Chapter Six.A Wild-Goose Chase.The doctor carefully opened the roll of skin upon the table, while Chris turned the lamp up a little higher, keeping one eye upon his father’s actions the while and then scanning eagerly the plainly-seen marks which pretty well covered the little guide.For that it was evidently intended to be, so as to give future searchers an easy means of reaching the treasure that the unfortunate adventurer had discovered.All gazed down at the skin, which had been smoothed out, and for some minutes not a word was spoken. But it did not take long for the whole of the party to come to the same conclusion, and it was this—That the adventurer had taken great pains in the preparation of his map for another’s benefit, in case he should not be able to seek for the treasure himself, but that to make his chart available it needed something more.Griggs was the first to give his feelings words, which expressed the thoughts of the rest exactly.“This is all very well,” he said, as he wrinkled his brow and scratched his head viciously, “and it’s very nicely done for a man who seems to have begun by making his own makeshift for paper, and then his own pen and ink. What do you make this skin to be, doctor?”“The nearest guess I can give is that it is the skin of a jack-rabbit that has been pegged-out tightly and dried in the sun.”“Same here,” said Griggs; “but what about the ink?”“Ah, that looks like charcoal ground very fine, mixed with water and some kind of tree gum, and painted on with a pointed piece of wood.”“That’s just what I thought it might be,” cried Griggs, “and a deal of trouble the poor fellow has taken with it. Look here, neighbours, east and west and north and south plain enough. What does he say here?—‘Des—’ Yes, that’s right enough, and means desert. Plenty of it too. And what’s here?—‘No water.’ Of course, and over and over again, ‘N.W.’ That means no water, of course. Mountains under these stars. Plenty of ’em too. More desert, and then three stars set triangle fashion about what looks like a square box with some one’s name on it.”“No,” cried both boys together; “it’s ‘temple.’”“So it is, boys,” cried Griggs, “and these dots all round it—I mean all square about it, must mean the city walls. Well, that’s clear enough.”“Look there,” cried Chris.“Yes, I’m looking,” said Griggs. “What is it?”“That big W,” said Chris. “That must mean water or well.”“Very likely, my boy,” said the doctor.“And these square bits must mean houses, I s’pose,” continued Griggs. “Well, it’s a prettily-done, careful sort of map, made under difficulties. Mountains here and mountains there, and all the rest desert. But he means whoever uses the map to go straight for the place, by sticking in all these little arrows right away from the north-east corner across the desert to the temple.”“Yes, that’s the way to go, plainly enough,” cried Bourne.“That’s what I thought, neighbour.”“Well, then, what are you finding fault about?” cried Wilton sharply. “You talk as if you despised it.”“Oh no, not I, squire. It’s a very pretty little map, and took the poor chap a long time to do; but it seems to me that it’s no good at all.”“I don’t understand you,” said Wilton sharply. “Look here, he gives a starting-place marked with a big dot, and the little arrows go right across to the three mountains and the temple.”“That is how he described it to me,” said the doctor.“Just so, sir. That’s how I understand it, neighbours; but what then?”“Why, of course!” came in chorus, as every one at the table grasped the hitch that the American had seen.“Ah, you all hit it now,” said Griggs, laughing.“I think I understand what you mean,” said the doctor thoughtfully.“So do I,” came in chorus, and then Bourne said quickly—“Suppose you speak out and say what you mean, Lee.”“It seems to me,” said the doctor gravely, “that though this chart has been prepared so carefully, and points out the trend of the deserts and mountains, and also where the gold-hills, the city, and the temple stand, while the points of the compass are shown as well, it might be a chart of any part of the country, a mere patch, or a territory of great extent.”“That’s so, doctor,” interposed Griggs; “but you haven’t quite hit it yet.”“No, but I was coming to your point directly. You mean that the map gives us no hint of the direction in which the gold-hills lie.”“Now you’ve hit it right in the bull’s-eye, doctor,” cried Griggs. “That’s it. Say we made up our minds to go and look for it, starting from here, are we to begin north, south, or east? Couldn’t go very far west, because that would mean going straight out to sea.”“Of course—of course!” was chorused.“But we could find the place, after all,” cried Chris excitedly.“How?” said Wilton.“Mr Griggs can tell us which direction the poor old fellow was coming from.”“No, he can’t,” said the personage spoken of. “He was zig-zagging about all sorts of ways, and more than once after a stumble I saw him get upon his legs and go back the same way he came, as if he was half blind.”“Oh!” cried Chris, in a disappointed tone.“You meant, young squire, that if I could tell you the direction from which he had come, all we should have to do would be to go right along his track till we saw the three mountains?”“Yes, that is something like what I thought,” said Chris, who felt damped.“Wouldn’t work, youngster,” cried Griggs. “Even if he had come on the last day in a straight line that wouldn’t help us about how he came on the other days; and as to his trail—why, the poor old fellow had been on the tramp for years. Look here, all of you; I’ll give you another chance for a spec. I’ll take five cents for my share. Who’ll buy? Don’t all speak at once. What, no one? Well, you are a poor lot! Only five cents. Well, never mind; if you won’t make yourselves rich it’s no fault of mine. I’ll keep my share myself in a goose-quill stopped up at the end with wax—when I get it.”“I should very much have liked to go in search of that place,” said Wilton, who hardly heard their American neighbour’s words.“And I too,” said Bourne. “Setting aside the gold discovery, it would be most interesting to visit the relics of the ancient city.”“I could do without seeing the old place,” said Griggs dryly. “Depend upon it, you’d find it terribly out of repair. I should be dead on the gold. How do you feel, doctor?”“I should like to explore the old place,” he replied, “but I certainly should make a point of getting all the gold I could.”“Then why not try and find the spot?” cried Chris. “It must be somewhere south.”“Yes,” cried Ned. “Oh, father, don’t let’s give up without a good try to find it.”The doctor laughed at the boy’s eagerness.“Somewhere due south,” he said; “a nice vague direction. Somewhere due south may mean anywhere between here and Cape Horn.”“No, no, father,” cried Chris; “not so far as that. I haven’t forgotten all my geography since I’ve been here, and I know that there are plenty of desert regions such as that poor fellow may have been wandering in between here and Panama.”“Hear, hear!” cried Griggs. “But give us one or two, squire.”Chris grew red and uncomfortable, but he caught his father’s eye looking keenly at him, and he spoke out.“I don’t know about being exactly south,” he said. “Perhaps some of the places lie east; but the old man might have been wandering in the mountainous parts of Colorado or Lower California, or—or—”“New Mexico,” whispered Ned.“Yes, New Mexico, or California, or perhaps have got to Mexico itself.”“Well done, our side!” cried Griggs, thumping the table. “Three cheers for our own private professor of geography. To be sure, there’s desert land in all those places, as I’ve learned myself from fellows who have been there. But what’s Arizona done to be left out in the cold?”“In the sun, you mean,” cried Chris eagerly. “That’s the hottest and dryest place of all of them.”“To be sure,” said the doctor—“the arid zone.”“Dessay it’s true,” said Griggs. “I vote we go and see.”“Why not Lower California, or one of the other States?” said the doctor dryly.“To be sure, why not?” said Griggs, and the boys, who smelt change in the air, thumped the table.“Quiet, quiet, boys!” said the doctor sternly. “I’m afraid, neighbour Griggs, that your plantation would suffer a good deal during your absence on such a wild-goose chase.”“What! My plantation suffer?” cried Griggs, chuckling. “Oh, come, that’s too good a joke, doctor! Suffer? Have you been round it lately?”“Not for a year past,” was the reply. “I’ve been too busy slaving over our own.”“Then you don’t know. Why, my good neighbour, it’s in nearly as bad a condition as that poor old fellow we have just buried.”“Have you tried to sell it to some immigrant?”“Have I tried to swindle some poor fellow just come into the country?” cried Griggs sharply. “No, I haven’t. I don’t set up for being much of a citizen, but, ’pon my word, doctor, I wouldn’t be such a brute as to even give it to a man on condition that he would live there and farm it. Your joint plantation here is bad enough, but my bit’s ten times worse.”“I join issue there,” cried Wilton sharply; “it can’t be.”“Oh, can’t it!” cried the American. “You don’t know what it’s took out of me. Why, I’d have pitched the whole thing up a couple of years ago if it hadn’t been for you three here.”“What had we to do with it?” said Bourne sharply.“Everything. I used to see you folk and these boys plodding along, working like niggers, no matter how your crops turned out, and waiting patiently for better times to come.”“Well, what of that?” said Wilton. “Of course we wanted to get on.”“So did I, squire, and seeing you all keep at it so when I wanted to chuck up, I pitched into myself and called him—this chap, ’Thaniel Griggs, you know—all the idle, lazy scallywags and loafers I could think of, and made him—’Thaniel, you know—so ashamed of himself that he worked harder than ever. ‘They’ve all cut their eye-teeth, Griggy, my boy,’ I said, ‘and they wouldn’t keep on if there wasn’t some good to come out of it by and by,’ and after that I worked away. But now you all talk of giving up, and say you’ve proved that there’s no good in the place, what’s the use of my niggering away by myself?”“You’d sooner go on such a wild, harum-scarum search as this, eh?” said the doctor, looking at the tall, sun-burnt man grimly.“To be sure I would. There’d be some fun and adventure in it.”“And risk.”“Well, yes, neighbour; I don’t expect it would be all honey. There’d be some mustard and cayenne in it too.”“And danger of wasting your life as that poor fellow yonder did his.”“Some,” said the American coolly. “You can’t make fortunes without a bit of a fight. I came here to this place to make mine, but there’s no stuff here to make it of. If we should find the gold-hills now, that would be something like. The fortune’s already made. All it wants is for us to go and pack it up and bring it away.”“To find it first,” said Ned’s father bitterly.“Nay, it’s already found, parson. The poor old boy found it, and gave the job over to the doctor here, along with those title-deeds.”“Which don’t say where the land lies.”“Oh, never mind that. I boggled about it at first, and thought it was a regular blind lead. But I don’t now. Amurrykee isn’t such a big place as all that comes to. There’s the gold somewhere, and we’ve got some sort of a guide as well as the right to it. We’re none of us so old that we can’t afford to spend a few years, if it’s necessary, in hunting through first one desert and then another. Can’t you see what a chance we shall have?”“I must confess I do not,” said the doctor.“Well, I do, sir. We shall have those places all to ourselves. There’ll be no one to complain of our making footmarks over their gardens and strawberry-patches.”“What about the Indians, Mr Griggs?” asked Bourne.“The Injun? Yes, there’s the Injun, but we shouldn’t go as one. We should be half-a-dozen, and if the ’foresaid Injun takes my advice he’ll stop at home and leave me alone. I ain’t got more pluck in me than most fellows have, but though I called ’Thaniel Griggs all the lazy coons I could lay my tongue to, I’ve a great respect for that young man. Selfish or not, I like him better than any fellow in this country, and I should no more mind drawing a straight bead on the savage who tried to kill him than I should mind putting my heel on a sleeping rattler’s head while I drew my knife and ’capitated him. There, now.”“Self-preservation’s the first law of nature, friend Griggs,” said Wilton.“Is it, now?” replied the American. “Then all I can say is that number two and all the rest of her laws have got to be very good ones if they come up to number first, sir. Oh, I shouldn’t stop for no Injuns if I made up my mind to go, sirree. I should chance that, practise up my shooting, and never go a step without having my rifle charged in both barrels.”“But can’t you see that the chances are very much against any one finding this place?”“No, sir. It’ll be a tight job, no doubt; but what one man could do, going without the slightest idee where to go nor what there was to find, surely half-a-dozen of us, counting the young nippers in, could do, knowing that the gold’s there waiting for us, and that we’ve only got to find the right spot.”“Only!” said Bourne sadly.