd. Ah!”As White slowly swept his glass around he discovered something else that aroused his keen interest. On a distant mountain a flag was being wigwagged. He could not see the operator of it, but he was able to follow the message that was being spelled out.Another shift of his glass and a careful study of known localities enabled the guide to find the person who was receiving the message, and soon the receiver began answering with his signal flag.Ham White grinned as he read both messages.“The forest eyes of Uncle Sam!” he murmured. The signalers were forest lookouts whose eyes were constantly on the alert watching over the vast forest within their range for suspicious smokes, and they were having a friendly Sunday morning conversation over a distance of nearly four miles.Ham read and smiled.“If they knew they would be more careful of what they said,” he chuckled, then a few moments later he climbed down, returned to camp and started the breakfast fire. He fried some strips of bacon, put on the coffee, and then he sounded the breakfast call.“Come and get it!” was the call that rang out on the mountain air.The Overlanders thought they wanted to sleep, in fact, they were hardly awake when they got lip grumbling, in most instances, and began hurriedly dressing. All were shivering, for the air was very chill. The odor of the breakfast, when they smelled it, added to the haste of their dressing.“Stick your heads in the cold water and you will be all right,” advised the guide.The girls returned from the spring, their faces rich with color, eyes sparkling, and ready for breakfast.“How are the appetites? I don’t ask you, Mr. Brown. You have proved to my satisfaction that you can eat whether you are hungry or not,” laughed White.“We are ready for breakfast, sir,” answered Elfreda Briggs. “My, but it does smell good.” “Where is Mr. Haley?” questioned Grace, regarding the guide with a look of inquiry in her eyes.“He thought best to sleep outside of the camp, and no doubt has gone on before this.”“Why, Mr. White?” persisted Grace.“That is a question that I can’t answer just now, Mrs. Gray,” returned the guide, meeting her eyes in a level gaze.“Oh, very well. We will have breakfast.”“We will,” agreed Stacy, and began to help himself from the frying pan, when the guide smilingly placed a hand on the fat boy’s arm.“You forget the ladies, Mr. Brown,” he reminded.“Forget them? How could I?”“It is you who forget, Hamilton,” interposed Emma. “You forget that Stacy Brown never was brought up.”“Give me the chuck!” whispered Stacy. “Heap the plate.”White, catching the significance of the request, heaped the plate, and Stacy bore it to Emma with great dignity. He bowed low and offered the plate.“Your highness is served,” he said. “If you will be so kind as to call your sweet soul to earth from the ethereal realms above long enough to feed that sweet soul on a few fat slices of common pig, you will be a real human being. I thank you,” added the boy, as Emma, her face flushing, took the plate, her lips framing a reply which was never uttered. The shout of laughter that greeted Stacy’s act and words left Emma without speech. Nor did she speak more than once during the meal, then only to ask for another cup of coffee.Breakfast finished and the morning work done in camp, the three men went out to groom the horses, while Grace and Elfreda strayed away. Their objective was the rock from which Ham White had made his early observation.“Have you the diary?” asked Grace as they seated themselves. “Oh, what a wonderful view. Isn’t it superb?”“Yes, I have the diary, and I see the view, and agree with you that it is superb, but suppose we get down to business before we are interrupted. I do not believe we shall be spied on here, at least,” said Elfreda, glancing about her.The thumb-worn book was produced, and the girls bent over it, beginning with the first page. There were daily weather comments, movements of the prospector from place to place, little incidents in his daily life, none of which seemed to shed any light on the subject in which the two girls were interested.“Here is something!” breathed Grace finally, and read, under date of April 30, the following paragraph:“‘Plenty here. Dare not dig, for am watched. Picked up in channel enough pay-dirt to keep over next winter. Channel itself ought to pan out fortune, but shall have to have help. Isn’t safe to try it alone. The gang of cutthroats would murder me. Some day mebby they’ll get me as it is.’”“Hm-m-m-m,” murmured Miss Briggs. “I wondered why, if he had made such a find, Mr. Petersen shouldn’t get out the gold and put it in a safe place before someone got ahead of him. The diary seems to furnish a reason for his delay. He must refer to the Murray gang.”