Chapter Thirteen.Black Boy amuses himself.Upon learning the fact that they had so nearly crossed the ridge of mountains, the Doctor resolved next day to proceed as far as the point where the adventure with the bears had taken place, and there endeavour, by the aid of his glass, to determine which direction to take: whether to find a ravine by which they might descend into the plain, or whether it would be better to remain amongst these mountains, and here continue his search.The place was reached in due time, and for the time being there seemed to be no chance of getting down into the plain, either to search for the bears or to pursue their course in that direction.The Doctor examined the slopes and ravines, plunged down into the most sheltered chasms, and chipped at the fragments of rock, but no sign of silver rewarded the search, and their journey would have been useless but for the fact that, as they were making a circuit, Joses suddenly arrested them, for he had caught a glimpse of a little flock of mountain sheep, and these he and Bart immediately set themselves to try and stalk.It was no easy task, for the little group were upon a broad shelf high above them, and in a position that gave them an excellent opportunity for seeing approaching danger. But this time, after taking a long circuit, the hunters were rewarded by finding themselves well within shot, and only separated from the timid beasts by some rugged masses of rock.These they cautiously approached, crawling upon hands and knees, when, after glancing from one to the other by way of signal, Bart and Joses fired exactly together, with the result that a splendid young ram made a bound into the air and rolled over the edge of the shelf, falling crashing down amongst the bushes and loose stones, to land at last but a very short distance from where the Doctor was awaiting his companions’ return.The most remarkable part of the little hunt, though, was the action of the rest of the flock, which went off with headlong speed to the end of the shelf of the mountain, where they seemed to charge the perpendicular face of the rock and run up it like so many enlarged beetles, to disappear directly after over the edge of the cliff upon which they had climbed.“At last!” panted Bart eagerly. “We shall have something good in the larder to-day instead of running short.”“Just you wait till you’ve tasted it,” said Joses, as he came up, drew his knife, and he and Sam rapidly dressed the sheep, getting rid of the useless parts, and dividing it so that each might have a share of the load back to camp, where Joses’ words proved true, the various joints being declared to be more delicious than any meat the eaters had tasted yet.In these thorough solitudes amongst the hills the practice of keeping watch had not been so strictly attended to as during the journeying in the plains, for the horse—Indians seldom visited these rugged places,—in fact, none but the searchers after mineral treasures were likely to come into these toilsome regions. Hence it was then that the next night the party were so wanting in vigilance.Harry had been appointed to the latter half of the night, and after diligently keeping guard through the earlier hours, Joses awakened his successor, and fully trusting in his carrying out his duties, went and lay down in his blanket, and in a few seconds was fast asleep.That morning at sunrise, after a delicious night’s rest, Bart rose to have a look round before breakfast, when to his horror he saw that the camp was apparently in the hands of the Indians, who had been allowed by the negligent sentinel to approach while those who would have defended it slept.Bart’s first movement was to seize his gun, his next to arouse the Doctor.Then he stopped short, sorry for what he had done, for just then, free from all sling and stiffness in his wounded arm, their old friend the chief came striding across the open space before the waggon, and upon seeing Bart held out his hands in token of friendship.Bart shook hands with him, and as he glanced round he could see that the faces of those around were all familiar except one, whom the chief had beckoned to approach, which the strange Indian did with a stately air, when a short conversation between them and the chief took place, after which the new-comer turned to Bart, and said in very fair English:“The great chief Beaver-with-the-Sharp-Teeth bids me tell you that he has been back to his people to fetch one of his warriors who can speak the tongue of the pale-faced people, and I am that warrior. The great chief Beaver-with-the-Sharp-Teeth says it is peace, and he comes to see his friends and the great medicine-man, who brought him back to life when wounded by the poisonous arrows of the Indian dogs of the plains.”“We are very glad to see Beaver-with-the-Sharp-Teeth again,” cried Bart heartily, “and delighted to find he has brought a great warrior who can speak our language.”