“Yes, sir, only. There, if I talk much more I shall want to go back home to see if there is one ripe orange on my plantation that I can suck. So I’ll just put my opinions down straight. Those is them—I say, Squire Ned, that’s bad grammar, ain’t it?”“Horrible,” replied the boy, laughing.“Never mind; you understood it. Look here, gentlemen, there’s a fine chance here for a fortune, and I say, have a try for it, and take me with you to help, share and share alike. I’ll work with you, fight for you, and share all the trouble like a man. It’s worth the try, and I think so much of it that if you say downright that you won’t go I shall see if I can find a trusty mate, and go myself. There, that’s all.”Griggs threw himself back on his seat so as to get his back square against the wall, tilting the stool on two legs, and looked sharply round the table, and then at Wilton, who had risen and come round to him to offer his hand.The American looked at the long brown fingers and then up in their owner’s face.“What’s that for?” he said. “Want me to shake, and then go home, because you’re tired of me?”“No,” cried Wilton fiercely. “It’s for you to give me yours. I say you’re right, Griggs. The place must be found, and I’ll go with you to work and fight, and through thick and thin, for I believe in you as a true man. I’ll go with you, and we’ll find the treasure or come back, worn out, to die.”“Not we!” cried the American, seizing Wilton’s hand in his strong grip. “I’m with you, to stick to you, Mister Wilton, like a brother man. I’m ready to start with you to-morrow, if you like, if the doctor here will hand over that dockyment.—Any more going on?”The two boys sprang to their feet and looked at their fathers, who spoke as one man. “Sit down, boys!” they cried.“Why, you rash young reprobate,” cried the doctor. “Do you mean to tell me that you’d go off on this mad journey without asking my leave?”“No, father, of course not. Ned wouldn’t either without Mr Bourne’s consent; but I want to go with old Griggs, who has always been such a good fellow to us, and I feel sure you and Mr Bourne both mean to go too.”“What makes you say that, sir?” cried the doctor sternly.“Oh, first because Mr Wilton’s going, and you’d neither of you like him to go without you.”“Any other reason, sir?”“Yes, father. It seems to me that as we are going away to make a fresh start, it would be much better to go in search of this treasure than to be sailing straight back to England, not knowing what we should do when we got there.”“Oh, that’s what you think, is it, sir?” said the doctor.—“By your leave, Bourne!—Now, Master Ned, pray what do you think about it all?”“Oh,” cried the boy addressed, speaking to the doctor, but looking hard and searchingly in his father’s face, “I want to go with Chris, of course, and I think just the same as he does. Why, it would be grand, Mr Lee. We should have no end of adventures, and see the beautiful country.”“And the dismal desert. Why, you romantic young dreamer! You’ll never see a place south of here half so beautiful.”“But what’s the good of its being beautiful if we can’t live upon it?”“Then you’d be glad to go?”“Oh yes, sir,” cried Ned.“Humph! Well, Bourne, it seems then that you and I will have to go back to England empty and alone.”“No, you won’t, father,” said Chris quickly. “I shouldn’t go without you went too.”“And I shouldn’t either, father,” said Ned huskily, as he went and stood behind his father with his hands resting on Bourne’s shoulders.“Here, I wish you two young fellows had held your tongues,” said Griggs roughly, “because it’s like filling a man full of pleasure, and then making a hole and letting it all out again. But it’s all right, lads, and thankye all the same. No, you can’t go away and leave your two dads; it wouldn’t be right, and you couldn’t expect to prosper if you did. But I wish they’d think as we do, and say they’d go and chance it. Raally, doctor, and raally, Mr Bourne, I’d go to bed and sleep on it. P’r’aps you’d feel a bit different in the morning. What do you say?”The doctor was silent for a few moments, gazing full in the American’s face, the latter receiving the look without blenching.“Let me see, Mr Griggs,” he said; “I’ve known you nearly four years, haven’t I?”“Four years, four months, doctor, and that’s just as long as I’ve known you.”“Yes,” said the doctor, at last. “Bourne, what do you say to all this—shall we go and sleep on it?”The two boys caught hands and gazed hard at Ned’s father, who was also silent for a few moments, before he drew a deep breath and said firmly—“Yes, Lee, old friend, I say let us go to rest now, think deeply, and as we should, over what may mean success or failure, and decide in the morning what we ought to do.”“Shout, boys,” cried Griggs, springing up. “Not one of your English hoo-roars, but a regular tiger—ragh—ragh—ragh! That’s your sort. They mean to go.”“Yes, Griggs, old neighbour,” said the doctor; “in spite of all the terrible obstacles I can see plainly in our path, I feel that to-morrow morning my friend and I will have made up our minds that this is too great a thing to give up easily, and that we shall decide to go.”
The doctor carefully opened the roll of skin upon the table, while Chris turned the lamp up a little higher, keeping one eye upon his father’s actions the while and then scanning eagerly the plainly-seen marks which pretty well covered the little guide.
For that it was evidently intended to be, so as to give future searchers an easy means of reaching the treasure that the unfortunate adventurer had discovered.
All gazed down at the skin, which had been smoothed out, and for some minutes not a word was spoken. But it did not take long for the whole of the party to come to the same conclusion, and it was this—
That the adventurer had taken great pains in the preparation of his map for another’s benefit, in case he should not be able to seek for the treasure himself, but that to make his chart available it needed something more.
Griggs was the first to give his feelings words, which expressed the thoughts of the rest exactly.
“This is all very well,” he said, as he wrinkled his brow and scratched his head viciously, “and it’s very nicely done for a man who seems to have begun by making his own makeshift for paper, and then his own pen and ink. What do you make this skin to be, doctor?”
“The nearest guess I can give is that it is the skin of a jack-rabbit that has been pegged-out tightly and dried in the sun.”
“Same here,” said Griggs; “but what about the ink?”
“Ah, that looks like charcoal ground very fine, mixed with water and some kind of tree gum, and painted on with a pointed piece of wood.”
“That’s just what I thought it might be,” cried Griggs, “and a deal of trouble the poor fellow has taken with it. Look here, neighbours, east and west and north and south plain enough. What does he say here?—‘Des—’ Yes, that’s right enough, and means desert. Plenty of it too. And what’s here?—‘No water.’ Of course, and over and over again, ‘N.W.’ That means no water, of course. Mountains under these stars. Plenty of ’em too. More desert, and then three stars set triangle fashion about what looks like a square box with some one’s name on it.”
“No,” cried both boys together; “it’s ‘temple.’”
“So it is, boys,” cried Griggs, “and these dots all round it—I mean all square about it, must mean the city walls. Well, that’s clear enough.”
“Look there,” cried Chris.
“Yes, I’m looking,” said Griggs. “What is it?”
“That big W,” said Chris. “That must mean water or well.”
“Very likely, my boy,” said the doctor.
“And these square bits must mean houses, I s’pose,” continued Griggs. “Well, it’s a prettily-done, careful sort of map, made under difficulties. Mountains here and mountains there, and all the rest desert. But he means whoever uses the map to go straight for the place, by sticking in all these little arrows right away from the north-east corner across the desert to the temple.”
“Yes, that’s the way to go, plainly enough,” cried Bourne.
“That’s what I thought, neighbour.”
“Well, then, what are you finding fault about?” cried Wilton sharply. “You talk as if you despised it.”
“Oh no, not I, squire. It’s a very pretty little map, and took the poor chap a long time to do; but it seems to me that it’s no good at all.”
“I don’t understand you,” said Wilton sharply. “Look here, he gives a starting-place marked with a big dot, and the little arrows go right across to the three mountains and the temple.”
“That is how he described it to me,” said the doctor.
“Just so, sir. That’s how I understand it, neighbours; but what then?”
“Why, of course!” came in chorus, as every one at the table grasped the hitch that the American had seen.
“Ah, you all hit it now,” said Griggs, laughing.
“I think I understand what you mean,” said the doctor thoughtfully.
“So do I,” came in chorus, and then Bourne said quickly—
“Suppose you speak out and say what you mean, Lee.”
“It seems to me,” said the doctor gravely, “that though this chart has been prepared so carefully, and points out the trend of the deserts and mountains, and also where the gold-hills, the city, and the temple stand, while the points of the compass are shown as well, it might be a chart of any part of the country, a mere patch, or a territory of great extent.”
“That’s so, doctor,” interposed Griggs; “but you haven’t quite hit it yet.”
“No, but I was coming to your point directly. You mean that the map gives us no hint of the direction in which the gold-hills lie.”
“Now you’ve hit it right in the bull’s-eye, doctor,” cried Griggs. “That’s it. Say we made up our minds to go and look for it, starting from here, are we to begin north, south, or east? Couldn’t go very far west, because that would mean going straight out to sea.”
“Of course—of course!” was chorused.
“But we could find the place, after all,” cried Chris excitedly.
“How?” said Wilton.
“Mr Griggs can tell us which direction the poor old fellow was coming from.”
“No, he can’t,” said the personage spoken of. “He was zig-zagging about all sorts of ways, and more than once after a stumble I saw him get upon his legs and go back the same way he came, as if he was half blind.”
“Oh!” cried Chris, in a disappointed tone.
“You meant, young squire, that if I could tell you the direction from which he had come, all we should have to do would be to go right along his track till we saw the three mountains?”
“Yes, that is something like what I thought,” said Chris, who felt damped.
“Wouldn’t work, youngster,” cried Griggs. “Even if he had come on the last day in a straight line that wouldn’t help us about how he came on the other days; and as to his trail—why, the poor old fellow had been on the tramp for years. Look here, all of you; I’ll give you another chance for a spec. I’ll take five cents for my share. Who’ll buy? Don’t all speak at once. What, no one? Well, you are a poor lot! Only five cents. Well, never mind; if you won’t make yourselves rich it’s no fault of mine. I’ll keep my share myself in a goose-quill stopped up at the end with wax—when I get it.”
“I should very much have liked to go in search of that place,” said Wilton, who hardly heard their American neighbour’s words.
“And I too,” said Bourne. “Setting aside the gold discovery, it would be most interesting to visit the relics of the ancient city.”
“I could do without seeing the old place,” said Griggs dryly. “Depend upon it, you’d find it terribly out of repair. I should be dead on the gold. How do you feel, doctor?”
“I should like to explore the old place,” he replied, “but I certainly should make a point of getting all the gold I could.”
“Then why not try and find the spot?” cried Chris. “It must be somewhere south.”
“Yes,” cried Ned. “Oh, father, don’t let’s give up without a good try to find it.”
The doctor laughed at the boy’s eagerness.
“Somewhere due south,” he said; “a nice vague direction. Somewhere due south may mean anywhere between here and Cape Horn.”
“No, no, father,” cried Chris; “not so far as that. I haven’t forgotten all my geography since I’ve been here, and I know that there are plenty of desert regions such as that poor fellow may have been wandering in between here and Panama.”
“Hear, hear!” cried Griggs. “But give us one or two, squire.”
Chris grew red and uncomfortable, but he caught his father’s eye looking keenly at him, and he spoke out.
“I don’t know about being exactly south,” he said. “Perhaps some of the places lie east; but the old man might have been wandering in the mountainous parts of Colorado or Lower California, or—or—”
“New Mexico,” whispered Ned.
“Yes, New Mexico, or California, or perhaps have got to Mexico itself.”
“Well done, our side!” cried Griggs, thumping the table. “Three cheers for our own private professor of geography. To be sure, there’s desert land in all those places, as I’ve learned myself from fellows who have been there. But what’s Arizona done to be left out in the cold?”
“In the sun, you mean,” cried Chris eagerly. “That’s the hottest and dryest place of all of them.”
“To be sure,” said the doctor—“the arid zone.”
“Dessay it’s true,” said Griggs. “I vote we go and see.”
“Why not Lower California, or one of the other States?” said the doctor dryly.