“Listen to this entry, Elfreda,” begged Grace, reading:“‘Queer thing this morning. The sun was shining on the children, and on grandma’s bonnet, but her face was as black as a nigger’s. I wonder if that was a warning to me to keep away. Gold, gold! How terrible is the lure for the yellow stuff. It gets into the blood, it eats into the heart. It’s a frightful disease.’”“That checks up with what Mr. Petersen had me to write down, doesn’t it, Grace?” breathed Elfreda.“Undoubtedly. He must refer to the same thing, but it doesn’t give us the least idea where the place is.”“The man would be a fool to write a thing like that in a diary—to tell where and how. Anything else? There is something on the next page.”“Yes,” answered Grace, turning the page and reading:“‘Though I haven’t found it, I know pretty well where the mother lode is, but I’m afraid of it—afraid to look for it. I’m afraid the wealth I should find there would kill me just because of the responsibility of possessing it. Then again, what is there left in life after a man has got all he has dreamed of, and yearned for, and fought for, and worked for, up to that time? Nothing!’”“What a philosopher!” marvelled Grace Harlowe.“He is right, too,” agreed Miss Briggs. “Suppose we forget about it, also,” urged Elfreda. “I am tired of it.”“J. Elfreda, if I didn’t know you so well, I should believe you are in love, you are so gloomy. Listen! Mr. Petersen probably has no one surviving him. He wished you to have what he had found. It was the request of a man about to pass out; it was a trust, Elfreda. One day someone, perhaps the very ones who tried to kill him, will stumble on the Lost Mine. I should say that the prospector’s request imposed a duty on you, my dear—a duty to go to the place he names, take possession of what you may find there and keep it for your own. You can’t expect to make a fortune practicing law, especially if you don’t do more practicing than you have done in the last few years. I fear these summer outings of ours have cost each of us something.”Elfreda said she didn’t regret the loss of time. Her time was her own, and she had sufficient funds to enable her to take care of herself and the little daughter that she had adopted a few years before.“The question is, though, how am I going to find this place—how are we going to find it, I mean, for what I find is for the outfit, not for my own selfish self. I—”Elfreda’s eyes had been wandering over the scene that lay before them as Grace slowly turned the leaves of the diary. Miss Briggs thought she had seen a movement off to the right at the edge of the rock farthest from the camp.“What is it?” demanded Grace, glancing up quickly.“Nothing. Go on. Find anything else?”“Only this: ‘When the sun is at the meridian the sands turn to golden yellow,’” read Grace.“What does he mean, do you think?”“I suppose he means to convey that the bed of the dry stream, if it is dry, shows a sort of golden strip. That is all I can make of it. There seems to be nothing else in the book in reference to the subject in which we are particularly interested. I am certain that the poor man knew what he was saying; I believe that he believed he had found what he says he found. Whether he did find it or not is quite another matter. In any event Lost River and the lost mine are well worth looking for as we go along. If there be such a place, Overland luck will lead us to it,” finished Grace.“I doubt it—I was going to say I hope Overland luck doesn’t lead us to it, to our River of Doubt. Oh, Grace!”“Wha—at is it?”“Oh, look!”A black head of hair, lifted just above the level of the rock on the far side, revealed a low forehead and a pair of burning black eyes—evil eyes they seemed to the two startled girls. They could not see the hands that were gripping the edge of the rock, but what they could see was sufficient to fill them with alarm.Without an instant’s hesitation, Elfreda Briggs snatched up a chunk of flinty rock and hurled it with all her might. The chunk of rock fell a couple of yards short of the mark, bounced up into the air, and landed fairly on the man’s head.“Who says a woman can’t throw a stone!” cried J. Elfreda Briggs almost hysterically.
“Look out!” was White’s warning to Lieutenant Wingate, as the guide sprang forward to the man on the ground.
“Is he dead?” called Elfreda, getting up to go forward to the visitor’s assistance.
“No. Stay where you are for the present, please.” The camp was silent for a moment, then White stood up. “It’s Jim Haley!” he announced. “And he has been pretty roughly used.”