“So that it flows soft and sweet,” said a hoarse voice, and Joses stood up. “How are you, chief?”The hearty, friendly look and extended hand needed no interpretation, and the greeting between them was warm enough to bring smiles into the faces of all the Indians, who had no scruple soon afterwards about finishing the mountain mutton.After the breakfast Bart and the Doctor learned that the chief Beaver, as it was settled to call him, had been off really on purpose to get an interpreter, knowing that he could find the trail of his friends again; and this he had done, following them right into the mountains, and coming upon them as we have seen.Conversation was easy now, and Bart learned that their friends had had a severe fight in the plains a short time before the first meeting, and that the Beaver had felt sure that he would die of his wound, and be left in the wilderness the same as they had left fifteen of their number, the odds against them having been terribly great.Later on came questions, the Beaver being anxious to know why the Doctor’s party were there.“You have not come upon the war-path,” the Beaver said, “for you are weak in number, and you have brought a woman. Why are you here?”Then the Doctor explained his object—to find a vein of either gold or silver somewhere in the mountains; and as soon as it was all interpreted, the chief laughed outright.“He does not set much store by the precious metals, Bart,” said the Doctor, “and when I see the simplicity of their ways, it almost makes me ashamed of our own.”Just then the Beaver talked earnestly for a few moments with the warrior who interpreted, and returned to the Doctor.“The Beaver-with-the-Sharp-Teeth says you gave him life when all was growing black, and he thought to see his people never more; and now he says that he rejoices that he can take his brother across the plains to where a great river runs deep down by the side of a mighty mountain, where there is silver in greater quantities than can be carried away.”“Does the chief know of such a place?” cried the Doctor, excitedly.“Yes; he and I have seen it often,” said the Indian.“And will he take me there?”“Yes; the Beaver will take his brother there, and give it all into his hands.”“At last!” cried the Doctor excitedly. Then in a low voice, “Suppose it should not prove to be silver after all?”“I know it is silver,” said the Indian, quietly. “Look,” he cried, taking a clumsily-made ring from his medicine-bag. “That came from there, so did the ring upon the lariat of the chief.”“Ask him when he will take me there!” cried the Doctor.“He says now,” replied the Indian, smiling at the Doctor’s eagerness and excitement. “It is a long way, and the plains are hot, and there is little water; but we can hunt as we go, and all will be well.”“You know the way from here down into the plain?” said the Doctor. “It is a long way, is it not?”The Indian smiled. “It is a very short journey,” he said. “I know the way.”In effect they started as soon as the camp was struck, and the Beaver, leading the way, took them down a deep gulch, of whose existence they were unaware, by which they made an easy descent into the plain, and into which they passed with such good effect that at sunset the bold bluff where the adventure with the bears had taken place stood up in the distance, with the steep wall falling away on either side, looking diminutive in the distance, and very different to what it really was.They had had a rapid progress over a long range of perfectly level plain, the horses, after the toils in the mountains, seeming quite excited at having grass beneath their feet; and hence it was that when they were camping for the night, and Bart’s beautiful cob with long mane and tail had been divested of saddle and bridle, and after being watered was about to be secured by its lariat to the tether-peg, the excitable little creature, that had been till now all docility and tractableness, suddenly uttered a shrill neigh, pranced, reared up, and before Bart could seize it by the mane, went off across the plain like the wind.The loss of such a beast would have been irreparable, and the Doctor and Joses ran to untether their horses to join pursuit, but before they could reach them, the Beaver and half a dozen of his men were after the cob at full speed, loosing their lariats as they rode and holding them over their heads ready to use as lassoes as soon as they could get within reach of the fugitive.No easy task this, for as, dolefully enough, Bart looked on from the waggon, he could see his little horse keeping a long distance ahead, while now the Indians seemed to be making to the left to try and cut the restive little creature off, as he made for a wild-looking part of the plain about a couple of miles away.Bart was helpless, for there was no horse of their own left that was of the slightest use for pursuit of his swift little cob, and all he could do was to stare after those engaged in the pursuit in a hopeless way as the truant galloped on at full speed, swishing its tail, tossing its head, and apparently revelling in its newly-found liberty.All at once Bart became aware of the fact that one of theIndians had been for some minutes watching him attentively, and the man had uttered a low guttural laugh as if he were enjoying the youth’s misfortune.“I wonder how he would like it,” thought Bart, as he darted an indignant look at the Indian, who sat upon his swift pony like a group cut in bronze. “He might just as well have gone after Black Boy, for his pony looks as if it could go.”Just then the Indian threw himself lightly from his nag and drew near to Bart, with the horse-hair rein in his hand. Then he made signs to the young fellow to mount.