“To be sure, why not?” said Griggs, and the boys, who smelt change in the air, thumped the table.
“Quiet, quiet, boys!” said the doctor sternly. “I’m afraid, neighbour Griggs, that your plantation would suffer a good deal during your absence on such a wild-goose chase.”
“What! My plantation suffer?” cried Griggs, chuckling. “Oh, come, that’s too good a joke, doctor! Suffer? Have you been round it lately?”
“Not for a year past,” was the reply. “I’ve been too busy slaving over our own.”
“Then you don’t know. Why, my good neighbour, it’s in nearly as bad a condition as that poor old fellow we have just buried.”
“Have you tried to sell it to some immigrant?”
“Have I tried to swindle some poor fellow just come into the country?” cried Griggs sharply. “No, I haven’t. I don’t set up for being much of a citizen, but, ’pon my word, doctor, I wouldn’t be such a brute as to even give it to a man on condition that he would live there and farm it. Your joint plantation here is bad enough, but my bit’s ten times worse.”
“I join issue there,” cried Wilton sharply; “it can’t be.”
“Oh, can’t it!” cried the American. “You don’t know what it’s took out of me. Why, I’d have pitched the whole thing up a couple of years ago if it hadn’t been for you three here.”
“What had we to do with it?” said Bourne sharply.
“Everything. I used to see you folk and these boys plodding along, working like niggers, no matter how your crops turned out, and waiting patiently for better times to come.”
“Well, what of that?” said Wilton. “Of course we wanted to get on.”
“So did I, squire, and seeing you all keep at it so when I wanted to chuck up, I pitched into myself and called him—this chap, ’Thaniel Griggs, you know—all the idle, lazy scallywags and loafers I could think of, and made him—’Thaniel, you know—so ashamed of himself that he worked harder than ever. ‘They’ve all cut their eye-teeth, Griggy, my boy,’ I said, ‘and they wouldn’t keep on if there wasn’t some good to come out of it by and by,’ and after that I worked away. But now you all talk of giving up, and say you’ve proved that there’s no good in the place, what’s the use of my niggering away by myself?”
“You’d sooner go on such a wild, harum-scarum search as this, eh?” said the doctor, looking at the tall, sun-burnt man grimly.
“To be sure I would. There’d be some fun and adventure in it.”
“And risk.”
“Well, yes, neighbour; I don’t expect it would be all honey. There’d be some mustard and cayenne in it too.”
“And danger of wasting your life as that poor fellow yonder did his.”
“Some,” said the American coolly. “You can’t make fortunes without a bit of a fight. I came here to this place to make mine, but there’s no stuff here to make it of. If we should find the gold-hills now, that would be something like. The fortune’s already made. All it wants is for us to go and pack it up and bring it away.”
“To find it first,” said Ned’s father bitterly.
“Nay, it’s already found, parson. The poor old boy found it, and gave the job over to the doctor here, along with those title-deeds.”
“Which don’t say where the land lies.”
“Oh, never mind that. I boggled about it at first, and thought it was a regular blind lead. But I don’t now. Amurrykee isn’t such a big place as all that comes to. There’s the gold somewhere, and we’ve got some sort of a guide as well as the right to it. We’re none of us so old that we can’t afford to spend a few years, if it’s necessary, in hunting through first one desert and then another. Can’t you see what a chance we shall have?”
“I must confess I do not,” said the doctor.
“Well, I do, sir. We shall have those places all to ourselves. There’ll be no one to complain of our making footmarks over their gardens and strawberry-patches.”
“What about the Indians, Mr Griggs?” asked Bourne.
“The Injun? Yes, there’s the Injun, but we shouldn’t go as one. We should be half-a-dozen, and if the ’foresaid Injun takes my advice he’ll stop at home and leave me alone. I ain’t got more pluck in me than most fellows have, but though I called ’Thaniel Griggs all the lazy coons I could lay my tongue to, I’ve a great respect for that young man. Selfish or not, I like him better than any fellow in this country, and I should no more mind drawing a straight bead on the savage who tried to kill him than I should mind putting my heel on a sleeping rattler’s head while I drew my knife and ’capitated him. There, now.”
“Self-preservation’s the first law of nature, friend Griggs,” said Wilton.
“Is it, now?” replied the American. “Then all I can say is that number two and all the rest of her laws have got to be very good ones if they come up to number first, sir. Oh, I shouldn’t stop for no Injuns if I made up my mind to go, sirree. I should chance that, practise up my shooting, and never go a step without having my rifle charged in both barrels.”
“But can’t you see that the chances are very much against any one finding this place?”
“No, sir. It’ll be a tight job, no doubt; but what one man could do, going without the slightest idee where to go nor what there was to find, surely half-a-dozen of us, counting the young nippers in, could do, knowing that the gold’s there waiting for us, and that we’ve only got to find the right spot.”
“Only!” said Bourne sadly.
“Yes, sir, only. There, if I talk much more I shall want to go back home to see if there is one ripe orange on my plantation that I can suck. So I’ll just put my opinions down straight. Those is them—I say, Squire Ned, that’s bad grammar, ain’t it?”
“Horrible,” replied the boy, laughing.
“Never mind; you understood it. Look here, gentlemen, there’s a fine chance here for a fortune, and I say, have a try for it, and take me with you to help, share and share alike. I’ll work with you, fight for you, and share all the trouble like a man. It’s worth the try, and I think so much of it that if you say downright that you won’t go I shall see if I can find a trusty mate, and go myself. There, that’s all.”
Griggs threw himself back on his seat so as to get his back square against the wall, tilting the stool on two legs, and looked sharply round the table, and then at Wilton, who had risen and come round to him to offer his hand.
The American looked at the long brown fingers and then up in their owner’s face.
“What’s that for?” he said. “Want me to shake, and then go home, because you’re tired of me?”
“No,” cried Wilton fiercely. “It’s for you to give me yours. I say you’re right, Griggs. The place must be found, and I’ll go with you to work and fight, and through thick and thin, for I believe in you as a true man. I’ll go with you, and we’ll find the treasure or come back, worn out, to die.”
“Not we!” cried the American, seizing Wilton’s hand in his strong grip. “I’m with you, to stick to you, Mister Wilton, like a brother man. I’m ready to start with you to-morrow, if you like, if the doctor here will hand over that dockyment.—Any more going on?”
The two boys sprang to their feet and looked at their fathers, who spoke as one man. “Sit down, boys!” they cried.
“Why, you rash young reprobate,” cried the doctor. “Do you mean to tell me that you’d go off on this mad journey without asking my leave?”
“No, father, of course not. Ned wouldn’t either without Mr Bourne’s consent; but I want to go with old Griggs, who has always been such a good fellow to us, and I feel sure you and Mr Bourne both mean to go too.”
“What makes you say that, sir?” cried the doctor sternly.
“Oh, first because Mr Wilton’s going, and you’d neither of you like him to go without you.”
“Any other reason, sir?”
“Yes, father. It seems to me that as we are going away to make a fresh start, it would be much better to go in search of this treasure than to be sailing straight back to England, not knowing what we should do when we got there.”
“Oh, that’s what you think, is it, sir?” said the doctor.—“By your leave, Bourne!—Now, Master Ned, pray what do you think about it all?”
“Oh,” cried the boy addressed, speaking to the doctor, but looking hard and searchingly in his father’s face, “I want to go with Chris, of course, and I think just the same as he does. Why, it would be grand, Mr Lee. We should have no end of adventures, and see the beautiful country.”
“And the dismal desert. Why, you romantic young dreamer! You’ll never see a place south of here half so beautiful.”
“But what’s the good of its being beautiful if we can’t live upon it?”
“Then you’d be glad to go?”
“Oh yes, sir,” cried Ned.
“Humph! Well, Bourne, it seems then that you and I will have to go back to England empty and alone.”
“No, you won’t, father,” said Chris quickly. “I shouldn’t go without you went too.”
“And I shouldn’t either, father,” said Ned huskily, as he went and stood behind his father with his hands resting on Bourne’s shoulders.
“Here, I wish you two young fellows had held your tongues,” said Griggs roughly, “because it’s like filling a man full of pleasure, and then making a hole and letting it all out again. But it’s all right, lads, and thankye all the same. No, you can’t go away and leave your two dads; it wouldn’t be right, and you couldn’t expect to prosper if you did. But I wish they’d think as we do, and say they’d go and chance it. Raally, doctor, and raally, Mr Bourne, I’d go to bed and sleep on it. P’r’aps you’d feel a bit different in the morning. What do you say?”
The doctor was silent for a few moments, gazing full in the American’s face, the latter receiving the look without blenching.
“Let me see, Mr Griggs,” he said; “I’ve known you nearly four years, haven’t I?”
“Four years, four months, doctor, and that’s just as long as I’ve known you.”
“Yes,” said the doctor, at last. “Bourne, what do you say to all this—shall we go and sleep on it?”
The two boys caught hands and gazed hard at Ned’s father, who was also silent for a few moments, before he drew a deep breath and said firmly—
“Yes, Lee, old friend, I say let us go to rest now, think deeply, and as we should, over what may mean success or failure, and decide in the morning what we ought to do.”
“Shout, boys,” cried Griggs, springing up. “Not one of your English hoo-roars, but a regular tiger—ragh—ragh—ragh! That’s your sort. They mean to go.”
“Yes, Griggs, old neighbour,” said the doctor; “in spite of all the terrible obstacles I can see plainly in our path, I feel that to-morrow morning my friend and I will have made up our minds that this is too great a thing to give up easily, and that we shall decide to go.”