“The Man from Seattle!” cried the girls. Elfreda was at his side instantly.
“Is he wounded?” she asked.
“I think not,” replied the guide.
“See if he has any peanuts with him,” advised Stacy Brown.
“Stacy!” Hippy’s voice was stern, and the fat boy subsided.
A quick examination by White and Miss Briggs failed to reveal any wounds. They brought water, and Elfreda bathed Haley’s face, which, though bloody, was only scratched, probably by contact with bushes. It took but a short time to revive him, his trouble being almost wholly exhaustion. Grace hastened to make a pot of tea, which Haley gulped down and instantly recovered himself.
“Sorry I lost my samples, or I’d not have been in this shape,” he said, grinning.
“What happened to you?” Hippy asked.
“Same old story. The mountain ruffians wanted peanuts, so they tackled me. One taste of the International’s product and men will commit murder to get more of it. I threw away all I had, and they’re picking them up along the trail. It was the only way I could get rid of the scoundrels. Then I got into more trouble. A pack of wolves got the scent of the peanuts and they tackled me, too, but I hadn’t any of the International’s product to throw to them, so I had to run for it. They chased me nearly all the way in. ‘Good for man and beast’ is the slogan that I shall send on to the International for use in their publicity matter.”
The girls were now laughing heartily, but, as they recalled the manner of Haley’s leaving them, they subsided abruptly. Haley’s now merry eyes caught the significance of the change.
“I’m Done For!”
“I’m Done For!”
“What have I said or done now? Is it because I have no peanuts for you good people?”
“I think the young ladies would like an explanation of your sudden departure the other night,” spoke up Hippy Wingate.
“Were I to tell you that I ran away because I was afraid, you probably would not believe me, so I’ll not tell you that. There are some things one can speak of freely, and others that he cannot. This latter happens to be my difficulty now. If you feel that you do not want me, of course I shall not impose upon you. I thank you, but I warn you that you are not to enjoy any of the International’s product until you reach home. They eat ’em alive up here.”
“You are quite welcome to remain as long as you wish. Please stay over Sunday with us, Mr. Haley,” requested Grace. “We hope to have a spread for our Sunday dinner,” she added laughingly.
“You win, Mrs. Gray. Unfortunately, my International raiment is in a sad condition, but if you will lend me a pair of shears I’ll cut off the ragged ends and try to make myself presentable.”
The girls, at this juncture, bade the men good-night and turned in, for there were not many hours left for sleep, and they were now very tired after the exciting night through which they had passed.
A few words passed between the guide and the peanut man, and Ham White listened with a heavy frown on his face.
“I won’t do it!” he exclaimed. “Do you think you would were you in my position?”
“If the International’s product didn’t pay me I should,” answered the peanut man, with a twinkle in his eyes.
“Oh, hang the International!” retorted White. “I give you fair warning that I’ll not double-cross these young women for you or for any of your confounded outfit. I’ve done enough already, and I am thinking of going to them and making a clean breast of what I have done and then get out.”
“Don’t be a fool, White. Here! Read this.” Haley extended a folded slip of paper to the guide, who opened and read it, the frown deepening on his forehead.
White handed back the slip of paper, and resting his chin in the palm of his hand sat regarding the distant campfire thoughtfully, for they had withdrawn out of earshot of the camp for their conversation.
“Very well!” agreed Hamilton White after a few moments’ reflection. “I might as well be hanged for a sheep as a wolf, but if anything happens here as a result I shall tell why. Remember that, Haley.”
“Oh, well, what’s a bag of peanuts more or less?” was the enigmatic reply of the Man from Seattle. “I’ll take a nip of sleep, if you don’t mind, and be on my way, but notfaraway.”
The queer visitor took the blanket that had been given to him, and, walking back into the forest a short distance from the camp, lay down and went to sleep. The guide did not turn in at all, but sat silently in the shadows, rifle at his side, thinking and listening. Thus the rest of the night passed, and day began to dawn.
With the breaking of the day Hamilton White climbed the miniature mountain, and drawing a single-barreled glass from his pocket began studying the landscape. A tiny spiral of smoke about two miles to the north claimed his instant attention. He studied it for a few moments. At first the smoke was quite dark, then the spiral grew thin and gray as it waved lazily on the still morning air.