“Do you mean that you will lend me the pony to go after my own?” said Bart eagerly.The Indian did not understand his words, but evidently realised their meaning, for he smiled and nodded, and placed the rein in Bart’s hand, when he leaped into the saddle, or rather into the apology for a saddle, for it was only a piece of bison hide held on by a bandage, while a sort of knob or peg was in the place of the pommel, a contrivance invented by the Indians to hold on by when attacking a dangerous enemy, so as to lie as it were alongside of their horse, and fire or shoot arrows beneath its neck, their bodies being in this way thoroughly protected by their horses.The Indian smiled and drew back when Bart touched the pony with his heel, the result being that, instead of going off at a gallop, the little restive beast reared up, pawing at the air with its hoofs, and nearly falling backwards upon its rider.The Indian looked on intently as if ready to leap forward and seize the bridle should Bart be dismounted. But the lad kept his seat, and the pony went on all fours again, but only to begin kicking furiously, to dislodge the strange white-faced being upon its back. It was like an insult to an animal that had been accustomed to carry true-blooded Indians all its life, dressed in skins ornamented with feathers and neatly painted up for special occasions, to have a pale-faced, undersized human animal in strange clothes mounted upon it; and the proper thing seemed to be to kick him off as soon as it could.These seemed to be the ideas of the Indian pony as exemplified by its acts; but the wildest of animals of the horse family cannot always do as they please, and it was evidently with something like astonishment that the little steed found Bart, still fixed firmly upon its back instead of flying over its head or slipping off backwards over the tail.This being so, the pony began to what is called “buck,” that is to say, instead of letting its back remain in an agreeable hollow curve, one which seems to have been made by nature on purpose to hold a human being, it curved its spine in the opposite direction, arching it as a cat would, but of course in a modified way, and then began leaping up from the earth in a series of buck jumps, all four hoofs from the ground at once.Still, in spite of this being the most difficult form of horse trouble to master, Bart kept his seat. He was jerked about a great deal, but he had been long used to riding restive horses, and he sat there as coolly as if in a chair.Then the Indian pony uttered a few shrill snorts and squeaks, throwing up its head, and finally turning round, first on one side then upon the other, it tried to bite its rider’s legs—attacks which Bart met by a series of sharp blows, given with the lariat that was coiled by the horse’s neck.These pranks went on for a few minutes, the Indian looking smilingly on the while, till, seeing that Bart was not to be dislodged, the pony began to back and finally lay down.This of course dismounted the rider, and with a snort of triumph the pony sprang to its feet again, evidently meaning to bound off after Black Boy and enjoy a turn of freedom.The pony had reckoned without its rider, for Bart was too old at such matters to leave his grasp of the rein, and the Indian cob’s first knowledge of its mistake was given by a sharp check to its under jaw, round which the horse-hair rope was twitched, the next by finding its rider back in his old place where he had leaped as lightly as could be.The Indian gave an approving grunt, and uttering what was quite a sigh, the pony resigned itself to its fate, and obeying the touch of Bart’s heel, went off at a fine springing gallop.It was a long chase and an arduous one, for Black Boy seemed to laugh to scorn all attempts at capture—of course these were horse-laughs—and led his pursuers a tremendous run; and had it not been for his master, late as he was in the field, the cob would not have been captured that night. As it was, Bart went off at speed, setting at defiance prairie-dogs’ burrows, and other holes that might be in his way, and at last he contrived to cut off a corner so as to get nearer to his nag, when, taking the rein beneath his leg, he placed both hands to his mouth and uttered a long shrill cry.It acted like magic upon Black Boy, who recognised it directly as his master’s call, and having had his frolic, he trotted slowly towards where Bart cantered on, suffered himself to be caught, and the party returned in triumph, none the worse, save the tiring, for the adventure.
Upon learning the fact that they had so nearly crossed the ridge of mountains, the Doctor resolved next day to proceed as far as the point where the adventure with the bears had taken place, and there endeavour, by the aid of his glass, to determine which direction to take: whether to find a ravine by which they might descend into the plain, or whether it would be better to remain amongst these mountains, and here continue his search.
The place was reached in due time, and for the time being there seemed to be no chance of getting down into the plain, either to search for the bears or to pursue their course in that direction.
The Doctor examined the slopes and ravines, plunged down into the most sheltered chasms, and chipped at the fragments of rock, but no sign of silver rewarded the search, and their journey would have been useless but for the fact that, as they were making a circuit, Joses suddenly arrested them, for he had caught a glimpse of a little flock of mountain sheep, and these he and Bart immediately set themselves to try and stalk.