Chapter Seven.All for Gold.It was not until the doctor rapped sharply at the wooden partition that separated the boys’ from the men’s quarters at the shanty, that the murmuring buzz ceased. “Look here, you two,” he said; “if you don’t want to sleep we do, so just be quiet. It’s somewhere about one o’clock, and when getting-up time comes you’ll want to sleep.”“All right, father,” said Chris, in a very wakeful tone; “we won’t talk any more.”But they did, in a whisper, for something in the way of recrimination began.“It was all your fault,” said Ned. “I wanted to go to sleep hours ago, but you would keep beginning again about the bothering old chart.”“Oh come, I like that!” replied Chris. “Who kept on wondering whether we should meet Indians, and whether they scalped people now!”“Well, yes, I did say something about that. Only fancy, though, how horrid!”“Shan’t! We’re to go to sleep. I say, though, Ned; think we shall really get away from this bothering old hoeing and weeding and killing blight?”“Can’t think: I’m nearly asleep.”“Oh, what a thumper! You’re as wide awake as I am.”S–n–n–o–r–r–r–e!“Gammon!”“Oh!” and a sudden jump.“What’s the matter?”“You stuck a pin into my leg.”“Must have been a mosquito.”“I’ll skeeter you to-morrow morning, Master Chris!”“Don’t wait: do it now!” (defiantly.)“You coward! You know that if I hit at you the doctor would jump up in a rage.”“No, he wouldn’t, because we’d creep out through the open door and go into the shed. Come on; I’m ready.”“I shan’t. I want to sleep.”“I don’t. I can’t. I feel all over of a tingle. I should like a set-to. Come on out, and then I should like you to skeeter me.”“Don’t be a fool, Chris. Let’s go to sleep and get ready for to-morrow. My word, what a day we shall have! It seems wonderful. I can hardly believe it’s true.”“That is,” said Chris, for there was an angry rap on the partition, given by the doctor, who felt as nervously excited as the two boys.The final rap brought calm, though, sending the lads off into a deep sleep which lasted till sunrise, when they stepped out of their rough bunks, hurried down to the water-pool to have a bathe, and had just finished bathing when Chris caught sight of the tall gaunt figure of the American striding through the Bartlett-pear plantation.“Coo-ee!” cried Chris.“Oh, there you are, young ’uns,” came in reply. “Mornin’. Well, what time will you be ready to start?”“Directly after breakfast,” cried Chris.“Packed up your duds?”“No, not yet.”“Well, look sharp.”“All right. But if we go—”“But if! Why, we are going.”“I hope so,” cried Ned. “But I say, Griggs, what are you going to do about your shanty? Are you going to lock it up and leave the key with the nearest neighbour?”“Tchah! Nonsense! I’m going to put together what I want in a mule-car, ready for hitching the two kickers on, and then I’m going to take a hammer and a bag of spikes, and nail up the door and window. I shall advise your gov’nors to do the same here.”“But of course we shall take no end of things with us,” said Chris.“You won’t, my lad. We shall load up two or three cars, but it will be with meal and tinned meat, bacon and ham. Tea, coffee, and sugar, of course. Ammunition, a few tools, a waterproof or two, and a tent. That’s all.”“What about clothes?”“Oh, we shall bring them on our backs. It’s going to be light marching-order, I can tell you.”“That won’t matter,” said Ned. “I shall like it. I say, Griggs, it’ll be like one long jolly great picnic.”“Yes, if we keep well, and the Indians let us alone.”“But, shall we meet Indians, Griggs?” cried Chris excitedly.“Not we. Sooner go miles round; but they’ll meet us, I expect.”“Oh!” said Chris thoughtfully. “But what for?”“To get our mules and carts, and all we have with us.”“But what about ourselves?”“Oh, we’re no use to them,” said the American dryly. “They’ll pitch us aside as so much rubbish—if we’ll let ’em.”“Get on!” cried Ned. “He’s talking like that to frighten us. But I say, Griggs, what about the gold?”“Well, what about it?”“If there’s tons upon tons of it, how are we going to bring it away?”“Ah, yes. I’ve been thinking about that,” said the American dryly, “and I’ve settled upon this.”“Yes! What?” cried the boys eagerly.“To find it first. It’s of no use to settle how you’ll cook your bird till you’ve caught it.”“But we couldn’t expect the mules to drag tons of metal across the desert.”“Oh yes, we could, easily. We might expect a deal more than that; but they wouldn’t do it.”“Get out! He’s laughing at us, Ned.”“Of course I was. Here, are your governors up yet?”“They weren’t when we came out,” replied Chris.“Well, I wonder at them, I dew,” said Griggs. “Sleeping, with an idea like this to think about. I never had a wink all night. Say, this is going to be a change from pruning and weeding, eh?”“Oh, it’s glorious—splendid!” cried the boys.“Is it? Wait a bit. Now come on; you’re dressed enough, ain’t you?”“Yes, quite right now.”“Then let’s go and hunt up the gov’nors. I want to know whether they really mean business.”“Oh yes, they’ll go,” cried Chris.“Think so?”“I feel sure of it.”“So do I,” added Ned. “My father’s quite eager to go.”“Bagh!” cried Griggs. “I was afraid that after sleeping on it they’d draw back. This is good news, boys, for, oh, how tired I am of drudging on here for nothing! Come on.”There was not much need for coming on. They had not gone half-way to the big shanty before they came suddenly upon the doctor and his two friends, who met them with the customary good-morning.“Well, Mr Griggs,” said the doctor, “you’ve come to say that the idea of last night is wild and impossible.”“Who told you so, sir?” cried the young American.“No one. I only came to that conclusion.”“Then you thought wrong, sir, and perhaps it was what you had made up your mind to yourself.”“Oh no, Griggs. We have decided quite the contrary. If there is any drawing back it will be on your side.”“That’s right then, sir. When do we start?”“As soon as we have settled our affairs and bought the necessary stores.”“But we shall try and find a purchaser for the plantation—of course, at a reasonable price,” said Bourne. “Just about the value of what we have put into the place, the building and the tools.”“If we wait for that, gentlemen,” said Griggs, “we shall never get off. But you try.”“Yes, we will try,” said the doctor. “Of course it will be amongst the settlers a few miles round.”This was decided upon, and the doctor and Bourne rode off that morning, making a tour of about thirty miles from plantation to plantation, before they returned, tired out, to the evening meal, and found Griggs busy with Wilton and the boys just finishing up the task of thoroughly cleaning and oiling the firearms.“Back again, then?” said Griggs. “Will you want my hammer and spikes, gentlemen?”“Your hammer and spikes?” cried the doctor, wonderingly. “What for?”“To lock up your doors and windows here, same as I’m going to do mine.”“Oh, I see,” said the doctor. “Yes, I expect we shall.”“Didn’t find no customers then, sir?”“Customers?” cried the doctor querulously. “Every one wanted to sell. My impression was that not one settler we broached the subject to would have taken our plantation as a gift.”“That’s about how it stands, sir,” said Griggs. “They wouldn’t. Why should they? It would only make them more work and less profit. You do as I do, sir—I mean, as I’m going to do: nail up the doors and shutters. I don’t suppose any one would meddle with the shanty. If he did he couldn’t take away the land, so it would be here all right if you ever came back and wanted it, which isn’t likely, is it?”“Not at all,” said Bourne emphatically.“Didn’t say you were going gold-hunting, I s’pose, sir?” asked Griggs.“Not exactly.”“Then some one did ask questions?”“Everybody did,” replied the doctor, “and I said we were going prospecting.”“Oh, you might have said the real thing, sir. They sneer at you as much for one as for t’other. But that don’t matter. I don’t know, though: if they knew as much as we know we should have the whole settlement after us; not that I should mind every one I know having a nibble at the yellow cake, but where half-a-dozen people might manage to find enough water, fifty folk would die of thirst, and perhaps tell us it was all our fault.”“Yes, the smaller our party the better, I say,” said Bourne.“Which means I’d better stop out of it, sir,” said Griggs shortly.“No, it does not, Griggs,” cried the doctor warmly. “Cer-tain-ly not,” added Bourne. “You will come with us, of course.”“Well, I—”“That’ll do, Griggs; no backing out,” said Wilton shortly.—“Now then, what about stores?”“I propose that two of us decide what money will be necessary, and then go over to Mainton with two mule-carts and spend it on such things as we shall want. That will take a week, including the obtaining a sufficiency of ammunition.”“Which means plenty, gentlemen, for we might be regularly besieged in our wagon, and have to beat the Injuns off.”“I don’t anticipate that,” replied the doctor calmly, while the boys felt their nerves tingle; “but we will be prepared. Then we shall come back—I mean those who undertake the task will come back, and that will be all that is necessary to be done, save having one or two good discussions as to the route we shall take. Then we’ll start upon our wild quest.”“Wild indeed, I’m afraid,” said Bourne.“Nay! Not it,” cried Griggs. “We’ve got plenty of time.”“And plenty of room,” said Wilton, laughing.“To be sure we have,” continued Griggs. “Lookye here, I’ve been thinking this little bit of a job over, and it seems to me as plain as A B C.”“Indeed!” said the doctor, smiling. “How do you make that out?”“This way. We’ve got the map of the part where it is.”“Certainly, and all we’ve got to find out is whereabouts that part lies.”“Of course: and there lies the difficulty.”“Difficulty, doctor? Not it. Now, just look here. We’ve got, say, three States where it’s likely to be. Say, at a guess, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico.”“Oh yes, and California, Texas, and you can join on Old Mexico.”“Nay, nay; the three I said will do for a beginning. If neither of them turns out right we’ll begin on one of the others. Say, we give two or three years apiece to the first lot. We’ve plenty of time, as aforesaid.”“Then you are going to set aside nine years of our lives to begin with, and when they are gone—wasted—begin another nine years?”“Time won’t be wasted, doctor; we shall have found out something or another.”“The question seems to me,” said Bourne, “is it worth the trouble?”“If we’d got to spend nine more years in making a fortune here, doctor, we shouldn’t think the time too long.”“Perhaps not.”“Well, it wouldn’t be in getting the gold, even if it took nine years, and if we’re lucky it mightn’t take nine months. It’s all chance whether we hit on the right trail to begin with or at the last.”“It’s a wild and desperate adventure,” said the doctor sternly, “and only excusable on the ground that we have wasted years upon this plantation and are now in a desperate state.”“Oh, don’t call it desperate, doctor. We’re going on a job that’s going to be full of fun. We’ve only got to hold together pluckily to do it. Why, it’s as easy as easy.”“To go and seek blindly through three great States for the spot delineated on this rough map?” cried Bourne.“We shan’t go blindly, sir; you may depend on that. We shall keep our eyes open pretty wide,” said Griggs, with a merry look at the boys. “Now, look here, gentlemen, I tell you I’ve been thinking all this out, and it seems to me that we can cut it all down into a small patch.”“How?” said the doctor.“By getting rid of all the outside useless bits of the job.”“I don’t understand you,” cried Wilton. “Hard or easy, I’ve made up my mind to see the thing through; but just explain a little more what you mean, Griggs.”“That’s right enough, sir; I will. Now, look here; we’ve got our map, or plan, or whatever you call it.”“Yes,” said Bourne.“It’s not very good writing, nor yet nicely finished off, but to my mind one thing’s very clear, and it’s this: wherever the ruined city is it must be somewhere that hasn’t been settled by emigrants and ranchers.”“Certainly,” cried the doctor; “that’s clear.”“Very well, then, sir; if you think a moment you’ll see that you clear away thousands o’ square miles of settled country at once, where we needn’t go to look.”“Yes, he’s right there,” said Bourne. “Go on, Griggs.”“Give me time, sir. Well, then, the only parts we’ve got to search are those where the country’s quite wild, and no one been there but Indians.”“Exactly,” said the doctor.“Then the parts we have got to search are not half so big already, being only the bad desert lands.”“Good,” cried Wilton.“Here’s where the map comes in now, gentlemen,” continued Griggs. “What does it say on it—what does it show?”“Very little,” replied Bourne.“That’s true, sir. I could make a better map myself; but it does show one thing, and that is that the gold city lies amongst the mountains.”“Yes, quite true,” said the doctor.“Then here you are, sir: if the gold city lies amongst the mountains it can’t be any good for us to go hunting for it among the plains.”“Of course not.”“There you are, then, sir. Look, as the proper maps’ll show you, what a big hunch of these three States we’re going to search is marked off as prairie-land.”“To be sure.”“Then that as good as halves what we’ve got to go over again. We’ve got to make for the mountain-path always till we find those three sugar-loafy bits the poor fellow marked down. Why, neighbour, we’re cutting off a lot of pieces that we shan’t need to meddle with. You see, it’s coming down and getting less every time we begin to work.”“There’s a deal in what you say,” said the doctor thoughtfully, “but the country is immense.”“So was the Atlantic Ocean, sir, when Mr Christopher Columbus set sail in his ship to find land. That was jumping right into the darkness.”“Hear, hear!” cried Bourne and Wilton together, and the boys hammered the table.“Yes,” said the doctor, more thoughtfully, “and he had nothing but a kind of faith to work on. You are quite right, Griggs; we have some grounds to go upon.”“Instead of deep water, sir,” said the American, grinning.“And you being captain of the expedition, Lee,” cried Wilton, “will have a far better chance of success.”“Shall I? I don’t see why.”“You will, because you’ll have a smaller crew, one that will not rise in mutiny against you and want to go back.”“How do I know that?” said the doctor dryly.“Because we promise you, to a man—and boy—eh, Chris—Ned?—that we’ll stick to you to the end.”“Of course,” cried the boys together; while the others said, “Hear, hear!”“That’s all very well,” said the doctor dryly. “We’re sitting here comfortably at this table, and in this shanty, and rough as it is we have found it a comfortable home. We’ve had our evening meal, and we’re going to lie down for a good night’s rest. But wait till some day when we’re all worn out with hunger and fatigue—out, perhaps, in some thirsty desert—without a roof to cover us, and surrounded by dangers such as at the present time we cannot conceive. How will you feel then—what will you say then?”“Never say die, father,” cried Chris.“Britons never shall be slaves,” cried Ned.“Nor Yankee Doodles neither, doctor,” cried Griggs, laughing.“I say we’ll all stick to our captain like men,” said Wilton warmly.“And I that I shall clap you on the shoulder, Lee, and say, Thank goodness, we’ve fought through our troubles so far, and that, please goodness, we’ll go on bravely to the end.”“Hah!” exclaimed the doctor, uttering a long-drawn sigh. “Yes, I find I shall be better off than Columbus, and I begin to feel that with such help I shall have a much easier task. There: we’ll go. Our friend Griggs has put quite a different complexion on the expedition, and I begin to think now that all we have to do is to keep on till we find the ruined city.”“If it exists,” said Bourne.“If it exists? Oh, it must exist, if you can say that of a dead city,” cried Wilton.“The poor fellow we buried may have invented it all, being so bent upon his search, and gone crazy at last and made up that chart out of his own head.”“No,” said the doctor thoughtfully. “I had the advantage of you others in being with him during his last moments, and hearing him talk calmly and sensibly to the end. He had suffered horribly from fever, and doubtless had been delirious again and again, but that chart was the work of no madman; half-an-hour’s conversation with him satisfied me that he knew perfectly well what he was talking about, and, after all said and done, there is nothing preposterous in what he told me. We have had proofs enough of there being rich gold-loving nations in North, South, and Central America who built great temples—the Mexicans, the Peruvians, and the nations who have left the huge ruins in Yucatan. I do not see why there should not be another gold city and temple here.”“Here!” said Bourne dryly. “Where?”“In the desert place among the mountains that we are going to find, my dear sir,” said the doctor firmly.“Bagh! Bagh! Bagh! Bagh!” roared Griggs enthusiastically, and the boys joined in the “tiger,” as he called it.“Don’t say any more, doctor,” he cried. “That’s enough. I began to think you were playing fast and loose, and I said to myself, Doctor’s got too much shilly-shally, willy-nilly in him to make a good leader of this expedition, but I don’t now. I can see farther than I did, and that you’ve been weighing it all over and looking before you leaped. And that’s the right way to succeed. Gentlemen, and you two youngsters, we’ve got a grand captain—one that can lead us and guide us, and cure us, and set us up when we’re down. What more can we want? We’re sure to succeed. I won’t sell my share now for anything.”There was a fresh cheer at this, and the party broke up to take the necessary rest.“Ned,” said Chris, after they had been in bed a short time, “we’re off.”“Yes,” said Ned. “Bagh! Bagh! Bagh! as Griggs has it.”“Hush, or you’ll wake my dad.”