“Someone is building a breakfast fire,” he muttered. “And they know how to build a fire, too. That may be Haley’s crowd. Ah!”
As White slowly swept his glass around he discovered something else that aroused his keen interest. On a distant mountain a flag was being wigwagged. He could not see the operator of it, but he was able to follow the message that was being spelled out.
Another shift of his glass and a careful study of known localities enabled the guide to find the person who was receiving the message, and soon the receiver began answering with his signal flag.
Ham White grinned as he read both messages.
“The forest eyes of Uncle Sam!” he murmured. The signalers were forest lookouts whose eyes were constantly on the alert watching over the vast forest within their range for suspicious smokes, and they were having a friendly Sunday morning conversation over a distance of nearly four miles.
Ham read and smiled.
“If they knew they would be more careful of what they said,” he chuckled, then a few moments later he climbed down, returned to camp and started the breakfast fire. He fried some strips of bacon, put on the coffee, and then he sounded the breakfast call.
“Come and get it!” was the call that rang out on the mountain air.
The Overlanders thought they wanted to sleep, in fact, they were hardly awake when they got lip grumbling, in most instances, and began hurriedly dressing. All were shivering, for the air was very chill. The odor of the breakfast, when they smelled it, added to the haste of their dressing.
“Stick your heads in the cold water and you will be all right,” advised the guide.
The girls returned from the spring, their faces rich with color, eyes sparkling, and ready for breakfast.
“How are the appetites? I don’t ask you, Mr. Brown. You have proved to my satisfaction that you can eat whether you are hungry or not,” laughed White.
“We are ready for breakfast, sir,” answered Elfreda Briggs. “My, but it does smell good.” “Where is Mr. Haley?” questioned Grace, regarding the guide with a look of inquiry in her eyes.
“He thought best to sleep outside of the camp, and no doubt has gone on before this.”
“Why, Mr. White?” persisted Grace.
“That is a question that I can’t answer just now, Mrs. Gray,” returned the guide, meeting her eyes in a level gaze.
“Oh, very well. We will have breakfast.”
“We will,” agreed Stacy, and began to help himself from the frying pan, when the guide smilingly placed a hand on the fat boy’s arm.
“You forget the ladies, Mr. Brown,” he reminded.
“Forget them? How could I?”
“It is you who forget, Hamilton,” interposed Emma. “You forget that Stacy Brown never was brought up.”
“Give me the chuck!” whispered Stacy. “Heap the plate.”
White, catching the significance of the request, heaped the plate, and Stacy bore it to Emma with great dignity. He bowed low and offered the plate.
“Your highness is served,” he said. “If you will be so kind as to call your sweet soul to earth from the ethereal realms above long enough to feed that sweet soul on a few fat slices of common pig, you will be a real human being. I thank you,” added the boy, as Emma, her face flushing, took the plate, her lips framing a reply which was never uttered. The shout of laughter that greeted Stacy’s act and words left Emma without speech. Nor did she speak more than once during the meal, then only to ask for another cup of coffee.
Breakfast finished and the morning work done in camp, the three men went out to groom the horses, while Grace and Elfreda strayed away. Their objective was the rock from which Ham White had made his early observation.
“Have you the diary?” asked Grace as they seated themselves. “Oh, what a wonderful view. Isn’t it superb?”
“Yes, I have the diary, and I see the view, and agree with you that it is superb, but suppose we get down to business before we are interrupted. I do not believe we shall be spied on here, at least,” said Elfreda, glancing about her.
The thumb-worn book was produced, and the girls bent over it, beginning with the first page. There were daily weather comments, movements of the prospector from place to place, little incidents in his daily life, none of which seemed to shed any light on the subject in which the two girls were interested.
“Here is something!” breathed Grace finally, and read, under date of April 30, the following paragraph:
“‘Plenty here. Dare not dig, for am watched. Picked up in channel enough pay-dirt to keep over next winter. Channel itself ought to pan out fortune, but shall have to have help. Isn’t safe to try it alone. The gang of cutthroats would murder me. Some day mebby they’ll get me as it is.’”