It was no easy task, for the little group were upon a broad shelf high above them, and in a position that gave them an excellent opportunity for seeing approaching danger. But this time, after taking a long circuit, the hunters were rewarded by finding themselves well within shot, and only separated from the timid beasts by some rugged masses of rock.
These they cautiously approached, crawling upon hands and knees, when, after glancing from one to the other by way of signal, Bart and Joses fired exactly together, with the result that a splendid young ram made a bound into the air and rolled over the edge of the shelf, falling crashing down amongst the bushes and loose stones, to land at last but a very short distance from where the Doctor was awaiting his companions’ return.
The most remarkable part of the little hunt, though, was the action of the rest of the flock, which went off with headlong speed to the end of the shelf of the mountain, where they seemed to charge the perpendicular face of the rock and run up it like so many enlarged beetles, to disappear directly after over the edge of the cliff upon which they had climbed.
“At last!” panted Bart eagerly. “We shall have something good in the larder to-day instead of running short.”
“Just you wait till you’ve tasted it,” said Joses, as he came up, drew his knife, and he and Sam rapidly dressed the sheep, getting rid of the useless parts, and dividing it so that each might have a share of the load back to camp, where Joses’ words proved true, the various joints being declared to be more delicious than any meat the eaters had tasted yet.
In these thorough solitudes amongst the hills the practice of keeping watch had not been so strictly attended to as during the journeying in the plains, for the horse—Indians seldom visited these rugged places,—in fact, none but the searchers after mineral treasures were likely to come into these toilsome regions. Hence it was then that the next night the party were so wanting in vigilance.
Harry had been appointed to the latter half of the night, and after diligently keeping guard through the earlier hours, Joses awakened his successor, and fully trusting in his carrying out his duties, went and lay down in his blanket, and in a few seconds was fast asleep.
That morning at sunrise, after a delicious night’s rest, Bart rose to have a look round before breakfast, when to his horror he saw that the camp was apparently in the hands of the Indians, who had been allowed by the negligent sentinel to approach while those who would have defended it slept.
Bart’s first movement was to seize his gun, his next to arouse the Doctor.
Then he stopped short, sorry for what he had done, for just then, free from all sling and stiffness in his wounded arm, their old friend the chief came striding across the open space before the waggon, and upon seeing Bart held out his hands in token of friendship.
Bart shook hands with him, and as he glanced round he could see that the faces of those around were all familiar except one, whom the chief had beckoned to approach, which the strange Indian did with a stately air, when a short conversation between them and the chief took place, after which the new-comer turned to Bart, and said in very fair English:
“The great chief Beaver-with-the-Sharp-Teeth bids me tell you that he has been back to his people to fetch one of his warriors who can speak the tongue of the pale-faced people, and I am that warrior. The great chief Beaver-with-the-Sharp-Teeth says it is peace, and he comes to see his friends and the great medicine-man, who brought him back to life when wounded by the poisonous arrows of the Indian dogs of the plains.”
“We are very glad to see Beaver-with-the-Sharp-Teeth again,” cried Bart heartily, “and delighted to find he has brought a great warrior who can speak our language.”
“So that it flows soft and sweet,” said a hoarse voice, and Joses stood up. “How are you, chief?”
The hearty, friendly look and extended hand needed no interpretation, and the greeting between them was warm enough to bring smiles into the faces of all the Indians, who had no scruple soon afterwards about finishing the mountain mutton.
After the breakfast Bart and the Doctor learned that the chief Beaver, as it was settled to call him, had been off really on purpose to get an interpreter, knowing that he could find the trail of his friends again; and this he had done, following them right into the mountains, and coming upon them as we have seen.
Conversation was easy now, and Bart learned that their friends had had a severe fight in the plains a short time before the first meeting, and that the Beaver had felt sure that he would die of his wound, and be left in the wilderness the same as they had left fifteen of their number, the odds against them having been terribly great.
Later on came questions, the Beaver being anxious to know why the Doctor’s party were there.
“You have not come upon the war-path,” the Beaver said, “for you are weak in number, and you have brought a woman. Why are you here?”
Then the Doctor explained his object—to find a vein of either gold or silver somewhere in the mountains; and as soon as it was all interpreted, the chief laughed outright.
“He does not set much store by the precious metals, Bart,” said the Doctor, “and when I see the simplicity of their ways, it almost makes me ashamed of our own.”
Just then the Beaver talked earnestly for a few moments with the warrior who interpreted, and returned to the Doctor.