It was not until the doctor rapped sharply at the wooden partition that separated the boys’ from the men’s quarters at the shanty, that the murmuring buzz ceased. “Look here, you two,” he said; “if you don’t want to sleep we do, so just be quiet. It’s somewhere about one o’clock, and when getting-up time comes you’ll want to sleep.”
“All right, father,” said Chris, in a very wakeful tone; “we won’t talk any more.”
But they did, in a whisper, for something in the way of recrimination began.
“It was all your fault,” said Ned. “I wanted to go to sleep hours ago, but you would keep beginning again about the bothering old chart.”
“Oh come, I like that!” replied Chris. “Who kept on wondering whether we should meet Indians, and whether they scalped people now!”
“Well, yes, I did say something about that. Only fancy, though, how horrid!”
“Shan’t! We’re to go to sleep. I say, though, Ned; think we shall really get away from this bothering old hoeing and weeding and killing blight?”
“Can’t think: I’m nearly asleep.”
“Oh, what a thumper! You’re as wide awake as I am.”
S–n–n–o–r–r–r–e!
“Gammon!”
“Oh!” and a sudden jump.
“What’s the matter?”
“You stuck a pin into my leg.”
“Must have been a mosquito.”
“I’ll skeeter you to-morrow morning, Master Chris!”
“Don’t wait: do it now!” (defiantly.)
“You coward! You know that if I hit at you the doctor would jump up in a rage.”
“No, he wouldn’t, because we’d creep out through the open door and go into the shed. Come on; I’m ready.”
“I shan’t. I want to sleep.”
“I don’t. I can’t. I feel all over of a tingle. I should like a set-to. Come on out, and then I should like you to skeeter me.”
“Don’t be a fool, Chris. Let’s go to sleep and get ready for to-morrow. My word, what a day we shall have! It seems wonderful. I can hardly believe it’s true.”
“That is,” said Chris, for there was an angry rap on the partition, given by the doctor, who felt as nervously excited as the two boys.
The final rap brought calm, though, sending the lads off into a deep sleep which lasted till sunrise, when they stepped out of their rough bunks, hurried down to the water-pool to have a bathe, and had just finished bathing when Chris caught sight of the tall gaunt figure of the American striding through the Bartlett-pear plantation.
“Coo-ee!” cried Chris.
“Oh, there you are, young ’uns,” came in reply. “Mornin’. Well, what time will you be ready to start?”
“Directly after breakfast,” cried Chris.
“Packed up your duds?”
“No, not yet.”
“Well, look sharp.”
“All right. But if we go—”
“But if! Why, we are going.”
“I hope so,” cried Ned. “But I say, Griggs, what are you going to do about your shanty? Are you going to lock it up and leave the key with the nearest neighbour?”
“Tchah! Nonsense! I’m going to put together what I want in a mule-car, ready for hitching the two kickers on, and then I’m going to take a hammer and a bag of spikes, and nail up the door and window. I shall advise your gov’nors to do the same here.”
“But of course we shall take no end of things with us,” said Chris.
“You won’t, my lad. We shall load up two or three cars, but it will be with meal and tinned meat, bacon and ham. Tea, coffee, and sugar, of course. Ammunition, a few tools, a waterproof or two, and a tent. That’s all.”
“What about clothes?”
“Oh, we shall bring them on our backs. It’s going to be light marching-order, I can tell you.”
“That won’t matter,” said Ned. “I shall like it. I say, Griggs, it’ll be like one long jolly great picnic.”
“Yes, if we keep well, and the Indians let us alone.”
“But, shall we meet Indians, Griggs?” cried Chris excitedly.
“Not we. Sooner go miles round; but they’ll meet us, I expect.”
“Oh!” said Chris thoughtfully. “But what for?”
“To get our mules and carts, and all we have with us.”
“But what about ourselves?”
“Oh, we’re no use to them,” said the American dryly. “They’ll pitch us aside as so much rubbish—if we’ll let ’em.”
“Get on!” cried Ned. “He’s talking like that to frighten us. But I say, Griggs, what about the gold?”
“Well, what about it?”
“If there’s tons upon tons of it, how are we going to bring it away?”
“Ah, yes. I’ve been thinking about that,” said the American dryly, “and I’ve settled upon this.”
“Yes! What?” cried the boys eagerly.
“To find it first. It’s of no use to settle how you’ll cook your bird till you’ve caught it.”
“But we couldn’t expect the mules to drag tons of metal across the desert.”
“Oh yes, we could, easily. We might expect a deal more than that; but they wouldn’t do it.”
“Get out! He’s laughing at us, Ned.”
“Of course I was. Here, are your governors up yet?”
“They weren’t when we came out,” replied Chris.
“Well, I wonder at them, I dew,” said Griggs. “Sleeping, with an idea like this to think about. I never had a wink all night. Say, this is going to be a change from pruning and weeding, eh?”
“Oh, it’s glorious—splendid!” cried the boys.
“Is it? Wait a bit. Now come on; you’re dressed enough, ain’t you?”
“Yes, quite right now.”
“Then let’s go and hunt up the gov’nors. I want to know whether they really mean business.”
“Oh yes, they’ll go,” cried Chris.
“Think so?”
“I feel sure of it.”
“So do I,” added Ned. “My father’s quite eager to go.”
“Bagh!” cried Griggs. “I was afraid that after sleeping on it they’d draw back. This is good news, boys, for, oh, how tired I am of drudging on here for nothing! Come on.”
There was not much need for coming on. They had not gone half-way to the big shanty before they came suddenly upon the doctor and his two friends, who met them with the customary good-morning.
“Well, Mr Griggs,” said the doctor, “you’ve come to say that the idea of last night is wild and impossible.”
“Who told you so, sir?” cried the young American.
“No one. I only came to that conclusion.”
“Then you thought wrong, sir, and perhaps it was what you had made up your mind to yourself.”
“Oh no, Griggs. We have decided quite the contrary. If there is any drawing back it will be on your side.”
“That’s right then, sir. When do we start?”
“As soon as we have settled our affairs and bought the necessary stores.”
“But we shall try and find a purchaser for the plantation—of course, at a reasonable price,” said Bourne. “Just about the value of what we have put into the place, the building and the tools.”
“If we wait for that, gentlemen,” said Griggs, “we shall never get off. But you try.”
“Yes, we will try,” said the doctor. “Of course it will be amongst the settlers a few miles round.”
This was decided upon, and the doctor and Bourne rode off that morning, making a tour of about thirty miles from plantation to plantation, before they returned, tired out, to the evening meal, and found Griggs busy with Wilton and the boys just finishing up the task of thoroughly cleaning and oiling the firearms.
“Back again, then?” said Griggs. “Will you want my hammer and spikes, gentlemen?”
“Your hammer and spikes?” cried the doctor, wonderingly. “What for?”
“To lock up your doors and windows here, same as I’m going to do mine.”
“Oh, I see,” said the doctor. “Yes, I expect we shall.”
“Didn’t find no customers then, sir?”
“Customers?” cried the doctor querulously. “Every one wanted to sell. My impression was that not one settler we broached the subject to would have taken our plantation as a gift.”
“That’s about how it stands, sir,” said Griggs. “They wouldn’t. Why should they? It would only make them more work and less profit. You do as I do, sir—I mean, as I’m going to do: nail up the doors and shutters. I don’t suppose any one would meddle with the shanty. If he did he couldn’t take away the land, so it would be here all right if you ever came back and wanted it, which isn’t likely, is it?”
“Not at all,” said Bourne emphatically.
“Didn’t say you were going gold-hunting, I s’pose, sir?” asked Griggs.
“Not exactly.”
“Then some one did ask questions?”
“Everybody did,” replied the doctor, “and I said we were going prospecting.”
“Oh, you might have said the real thing, sir. They sneer at you as much for one as for t’other. But that don’t matter. I don’t know, though: if they knew as much as we know we should have the whole settlement after us; not that I should mind every one I know having a nibble at the yellow cake, but where half-a-dozen people might manage to find enough water, fifty folk would die of thirst, and perhaps tell us it was all our fault.”
“Yes, the smaller our party the better, I say,” said Bourne.
“Which means I’d better stop out of it, sir,” said Griggs shortly.
“No, it does not, Griggs,” cried the doctor warmly. “Cer-tain-ly not,” added Bourne. “You will come with us, of course.”
“Well, I—”
“That’ll do, Griggs; no backing out,” said Wilton shortly.—“Now then, what about stores?”
“I propose that two of us decide what money will be necessary, and then go over to Mainton with two mule-carts and spend it on such things as we shall want. That will take a week, including the obtaining a sufficiency of ammunition.”
“Which means plenty, gentlemen, for we might be regularly besieged in our wagon, and have to beat the Injuns off.”
“I don’t anticipate that,” replied the doctor calmly, while the boys felt their nerves tingle; “but we will be prepared. Then we shall come back—I mean those who undertake the task will come back, and that will be all that is necessary to be done, save having one or two good discussions as to the route we shall take. Then we’ll start upon our wild quest.”
“Wild indeed, I’m afraid,” said Bourne.
“Nay! Not it,” cried Griggs. “We’ve got plenty of time.”
“And plenty of room,” said Wilton, laughing.