“Hm-m-m-m,” murmured Miss Briggs. “I wondered why, if he had made such a find, Mr. Petersen shouldn’t get out the gold and put it in a safe place before someone got ahead of him. The diary seems to furnish a reason for his delay. He must refer to the Murray gang.”
“Listen to this entry, Elfreda,” begged Grace, reading:
“‘Queer thing this morning. The sun was shining on the children, and on grandma’s bonnet, but her face was as black as a nigger’s. I wonder if that was a warning to me to keep away. Gold, gold! How terrible is the lure for the yellow stuff. It gets into the blood, it eats into the heart. It’s a frightful disease.’”
“That checks up with what Mr. Petersen had me to write down, doesn’t it, Grace?” breathed Elfreda.
“Undoubtedly. He must refer to the same thing, but it doesn’t give us the least idea where the place is.”
“The man would be a fool to write a thing like that in a diary—to tell where and how. Anything else? There is something on the next page.”
“Yes,” answered Grace, turning the page and reading:
“‘Though I haven’t found it, I know pretty well where the mother lode is, but I’m afraid of it—afraid to look for it. I’m afraid the wealth I should find there would kill me just because of the responsibility of possessing it. Then again, what is there left in life after a man has got all he has dreamed of, and yearned for, and fought for, and worked for, up to that time? Nothing!’”
“What a philosopher!” marvelled Grace Harlowe.
“He is right, too,” agreed Miss Briggs. “Suppose we forget about it, also,” urged Elfreda. “I am tired of it.”
“J. Elfreda, if I didn’t know you so well, I should believe you are in love, you are so gloomy. Listen! Mr. Petersen probably has no one surviving him. He wished you to have what he had found. It was the request of a man about to pass out; it was a trust, Elfreda. One day someone, perhaps the very ones who tried to kill him, will stumble on the Lost Mine. I should say that the prospector’s request imposed a duty on you, my dear—a duty to go to the place he names, take possession of what you may find there and keep it for your own. You can’t expect to make a fortune practicing law, especially if you don’t do more practicing than you have done in the last few years. I fear these summer outings of ours have cost each of us something.”
Elfreda said she didn’t regret the loss of time. Her time was her own, and she had sufficient funds to enable her to take care of herself and the little daughter that she had adopted a few years before.
“The question is, though, how am I going to find this place—how are we going to find it, I mean, for what I find is for the outfit, not for my own selfish self. I—”
Elfreda’s eyes had been wandering over the scene that lay before them as Grace slowly turned the leaves of the diary. Miss Briggs thought she had seen a movement off to the right at the edge of the rock farthest from the camp.
“What is it?” demanded Grace, glancing up quickly.
“Nothing. Go on. Find anything else?”
“Only this: ‘When the sun is at the meridian the sands turn to golden yellow,’” read Grace.
“What does he mean, do you think?”
“I suppose he means to convey that the bed of the dry stream, if it is dry, shows a sort of golden strip. That is all I can make of it. There seems to be nothing else in the book in reference to the subject in which we are particularly interested. I am certain that the poor man knew what he was saying; I believe that he believed he had found what he says he found. Whether he did find it or not is quite another matter. In any event Lost River and the lost mine are well worth looking for as we go along. If there be such a place, Overland luck will lead us to it,” finished Grace.
“I doubt it—I was going to say I hope Overland luck doesn’t lead us to it, to our River of Doubt. Oh, Grace!”
“Wha—at is it?”
“Oh, look!”
A black head of hair, lifted just above the level of the rock on the far side, revealed a low forehead and a pair of burning black eyes—evil eyes they seemed to the two startled girls. They could not see the hands that were gripping the edge of the rock, but what they could see was sufficient to fill them with alarm.
Without an instant’s hesitation, Elfreda Briggs snatched up a chunk of flinty rock and hurled it with all her might. The chunk of rock fell a couple of yards short of the mark, bounced up into the air, and landed fairly on the man’s head.
“Who says a woman can’t throw a stone!” cried J. Elfreda Briggs almost hysterically.