“The Beaver-with-the-Sharp-Teeth says you gave him life when all was growing black, and he thought to see his people never more; and now he says that he rejoices that he can take his brother across the plains to where a great river runs deep down by the side of a mighty mountain, where there is silver in greater quantities than can be carried away.”
“Does the chief know of such a place?” cried the Doctor, excitedly.
“Yes; he and I have seen it often,” said the Indian.
“And will he take me there?”
“Yes; the Beaver will take his brother there, and give it all into his hands.”
“At last!” cried the Doctor excitedly. Then in a low voice, “Suppose it should not prove to be silver after all?”
“I know it is silver,” said the Indian, quietly. “Look,” he cried, taking a clumsily-made ring from his medicine-bag. “That came from there, so did the ring upon the lariat of the chief.”
“Ask him when he will take me there!” cried the Doctor.
“He says now,” replied the Indian, smiling at the Doctor’s eagerness and excitement. “It is a long way, and the plains are hot, and there is little water; but we can hunt as we go, and all will be well.”
“You know the way from here down into the plain?” said the Doctor. “It is a long way, is it not?”
The Indian smiled. “It is a very short journey,” he said. “I know the way.”
In effect they started as soon as the camp was struck, and the Beaver, leading the way, took them down a deep gulch, of whose existence they were unaware, by which they made an easy descent into the plain, and into which they passed with such good effect that at sunset the bold bluff where the adventure with the bears had taken place stood up in the distance, with the steep wall falling away on either side, looking diminutive in the distance, and very different to what it really was.
They had had a rapid progress over a long range of perfectly level plain, the horses, after the toils in the mountains, seeming quite excited at having grass beneath their feet; and hence it was that when they were camping for the night, and Bart’s beautiful cob with long mane and tail had been divested of saddle and bridle, and after being watered was about to be secured by its lariat to the tether-peg, the excitable little creature, that had been till now all docility and tractableness, suddenly uttered a shrill neigh, pranced, reared up, and before Bart could seize it by the mane, went off across the plain like the wind.
The loss of such a beast would have been irreparable, and the Doctor and Joses ran to untether their horses to join pursuit, but before they could reach them, the Beaver and half a dozen of his men were after the cob at full speed, loosing their lariats as they rode and holding them over their heads ready to use as lassoes as soon as they could get within reach of the fugitive.
No easy task this, for as, dolefully enough, Bart looked on from the waggon, he could see his little horse keeping a long distance ahead, while now the Indians seemed to be making to the left to try and cut the restive little creature off, as he made for a wild-looking part of the plain about a couple of miles away.
Bart was helpless, for there was no horse of their own left that was of the slightest use for pursuit of his swift little cob, and all he could do was to stare after those engaged in the pursuit in a hopeless way as the truant galloped on at full speed, swishing its tail, tossing its head, and apparently revelling in its newly-found liberty.
All at once Bart became aware of the fact that one of theIndians had been for some minutes watching him attentively, and the man had uttered a low guttural laugh as if he were enjoying the youth’s misfortune.
“I wonder how he would like it,” thought Bart, as he darted an indignant look at the Indian, who sat upon his swift pony like a group cut in bronze. “He might just as well have gone after Black Boy, for his pony looks as if it could go.”
Just then the Indian threw himself lightly from his nag and drew near to Bart, with the horse-hair rein in his hand. Then he made signs to the young fellow to mount.
“Do you mean that you will lend me the pony to go after my own?” said Bart eagerly.
The Indian did not understand his words, but evidently realised their meaning, for he smiled and nodded, and placed the rein in Bart’s hand, when he leaped into the saddle, or rather into the apology for a saddle, for it was only a piece of bison hide held on by a bandage, while a sort of knob or peg was in the place of the pommel, a contrivance invented by the Indians to hold on by when attacking a dangerous enemy, so as to lie as it were alongside of their horse, and fire or shoot arrows beneath its neck, their bodies being in this way thoroughly protected by their horses.
The Indian smiled and drew back when Bart touched the pony with his heel, the result being that, instead of going off at a gallop, the little restive beast reared up, pawing at the air with its hoofs, and nearly falling backwards upon its rider.
The Indian looked on intently as if ready to leap forward and seize the bridle should Bart be dismounted. But the lad kept his seat, and the pony went on all fours again, but only to begin kicking furiously, to dislodge the strange white-faced being upon its back. It was like an insult to an animal that had been accustomed to carry true-blooded Indians all its life, dressed in skins ornamented with feathers and neatly painted up for special occasions, to have a pale-faced, undersized human animal in strange clothes mounted upon it; and the proper thing seemed to be to kick him off as soon as it could.