“To be sure we have,” continued Griggs. “Lookye here, I’ve been thinking this little bit of a job over, and it seems to me as plain as A B C.”
“Indeed!” said the doctor, smiling. “How do you make that out?”
“This way. We’ve got the map of the part where it is.”
“Certainly, and all we’ve got to find out is whereabouts that part lies.”
“Of course: and there lies the difficulty.”
“Difficulty, doctor? Not it. Now, just look here. We’ve got, say, three States where it’s likely to be. Say, at a guess, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico.”
“Oh yes, and California, Texas, and you can join on Old Mexico.”
“Nay, nay; the three I said will do for a beginning. If neither of them turns out right we’ll begin on one of the others. Say, we give two or three years apiece to the first lot. We’ve plenty of time, as aforesaid.”
“Then you are going to set aside nine years of our lives to begin with, and when they are gone—wasted—begin another nine years?”
“Time won’t be wasted, doctor; we shall have found out something or another.”
“The question seems to me,” said Bourne, “is it worth the trouble?”
“If we’d got to spend nine more years in making a fortune here, doctor, we shouldn’t think the time too long.”
“Perhaps not.”
“Well, it wouldn’t be in getting the gold, even if it took nine years, and if we’re lucky it mightn’t take nine months. It’s all chance whether we hit on the right trail to begin with or at the last.”
“It’s a wild and desperate adventure,” said the doctor sternly, “and only excusable on the ground that we have wasted years upon this plantation and are now in a desperate state.”
“Oh, don’t call it desperate, doctor. We’re going on a job that’s going to be full of fun. We’ve only got to hold together pluckily to do it. Why, it’s as easy as easy.”
“To go and seek blindly through three great States for the spot delineated on this rough map?” cried Bourne.
“We shan’t go blindly, sir; you may depend on that. We shall keep our eyes open pretty wide,” said Griggs, with a merry look at the boys. “Now, look here, gentlemen, I tell you I’ve been thinking all this out, and it seems to me that we can cut it all down into a small patch.”
“How?” said the doctor.
“By getting rid of all the outside useless bits of the job.”
“I don’t understand you,” cried Wilton. “Hard or easy, I’ve made up my mind to see the thing through; but just explain a little more what you mean, Griggs.”
“That’s right enough, sir; I will. Now, look here; we’ve got our map, or plan, or whatever you call it.”
“Yes,” said Bourne.
“It’s not very good writing, nor yet nicely finished off, but to my mind one thing’s very clear, and it’s this: wherever the ruined city is it must be somewhere that hasn’t been settled by emigrants and ranchers.”
“Certainly,” cried the doctor; “that’s clear.”
“Very well, then, sir; if you think a moment you’ll see that you clear away thousands o’ square miles of settled country at once, where we needn’t go to look.”
“Yes, he’s right there,” said Bourne. “Go on, Griggs.”
“Give me time, sir. Well, then, the only parts we’ve got to search are those where the country’s quite wild, and no one been there but Indians.”
“Exactly,” said the doctor.
“Then the parts we have got to search are not half so big already, being only the bad desert lands.”
“Good,” cried Wilton.
“Here’s where the map comes in now, gentlemen,” continued Griggs. “What does it say on it—what does it show?”
“Very little,” replied Bourne.
“That’s true, sir. I could make a better map myself; but it does show one thing, and that is that the gold city lies amongst the mountains.”
“Yes, quite true,” said the doctor.
“Then here you are, sir: if the gold city lies amongst the mountains it can’t be any good for us to go hunting for it among the plains.”
“Of course not.”
“There you are, then, sir. Look, as the proper maps’ll show you, what a big hunch of these three States we’re going to search is marked off as prairie-land.”
“To be sure.”
“Then that as good as halves what we’ve got to go over again. We’ve got to make for the mountain-path always till we find those three sugar-loafy bits the poor fellow marked down. Why, neighbour, we’re cutting off a lot of pieces that we shan’t need to meddle with. You see, it’s coming down and getting less every time we begin to work.”
“There’s a deal in what you say,” said the doctor thoughtfully, “but the country is immense.”
“So was the Atlantic Ocean, sir, when Mr Christopher Columbus set sail in his ship to find land. That was jumping right into the darkness.”
“Hear, hear!” cried Bourne and Wilton together, and the boys hammered the table.
“Yes,” said the doctor, more thoughtfully, “and he had nothing but a kind of faith to work on. You are quite right, Griggs; we have some grounds to go upon.”
“Instead of deep water, sir,” said the American, grinning.
“And you being captain of the expedition, Lee,” cried Wilton, “will have a far better chance of success.”
“Shall I? I don’t see why.”
“You will, because you’ll have a smaller crew, one that will not rise in mutiny against you and want to go back.”
“How do I know that?” said the doctor dryly.
“Because we promise you, to a man—and boy—eh, Chris—Ned?—that we’ll stick to you to the end.”
“Of course,” cried the boys together; while the others said, “Hear, hear!”
“That’s all very well,” said the doctor dryly. “We’re sitting here comfortably at this table, and in this shanty, and rough as it is we have found it a comfortable home. We’ve had our evening meal, and we’re going to lie down for a good night’s rest. But wait till some day when we’re all worn out with hunger and fatigue—out, perhaps, in some thirsty desert—without a roof to cover us, and surrounded by dangers such as at the present time we cannot conceive. How will you feel then—what will you say then?”
“Never say die, father,” cried Chris.
“Britons never shall be slaves,” cried Ned.
“Nor Yankee Doodles neither, doctor,” cried Griggs, laughing.
“I say we’ll all stick to our captain like men,” said Wilton warmly.
“And I that I shall clap you on the shoulder, Lee, and say, Thank goodness, we’ve fought through our troubles so far, and that, please goodness, we’ll go on bravely to the end.”
“Hah!” exclaimed the doctor, uttering a long-drawn sigh. “Yes, I find I shall be better off than Columbus, and I begin to feel that with such help I shall have a much easier task. There: we’ll go. Our friend Griggs has put quite a different complexion on the expedition, and I begin to think now that all we have to do is to keep on till we find the ruined city.”
“If it exists,” said Bourne.
“If it exists? Oh, it must exist, if you can say that of a dead city,” cried Wilton.
“The poor fellow we buried may have invented it all, being so bent upon his search, and gone crazy at last and made up that chart out of his own head.”
“No,” said the doctor thoughtfully. “I had the advantage of you others in being with him during his last moments, and hearing him talk calmly and sensibly to the end. He had suffered horribly from fever, and doubtless had been delirious again and again, but that chart was the work of no madman; half-an-hour’s conversation with him satisfied me that he knew perfectly well what he was talking about, and, after all said and done, there is nothing preposterous in what he told me. We have had proofs enough of there being rich gold-loving nations in North, South, and Central America who built great temples—the Mexicans, the Peruvians, and the nations who have left the huge ruins in Yucatan. I do not see why there should not be another gold city and temple here.”
“Here!” said Bourne dryly. “Where?”
“In the desert place among the mountains that we are going to find, my dear sir,” said the doctor firmly.
“Bagh! Bagh! Bagh! Bagh!” roared Griggs enthusiastically, and the boys joined in the “tiger,” as he called it.
“Don’t say any more, doctor,” he cried. “That’s enough. I began to think you were playing fast and loose, and I said to myself, Doctor’s got too much shilly-shally, willy-nilly in him to make a good leader of this expedition, but I don’t now. I can see farther than I did, and that you’ve been weighing it all over and looking before you leaped. And that’s the right way to succeed. Gentlemen, and you two youngsters, we’ve got a grand captain—one that can lead us and guide us, and cure us, and set us up when we’re down. What more can we want? We’re sure to succeed. I won’t sell my share now for anything.”
There was a fresh cheer at this, and the party broke up to take the necessary rest.
“Ned,” said Chris, after they had been in bed a short time, “we’re off.”
“Yes,” said Ned. “Bagh! Bagh! Bagh! as Griggs has it.”
“Hush, or you’ll wake my dad.”
Chapter Eight.Shutting up Shop.“I didn’t believe we ever should start,” said Chris, one morning at daybreak.“But you were wrong,” said Ned, “and here’s good-bye to the old place.”It was a month later, during which time the journey had been made to the nearest town, the stores and other necessaries purchased, and after preparations which had lasted till midnight, every one had declared that there was nothing else to be done, and all had lain down to sleep, Griggs included, he having decided to stay at the ranch for the last night, after bringing over his baggage and animals, and he had by a gruesome kind of choice elected to sleep in the long shed.“Where the poor old adventurer was put,” he said, “and that will make me dream about him and perhaps have some happy thoughts about the best way to go.”There were not many farewells to bid, for the settlers at the nearest plantations were scattered widely about the district, and all for the most part too much worried about their own disappointments to pay much heed to a few neighbours who were giving up and going to try their fortune elsewhere, and for the most part were ready to sneer at the restless folk who were going prospecting where, according to their own ideas, they were not likely to do half so well.Hence it was that as soon as it was light, and while Griggs with a hammer and spikes was nailing up the last windows and the door, for which pieces of board cut to the exact size lay ready, there was not a stranger there to see them off.It was a busy time. They had all breakfasted by the light of the out-door fire which had boiled their coffee, cooked their damper, and frizzled their bacon, and now were all hard at work loading the dozen mules that had been purchased for the purpose of carrying their baggage, and in whose management every one had taken lessons from an old mule-driver who had made many journeys into the Far West.For there was much to learn. “Obstinate as a mule” is a good old proverb, and the party had plenty of reason for learning its truth. They had heard too of the vicious nature of these same animals. They were used as beasts of burden, and they seemed to have made up their minds to be a burden to every one there. The old Yankee, who had made many a journey with mule teams, had taught them, and taught them well, all he could about the mysteries of lasso and lariat, and the diamond-hitch; but even after a fortnight’s practice it was not easy to bind the loads well-balanced upon each mule’s back without getting kicked, and when this was done, the mules having been disappointed at not being able to kick anybody, mostly made desperate attempts to kick at nothing, the result of which was the loosening of the ropes so that the loads rattled and in one case went flying.This load had been tied on by the boys, who stood looking at one another and then at the mule, which, as soon as it was free, gave its ears a few twinkles, shook its shabby tail, and then began to graze quite contentedly on some alfalfa grass, or lucerne.“Come, boys, don’t stand looking on,” cried the doctor. “Try again, or we shall be waiting for you. You must put your feet against the brute’s side and haul tight, as you were taught.”“We did, sir,” cried Ned, who was hot and angry.“Not tight enough, my lad. You’ll soon do it better.”“Not with this one, father. It’s such a beast.”“They all are, my boy,” said the doctor, laughing at his son’s perplexed countenance.“I mean such a wretch, father. It’s so artful. When you’ve got the load on all right and balanced, and there’s nothing to do but tighten the lariat, the nasty, spiteful, cunning brute waits till you begin to haul tight, and then fills itself full of wind and swells itself out. Then you pull till all is as tight as tight, and fasten off the knots.”“Well, that’s right,” said the doctor, who looked, like the rest, wonderfully business-like and ready for the journey, in leather Norfolk jacket, knickerbockers, and cowboy’s hat.“Yes, so we thought, sir,” said Ned, “till I heard the brute sigh.”“Oh, poor thing, it was because it had such a heavy load.”“No, it wasn’t, father; it was because it was breathing out all the wind again, and we didn’t know what it meant till we found that the load was all loose, and when we went up to tighten it the wretch wheeled round and tried to kick us, and because it couldn’t it kicked itself out of its load.”“Never mind, don’t waste time, Chris. I want to start. We’ll halt somewhere at mid-day for a rest, and set things right. After a few days’ practice we shall get on better, and all these things will come easy.”“I hope they will,” said Chris, as the doctor went off to where the carefully-folded tent and its poles and stretchers were being secured to another of the dozen mules which formed their team. “But look here, Ned, old chap, I’m not going to get in a passion now; I’m going to save it up, and before long I’m going to show this gentleman which of us two is going to be master.”“Oh, nonsense! My father said that we were to break the mules in with gentle treatment. They are obstinate, he said, because they’ve become so used to being beaten.”“Old Dence told me that kindness is thrown away upon a mule. He said you must let go at ’em with your tongue and a good thick stick; but if when you’re using it you see one lay its ears down flat and draw its lips away from its teeth and laugh, it’s because you don’t hit hard enough. Well, this one did.”“Yes, I saw the brute grin,” said Ned.“Well, just you wait. I’m going to save up this fellow’s dose, and he shall have it some day with interest.”“He told me,” said Ned, “that you couldn’t drive mules without using bad language. He did—lots.”“Yes, I heard him,” said Chris.“I told my father, and he was angry and said it was all nonsense. All you had to do was to shout at the brutes loudly, and as if you were in a rage. Then he laughed, and told me what to do.”“What was that?” said Chris, rather breathlessly, for he was busy arranging the mule’s load.“He said I was to stamp and yell, and begin to decline a Latin noun to the mules.”“Oh, bother the Latin nouns!” said Chris pettishly. “Who’s to think of cases when you’re driving a mule? Here, come on and help. And I say, I nearly forgot.”“Forgot what? I dare say we’ve forgotten lots of things.”“But we mustn’t forget this. We’re loading the leading mule, and it’s the one that wears that bell round its neck. Where is it?”“The bell? Last time I saw it was when father hung it on one of the gun-pegs over the fire-place.”“Oh!” exclaimed Chris, “and old Griggs is just finishing nailing up the door.”“Then he’ll have to un-nail it again,” said Ned grumpily. “Hi, Griggs!”There were two or three echoing raps with the hammer, and then a couple of finishing blows, before the American cried—“Hallo, there!”“You’re nailing up the mule’s bell.”“Who says so?” and there was the commencement of the driving in of another nail.“I do,” cried Ned. “You must open the door again.”Rap, rap, rap, rap, bang, bang, bang, as another nail went home.“Can’t be done.”“But we must have that strap and bell.”“Come and fetch it then. It’s hanging on the hitching-up hook at the end of the house.”“Oh!” sighed Ned in a voice full of relief, and he ran to the place specified, to lift down the bell and the collar-strap, to come back ringing it loudly.“Hoi! Hallo, there! Steady!” cried Wilton excitedly. “Don’t do that.”Ned gagged the bell at once by thrusting his left hand in its mouth and holding the clapper; but the little peal he had rung had done its work of setting all the mules in motion, bringing them all up close to the ringer, who found himself in the midst of a knot of squealing and kicking brutes, who diversified their vicious play by running open-mouthed at one another to bite.But they were all loaded at length, there was a final look round, and then a move was made for the long shed, whose big door gaped wide, and as their footsteps were heard there was a shrill neigh from within and the sound of impatient stamping.“This looks like a start at last, doctor,” said Griggs, who came up last.“Yes, at last,” said the doctor.“Got the map all right, sir?”“Yes, in my saddle-bag. You said you had done everything that fell to your share.”“Everything but locking up this door, sir, and here are the keys,” cried the American, holding up a leather bag, in which he jingled the hammer and a few of the big nails within.“That’s right,” cried the doctor. “Now then,” he shouted, “every one tighten his mustang’s girths a hole or two, and sling his rifle across his back before mounting. Got your revolvers, boys?”“Yes, father—yes, sir!” came in response, and the next minute half-a-dozen rough-looking wiry cobs were being unhitched and led out through the low doorway, to stand champing their big bits, fidgeting to be mounted and given their heads for a canter.“Every one see that his bag and blanket are all right,” cried the doctor; and then Griggs’ voice was heard.“Some one take my nag’s rein,” he said. “Will you, Squire Chris?”For answer the boy reached out and took hold of the strap, casting his eye over the sturdy little steed, which seemed too small to carry so tall a man as its rider.Chris noted that there was the long hide lasso-rope curled up and hanging in its place by the saddle-bow, and that the saddle-bags were in their places, carefully strapped on, so that a tin bucket, which was also hung behind, should rest on one and not prove a nuisance to horse or rider.Ned was close to his companion, and he said—“I say, it would have been much better if we had kept to our old idea and had, say, three light mule-carts. What a lot of these odds and ends we could have stowed out of the way.”“I said so to old Griggs,” replied Chris, and then he was silent.“Well, what did he say?”“Only grinned at first.”“Well, what then?”“He said it would have taken so long and been so expensive, because we should have had to send an army of men on first to make a road all the way we were going.”“Which means he was laughing at you.”“Grinning, I call it. But I suppose he’s right, because when you come to think of it, there’ll be no track, and a lot of our travelling will be in and out among the mountains. There, that’s the last door,” said Chris with a sigh, as there was a loud bang following the creaking of hinges that had been rarely used. Directly after, Griggs’ hammer came into play, making the horses restive and back away from the noise to the full extent of their reins.“Yes,” said Ned, with a sigh, “the last door. I say, Chris, now it has come to it, don’t you feel a bit sorry to go away from the old place?”“Horribly,” said the boy in a low, husky voice. “What fun we used to have!”“Yes,” said Ned, “before everything got to be so dull because things failed so and made my father so low-spirited.”“He wasn’t so low-spirited as my father was; but I s’pose there wasn’t much difference,” replied Chris, to the accompaniment of Griggs’ hammer and the fidgeting of his nag. “Quiet, will you, stupid! He isn’t going to hurt you.”“I say, how jolly grumpy it used to make Mr Wilton.”“Hah!” ejaculated Chris. “A year ago he was always ready for a bit of fun, fishing, snaking, squirrel-hunting, or seeking honey. But there, no wonder; he felt like father, that it was all lose, lose, lose, and that it was unfair not to be at work.”“And it took all the fun out of our games.”“Yes, no more games now, Neddy. Father said last night when we were alone that we must bid good-bye to being boys with the place—leave all that here, and begin to think of being and acting like men.”“Yes, and my father said something like that to me, Chris; and somehow now it has come to making the start I don’t feel as if I want to be a man yet. It was so jolly to be a boy here in the dear old place. Oh, bother the old gold! I wish that poor old chap hadn’t come here to die.”“So do I,” said Chris, and his voice sounded very husky now as he gazed round him at the many familiar objects. “I say, look how my apple-tree has grown!”“Yes, and my pear,” said Ned quickly. “It has beaten your old apple all to bits.”“Well, of course it has,” said Chris roughly. “Pears do run up tall and straight and weak. Apples grow stout and strong and slow.”“They’ve done well enough.”“Yes; but then see what pains we took to water and manure them. Nothing else has done well.”“No, nothing. As father says, it has all been like slow ruin coming on; but I like the dear old place all the same, because we helped to make it out of the wilderness into a great garden. Oh, Chris, I wish we weren’t going.”“So do I, but it’s of no use to go on wishing. We should have felt much more miserable when we were starting to go back to England, not knowing what we were going to do. We should have had to go, and this is going to be like a great roving holiday, seeing something fresh and new every day.”“So it will be. There, I begin to feel better now. I say, look at the sun rising—isn’t it glorious!”“Always is,” said Chris cheerily. “How different it makes things look! I always feel better when the sun shines. There, good-bye, old place, if we never see you again.”“But I say, Chris, we might come back some day, you know.”“Not likely.”“Why? We might find the gold, and then come back here to live. It wouldn’t matter then about the peaches and grapes and things failing.”“No; father wouldn’t want the money then,” said Chris thoughtfully. “I should like to come back, after all, but—”Bing!—Bing!—Bang!“That’s done it, sir,” cried Griggs, his voice ringing out cheerily in the morning air. “I’ll tuck the hammer and nails in my pouch. They may come in useful. No, I can’t; it’s full. I’ll tuck the hammer handle through my belt. Either of you youngsters got room for a few nails in your pocket?”“I have, Griggs,” cried Chris quickly, and, with something to do, the pain of the farewell to the beautiful scene came to an end.“Ready?” cried the doctor sharply.“Aye, aye!” came back, and the horses shuffled and spread their legs.“Mount!” cried the doctor, and every one sprang to his saddle amidst the stamping of the mustangs’ feet. “Lead on, Griggs,” cried the doctor.The American pressed his cob’s sides and trotted to where the leading mule stood browsing, ready to raise its head, shaking the bell violently, and make a vicious snap at the horse’s neck with its bared teeth.But Griggs was ready for it, and threw out one of his long legs, the toe of his boot catching the mule in the cheek and spoiling the aim.“Look here, my fine fellow,” he cried, “don’t you try that game again, or I’ll fix a spike to the end of a stout hickory ready for lancing those gums of yours. I’m afraid you’ve got toothache, or you wouldn’t be so ready to bite. Now then, ring up. Get on.”“Forward!” snouted the doctor; and as the mule led the way under the American’s direction the whole heavily-laden team filed after, settling down steadily enough, the horsemen bringing up the rear, looking like a little detachment of irregular cavalry as they wound along the tracks through the blighted plantation, straight away for the uncultivated wilds.“Good-bye to five years’ labour,” said the doctor, turning in his saddle for a last look.“Five years’ disappointment,” said Wilton sadly.“Five years of buried hopes,” said Bourne slowly; but the boys were silent, neither daring to trust his voice.“And now,” cried the doctor, “for five years of unburied hope and looking forward to the future. Here, boys, you ought to give a cheer. Who’ll lead?”No one: the moments were too sad, for there seemed to be a thick black veil hanging before them right in front, and neither dared to think of what might be to come.Onward, onward into the future, with the wilderness unseen waiting to swallow up the adventurers in the unknown way—the perils to be encountered happily hidden from them as yet.
“I didn’t believe we ever should start,” said Chris, one morning at daybreak.
“But you were wrong,” said Ned, “and here’s good-bye to the old place.”
It was a month later, during which time the journey had been made to the nearest town, the stores and other necessaries purchased, and after preparations which had lasted till midnight, every one had declared that there was nothing else to be done, and all had lain down to sleep, Griggs included, he having decided to stay at the ranch for the last night, after bringing over his baggage and animals, and he had by a gruesome kind of choice elected to sleep in the long shed.
“Where the poor old adventurer was put,” he said, “and that will make me dream about him and perhaps have some happy thoughts about the best way to go.”
There were not many farewells to bid, for the settlers at the nearest plantations were scattered widely about the district, and all for the most part too much worried about their own disappointments to pay much heed to a few neighbours who were giving up and going to try their fortune elsewhere, and for the most part were ready to sneer at the restless folk who were going prospecting where, according to their own ideas, they were not likely to do half so well.
Hence it was that as soon as it was light, and while Griggs with a hammer and spikes was nailing up the last windows and the door, for which pieces of board cut to the exact size lay ready, there was not a stranger there to see them off.
It was a busy time. They had all breakfasted by the light of the out-door fire which had boiled their coffee, cooked their damper, and frizzled their bacon, and now were all hard at work loading the dozen mules that had been purchased for the purpose of carrying their baggage, and in whose management every one had taken lessons from an old mule-driver who had made many journeys into the Far West.
For there was much to learn. “Obstinate as a mule” is a good old proverb, and the party had plenty of reason for learning its truth. They had heard too of the vicious nature of these same animals. They were used as beasts of burden, and they seemed to have made up their minds to be a burden to every one there. The old Yankee, who had made many a journey with mule teams, had taught them, and taught them well, all he could about the mysteries of lasso and lariat, and the diamond-hitch; but even after a fortnight’s practice it was not easy to bind the loads well-balanced upon each mule’s back without getting kicked, and when this was done, the mules having been disappointed at not being able to kick anybody, mostly made desperate attempts to kick at nothing, the result of which was the loosening of the ropes so that the loads rattled and in one case went flying.