These seemed to be the ideas of the Indian pony as exemplified by its acts; but the wildest of animals of the horse family cannot always do as they please, and it was evidently with something like astonishment that the little steed found Bart, still fixed firmly upon its back instead of flying over its head or slipping off backwards over the tail.
This being so, the pony began to what is called “buck,” that is to say, instead of letting its back remain in an agreeable hollow curve, one which seems to have been made by nature on purpose to hold a human being, it curved its spine in the opposite direction, arching it as a cat would, but of course in a modified way, and then began leaping up from the earth in a series of buck jumps, all four hoofs from the ground at once.
Still, in spite of this being the most difficult form of horse trouble to master, Bart kept his seat. He was jerked about a great deal, but he had been long used to riding restive horses, and he sat there as coolly as if in a chair.
Then the Indian pony uttered a few shrill snorts and squeaks, throwing up its head, and finally turning round, first on one side then upon the other, it tried to bite its rider’s legs—attacks which Bart met by a series of sharp blows, given with the lariat that was coiled by the horse’s neck.
These pranks went on for a few minutes, the Indian looking smilingly on the while, till, seeing that Bart was not to be dislodged, the pony began to back and finally lay down.
This of course dismounted the rider, and with a snort of triumph the pony sprang to its feet again, evidently meaning to bound off after Black Boy and enjoy a turn of freedom.
The pony had reckoned without its rider, for Bart was too old at such matters to leave his grasp of the rein, and the Indian cob’s first knowledge of its mistake was given by a sharp check to its under jaw, round which the horse-hair rope was twitched, the next by finding its rider back in his old place where he had leaped as lightly as could be.
The Indian gave an approving grunt, and uttering what was quite a sigh, the pony resigned itself to its fate, and obeying the touch of Bart’s heel, went off at a fine springing gallop.
It was a long chase and an arduous one, for Black Boy seemed to laugh to scorn all attempts at capture—of course these were horse-laughs—and led his pursuers a tremendous run; and had it not been for his master, late as he was in the field, the cob would not have been captured that night. As it was, Bart went off at speed, setting at defiance prairie-dogs’ burrows, and other holes that might be in his way, and at last he contrived to cut off a corner so as to get nearer to his nag, when, taking the rein beneath his leg, he placed both hands to his mouth and uttered a long shrill cry.
It acted like magic upon Black Boy, who recognised it directly as his master’s call, and having had his frolic, he trotted slowly towards where Bart cantered on, suffered himself to be caught, and the party returned in triumph, none the worse, save the tiring, for the adventure.
Chapter Fourteen.The Silver Canyon.A week’s arduous journey over a sterile stretch of country, where water was very scarce and where game was hard to approach, brought them at last in reach of what looked to be a curiously formed mountain far away in the middle of an apparently boundless plain. Then it struck Bart that it could not be a mountain, for its sides were perpendicular, and its top at a distance seemed to be perfectly flat, and long discussions arose between him and the Doctor as to the peculiarity of the strange eminence standing up so prominently right in the middle of the plain.While they were discussing the subject, the Beaver and his English-speaking follower came to their side, and pointing to the mountain, gave them to understand that this was their destination.“But is there silver there?” said the Doctor eagerly, when the Indian smiled and said quietly, “Wait and see.”The mountain on being first seen appeared to be at quite a short distance, but at the end of their first day’s journey they seemed to have got no nearer, while after another day, though it had assumed more prominent proportions, they were still at some distance, and it was not until the third morning that the little party stood on the reedy shores of a long narrow winding lake, one end of which they had to skirt before they could ride up to the foot of the flat-topped mountain which looked as if it had been suddenly thrust by some wondrous volcanic action right from the plain to form what appeared to be a huge castle, some seven or eight hundred feet high, and with no ravine or rift in the wall by which it could be approached.All Bart’s questions were met by the one sole answer from the Indian, “Wait and see;” and in this spirit the savages guided them along beneath the towering ramparts of the mountain, whose scarped sides even a mountain sheep could not have climbed, till towards evening rein was drawn close under the mighty rocks, fragments of which had fallen here and there, loosened by time or cut loose by the shafts of storms to lie crumbling about its feet.There seemed