This load had been tied on by the boys, who stood looking at one another and then at the mule, which, as soon as it was free, gave its ears a few twinkles, shook its shabby tail, and then began to graze quite contentedly on some alfalfa grass, or lucerne.
“Come, boys, don’t stand looking on,” cried the doctor. “Try again, or we shall be waiting for you. You must put your feet against the brute’s side and haul tight, as you were taught.”
“We did, sir,” cried Ned, who was hot and angry.
“Not tight enough, my lad. You’ll soon do it better.”
“Not with this one, father. It’s such a beast.”
“They all are, my boy,” said the doctor, laughing at his son’s perplexed countenance.
“I mean such a wretch, father. It’s so artful. When you’ve got the load on all right and balanced, and there’s nothing to do but tighten the lariat, the nasty, spiteful, cunning brute waits till you begin to haul tight, and then fills itself full of wind and swells itself out. Then you pull till all is as tight as tight, and fasten off the knots.”
“Well, that’s right,” said the doctor, who looked, like the rest, wonderfully business-like and ready for the journey, in leather Norfolk jacket, knickerbockers, and cowboy’s hat.
“Yes, so we thought, sir,” said Ned, “till I heard the brute sigh.”
“Oh, poor thing, it was because it had such a heavy load.”
“No, it wasn’t, father; it was because it was breathing out all the wind again, and we didn’t know what it meant till we found that the load was all loose, and when we went up to tighten it the wretch wheeled round and tried to kick us, and because it couldn’t it kicked itself out of its load.”
“Never mind, don’t waste time, Chris. I want to start. We’ll halt somewhere at mid-day for a rest, and set things right. After a few days’ practice we shall get on better, and all these things will come easy.”
“I hope they will,” said Chris, as the doctor went off to where the carefully-folded tent and its poles and stretchers were being secured to another of the dozen mules which formed their team. “But look here, Ned, old chap, I’m not going to get in a passion now; I’m going to save it up, and before long I’m going to show this gentleman which of us two is going to be master.”
“Oh, nonsense! My father said that we were to break the mules in with gentle treatment. They are obstinate, he said, because they’ve become so used to being beaten.”
“Old Dence told me that kindness is thrown away upon a mule. He said you must let go at ’em with your tongue and a good thick stick; but if when you’re using it you see one lay its ears down flat and draw its lips away from its teeth and laugh, it’s because you don’t hit hard enough. Well, this one did.”
“Yes, I saw the brute grin,” said Ned.
“Well, just you wait. I’m going to save up this fellow’s dose, and he shall have it some day with interest.”
“He told me,” said Ned, “that you couldn’t drive mules without using bad language. He did—lots.”
“Yes, I heard him,” said Chris.
“I told my father, and he was angry and said it was all nonsense. All you had to do was to shout at the brutes loudly, and as if you were in a rage. Then he laughed, and told me what to do.”
“What was that?” said Chris, rather breathlessly, for he was busy arranging the mule’s load.
“He said I was to stamp and yell, and begin to decline a Latin noun to the mules.”
“Oh, bother the Latin nouns!” said Chris pettishly. “Who’s to think of cases when you’re driving a mule? Here, come on and help. And I say, I nearly forgot.”
“Forgot what? I dare say we’ve forgotten lots of things.”
“But we mustn’t forget this. We’re loading the leading mule, and it’s the one that wears that bell round its neck. Where is it?”
“The bell? Last time I saw it was when father hung it on one of the gun-pegs over the fire-place.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Chris, “and old Griggs is just finishing nailing up the door.”
“Then he’ll have to un-nail it again,” said Ned grumpily. “Hi, Griggs!”
There were two or three echoing raps with the hammer, and then a couple of finishing blows, before the American cried—
“Hallo, there!”
“You’re nailing up the mule’s bell.”
“Who says so?” and there was the commencement of the driving in of another nail.
“I do,” cried Ned. “You must open the door again.”
Rap, rap, rap, rap, bang, bang, bang, as another nail went home.
“Can’t be done.”
“But we must have that strap and bell.”
“Come and fetch it then. It’s hanging on the hitching-up hook at the end of the house.”
“Oh!” sighed Ned in a voice full of relief, and he ran to the place specified, to lift down the bell and the collar-strap, to come back ringing it loudly.
“Hoi! Hallo, there! Steady!” cried Wilton excitedly. “Don’t do that.”
Ned gagged the bell at once by thrusting his left hand in its mouth and holding the clapper; but the little peal he had rung had done its work of setting all the mules in motion, bringing them all up close to the ringer, who found himself in the midst of a knot of squealing and kicking brutes, who diversified their vicious play by running open-mouthed at one another to bite.
But they were all loaded at length, there was a final look round, and then a move was made for the long shed, whose big door gaped wide, and as their footsteps were heard there was a shrill neigh from within and the sound of impatient stamping.
“This looks like a start at last, doctor,” said Griggs, who came up last.
“Yes, at last,” said the doctor.
“Got the map all right, sir?”
“Yes, in my saddle-bag. You said you had done everything that fell to your share.”
“Everything but locking up this door, sir, and here are the keys,” cried the American, holding up a leather bag, in which he jingled the hammer and a few of the big nails within.
“That’s right,” cried the doctor. “Now then,” he shouted, “every one tighten his mustang’s girths a hole or two, and sling his rifle across his back before mounting. Got your revolvers, boys?”
“Yes, father—yes, sir!” came in response, and the next minute half-a-dozen rough-looking wiry cobs were being unhitched and led out through the low doorway, to stand champing their big bits, fidgeting to be mounted and given their heads for a canter.
“Every one see that his bag and blanket are all right,” cried the doctor; and then Griggs’ voice was heard.
“Some one take my nag’s rein,” he said. “Will you, Squire Chris?”
For answer the boy reached out and took hold of the strap, casting his eye over the sturdy little steed, which seemed too small to carry so tall a man as its rider.
Chris noted that there was the long hide lasso-rope curled up and hanging in its place by the saddle-bow, and that the saddle-bags were in their places, carefully strapped on, so that a tin bucket, which was also hung behind, should rest on one and not prove a nuisance to horse or rider.
Ned was close to his companion, and he said—
“I say, it would have been much better if we had kept to our old idea and had, say, three light mule-carts. What a lot of these odds and ends we could have stowed out of the way.”
“I said so to old Griggs,” replied Chris, and then he was silent.
“Well, what did he say?”
“Only grinned at first.”
“Well, what then?”
“He said it would have taken so long and been so expensive, because we should have had to send an army of men on first to make a road all the way we were going.”
“Which means he was laughing at you.”
“Grinning, I call it. But I suppose he’s right, because when you come to think of it, there’ll be no track, and a lot of our travelling will be in and out among the mountains. There, that’s the last door,” said Chris with a sigh, as there was a loud bang following the creaking of hinges that had been rarely used. Directly after, Griggs’ hammer came into play, making the horses restive and back away from the noise to the full extent of their reins.
“Yes,” said Ned, with a sigh, “the last door. I say, Chris, now it has come to it, don’t you feel a bit sorry to go away from the old place?”
“Horribly,” said the boy in a low, husky voice. “What fun we used to have!”
“Yes,” said Ned, “before everything got to be so dull because things failed so and made my father so low-spirited.”
“He wasn’t so low-spirited as my father was; but I s’pose there wasn’t much difference,” replied Chris, to the accompaniment of Griggs’ hammer and the fidgeting of his nag. “Quiet, will you, stupid! He isn’t going to hurt you.”
“I say, how jolly grumpy it used to make Mr Wilton.”
“Hah!” ejaculated Chris. “A year ago he was always ready for a bit of fun, fishing, snaking, squirrel-hunting, or seeking honey. But there, no wonder; he felt like father, that it was all lose, lose, lose, and that it was unfair not to be at work.”
“And it took all the fun out of our games.”
“Yes, no more games now, Neddy. Father said last night when we were alone that we must bid good-bye to being boys with the place—leave all that here, and begin to think of being and acting like men.”
“Yes, and my father said something like that to me, Chris; and somehow now it has come to making the start I don’t feel as if I want to be a man yet. It was so jolly to be a boy here in the dear old place. Oh, bother the old gold! I wish that poor old chap hadn’t come here to die.”
“So do I,” said Chris, and his voice sounded very husky now as he gazed round him at the many familiar objects. “I say, look how my apple-tree has grown!”
“Yes, and my pear,” said Ned quickly. “It has beaten your old apple all to bits.”
“Well, of course it has,” said Chris roughly. “Pears do run up tall and straight and weak. Apples grow stout and strong and slow.”
“They’ve done well enough.”
“Yes; but then see what pains we took to water and manure them. Nothing else has done well.”
“No, nothing. As father says, it has all been like slow ruin coming on; but I like the dear old place all the same, because we helped to make it out of the wilderness into a great garden. Oh, Chris, I wish we weren’t going.”
“So do I, but it’s of no use to go on wishing. We should have felt much more miserable when we were starting to go back to England, not knowing what we were going to do. We should have had to go, and this is going to be like a great roving holiday, seeing something fresh and new every day.”
“So it will be. There, I begin to feel better now. I say, look at the sun rising—isn’t it glorious!”
“Always is,” said Chris cheerily. “How different it makes things look! I always feel better when the sun shines. There, good-bye, old place, if we never see you again.”
“But I say, Chris, we might come back some day, you know.”
“Not likely.”
“Why? We might find the gold, and then come back here to live. It wouldn’t matter then about the peaches and grapes and things failing.”
“No; father wouldn’t want the money then,” said Chris thoughtfully. “I should like to come back, after all, but—”
Bing!—Bing!—Bang!
“That’s done it, sir,” cried Griggs, his voice ringing out cheerily in the morning air. “I’ll tuck the hammer and nails in my pouch. They may come in useful. No, I can’t; it’s full. I’ll tuck the hammer handle through my belt. Either of you youngsters got room for a few nails in your pocket?”
“I have, Griggs,” cried Chris quickly, and, with something to do, the pain of the farewell to the beautiful scene came to an end.
“Ready?” cried the doctor sharply.
“Aye, aye!” came back, and the horses shuffled and spread their legs.
“Mount!” cried the doctor, and every one sprang to his saddle amidst the stamping of the mustangs’ feet. “Lead on, Griggs,” cried the doctor.
The American pressed his cob’s sides and trotted to where the leading mule stood browsing, ready to raise its head, shaking the bell violently, and make a vicious snap at the horse’s neck with its bared teeth.
But Griggs was ready for it, and threw out one of his long legs, the toe of his boot catching the mule in the cheek and spoiling the aim.
“Look here, my fine fellow,” he cried, “don’t you try that game again, or I’ll fix a spike to the end of a stout hickory ready for lancing those gums of yours. I’m afraid you’ve got toothache, or you wouldn’t be so ready to bite. Now then, ring up. Get on.”
“Forward!” snouted the doctor; and as the mule led the way under the American’s direction the whole heavily-laden team filed after, settling down steadily enough, the horsemen bringing up the rear, looking like a little detachment of irregular cavalry as they wound along the tracks through the blighted plantation, straight away for the uncultivated wilds.
“Good-bye to five years’ labour,” said the doctor, turning in his saddle for a last look.
“Five years’ disappointment,” said Wilton sadly.
“Five years of buried hopes,” said Bourne slowly; but the boys were silent, neither daring to trust his voice.
“And now,” cried the doctor, “for five years of unburied hope and looking forward to the future. Here, boys, you ought to give a cheer. Who’ll lead?”
No one: the moments were too sad, for there seemed to be a thick black veil hanging before them right in front, and neither dared to think of what might be to come.
Onward, onward into the future, with the wilderness unseen waiting to swallow up the adventurers in the unknown way—the perils to be encountered happily hidden from them as yet.