to be no reason for halting there, save that there was a little spring of water trickling down from the rocks, while a short distance in front what seemed to be a wide crack appeared in the plain, zigzagging here and there, one end going off into the distance, the other appearing to pass round close by the mountain; and as soon as they were dismounted and the horses tethered, the Beaver signed to Bart and the Doctor to accompany him, while the interpreter followed close behind.It was a glorious evening, and after the heat of the day, the soft, cool breeze that swept over the plain was refreshing in the extreme; but all the same Bart felt very hungry, and his thoughts were more upon some carefully picked sage grouse that Joses and Maude were roasting than upon the search for silver; but the Doctor was excited, for he felt that most likely this would prove to be the goal of their long journey. His great fear was that the Indians in their ignorance might have taken some white shining stone or mica for the precious metal.The crack in the plain seemed to grow wider as they approached, but the Indians suddenly led them off to the right, close under the towering flank of the mountain, and between it and a mass of rock that might have been split from it at some early stage in the world’s life.This mass was some forty or fifty feet high, and between it and the parent mountain there was a narrow rift, so narrow in fact that they had to proceed in single file for about a hundred yards, winding in and out till, reaching the end, the Indians stood upon a broad kind of shelf of rock in silence as the Doctor and Bart involuntarily uttered a cry of surprise.For there was the crack in the plain below their feet, and they were standing upon its very verge where it came in close to the mountain, whose top was some seven hundred feet above their heads, while here its perpendicular side went down for fully another thousand to where, in the solemn dark depths of the vast canyon or crack in the rocky crust of the earth, a great rushing river ran, its roar rising to where they stood in a strangely weird monotone, like low echoing thunder.The reflections in the evening sky lighted up the vast rift for a while, and Bart forgot his hunger in the contemplation of this strange freak of nature, of a river running below in a channel whose walls were perfectly perpendicular and against which in places the rapid stream seemed to beat and eddy and swirl, while in other parts there were long stretches of pebbly and rocky shore. For as far as Bart could judge, the walls seemed to be about four hundred feet apart, though in the fading evening light it was hard to tell anything for certain.A more stupendous work of nature had never met Bart’s eye, and his first thoughts were natural enough— How should he manage to get to the top of that flat mountain?—How should he be able to lower himself down into the mysterious shades of that vast canyon, and wander amongst the wonders that must for certain be hidden there?Just then the Beaver spoke. He had evidently been taking lessons from the interpreter, as, smiling loftily and half in pity at the eagerness of men who could care for such a trifle as white ore when they had horses and rifles, he pointed up at the perpendicular face of the mountain and then downward at the wall of the canyon, and said:—“Silver—silver. Beaver give his brother. Medicine-man.”“He means there is silver here, sir, and he gives it to you,” said Bart eagerly.“Yes. Give. Silver,” said the chief, nodding his head, and holding out his hand, which the Doctor grasped, Bart doing the same by the other.“I am very grateful,” said the Doctor at last, while his eyes kept wandering about, “but I see none.”“Silver—silver,” said the chief again, as he looked up and then down, ending by addressing some words in the Indian dialect to the interpreter, who pointed in the direction of the camp.“The Beaver-with-Sharp-Teeth says, let us eat,” he said.This brought back Bart’s hunger so vividly to his recollection that he laughed merrily and turned to go.“Yes,” he said, “let us eat by all means. Shall we come in the morning and examine this place, sir?”“Yes, Bart, we will,” said the Doctor, as they turned back; “but I’m afraid we shall be disappointed. What was that?”“An Indian,” said Bart. “I saw him glide amongst the rocks. Was it an enemy?”“No; impossible, I should say,” replied the Doctor. “One of our own party. Our friends here would have seen him if he had been an enemy, long before we should.”“And so you think there is no silver here, sir?” said Bart.“I can’t tell yet, my boy. There may be, but these men know so little about such things that I cannot help feeling doubtful. However, we shall see, and if I am disappointed I shall know what to do.”“Try again, sir?” said Bart.“Try again, my boy, for there is ample store in the mountains if we can find it.”“Yes,” he said, as they walked back, “this is going to be a disappointment.” He picked up a piece of rock as he went along between the rocks; “this stone does not look like silver-bearing stratum. But we’ll wait till the morning, Bart, and see.”
A week’s arduous journey over a sterile stretch of country, where water was very scarce and where game was hard to approach, brought them at last in reach of what looked to be a curiously formed mountain far away in the middle of an apparently boundless plain. Then it struck Bart that it could not be a mountain, for its sides were perpendicular, and its top at a distance seemed to be perfectly flat, and long discussions arose between him and the Doctor as to the peculiarity of the strange eminence standing up so prominently right in the middle of the plain.
While they were discussing the subject, the Beaver and his English-speaking follower came to their side, and pointing to the mountain, gave them to understand that this was their destination.
“But is there silver there?” said the Doctor eagerly, when the Indian smiled and said quietly, “Wait and see.”
The mountain on being first seen appeared to be at quite a short distance, but at the end of their first day’s journey they seemed to have got no nearer, while after another day, though it had assumed more prominent proportions, they were still at some distance, and it was not until the third morning that the little party stood on the reedy shores of a long narrow winding lake, one end of which they had to skirt before they could ride up to the foot of the flat-topped mountain which looked as if it had been suddenly thrust by some wondrous volcanic action right from the plain to form what appeared to be a huge castle, some seven or eight hundred feet high, and with no ravine or rift in the wall by which it could be approached.
All Bart’s questions were met by the one sole answer from the Indian, “Wait and see;” and in this spirit the savages guided them along beneath the towering ramparts of the mountain, whose scarped sides even a mountain sheep could not have climbed, till towards evening rein was drawn close under the mighty rocks, fragments of which had fallen here and there, loosened by time or cut loose by the shafts of storms to lie crumbling about its feet.
There seemed to be no reason for halting there, save that there was a little spring of water trickling down from the rocks, while a short distance in front what seemed to be a wide crack appeared in the plain, zigzagging here and there, one end going off into the distance, the other appearing to pass round close by the mountain; and as soon as they were dismounted and the horses tethered, the Beaver signed to Bart and the Doctor to accompany him, while the interpreter followed close behind.
It was a glorious evening, and after the heat of the day, the soft, cool breeze that swept over the plain was refreshing in the extreme; but all the same Bart felt very hungry, and his thoughts were more upon some carefully picked sage grouse that Joses and Maude were roasting than upon the search for silver; but the Doctor was excited, for he felt that most likely this would prove to be the goal of their long journey. His great fear was that the Indians in their ignorance might have taken some white shining stone or mica for the precious metal.
The crack in the plain seemed to grow wider as they approached, but the Indians suddenly led them off to the right, close under the towering flank of the mountain, and between it and a mass of rock that might have been split from it at some early stage in the world’s life.
This mass was some forty or fifty feet high, and between it and the parent mountain there was a narrow rift, so narrow in fact that they had to proceed in single file for about a hundred yards, winding in and out till, reaching the end, the Indians stood upon a broad kind of shelf of rock in silence as the Doctor and Bart involuntarily uttered a cry of surprise.
For there was the crack in the plain below their feet, and they were standing upon its very verge where it came in close to the mountain, whose top was some seven hundred feet above their heads, while here its perpendicular side went down for fully another thousand to where, in the solemn dark depths of the vast canyon or crack in the rocky crust of the earth, a great rushing river ran, its roar rising to where they stood in a strangely weird monotone, like low echoing thunder.
The reflections in the evening sky lighted up the vast rift for a while, and Bart forgot his hunger in the contemplation of this strange freak of nature, of a river running below in a channel whose walls were perfectly perpendicular and against which in places the rapid stream seemed to beat and eddy and swirl, while in other parts there were long stretches of pebbly and rocky shore. For as far as Bart could judge, the walls seemed to be about four hundred feet apart, though in the fading evening light it was hard to tell anything for certain.
A more stupendous work of nature had never met Bart’s eye, and his first thoughts were natural enough— How should he manage to get to the top of that flat mountain?—How should he be able to lower himself down into the mysterious shades of that vast canyon, and wander amongst the wonders that must for certain be hidden there?
Just then the Beaver spoke. He had evidently been taking lessons from the interpreter, as, smiling loftily and half in pity at the eagerness of men who could care for such a trifle as white ore when they had horses and rifles, he pointed up at the perpendicular face of the mountain and then downward at the wall of the canyon, and said:—
“Silver—silver. Beaver give his brother. Medicine-man.”
“He means there is silver here, sir, and he gives it to you,” said Bart eagerly.
“Yes. Give. Silver,” said the chief, nodding his head, and holding out his hand, which the Doctor grasped, Bart doing the same by the other.
“I am very grateful,” said the Doctor at last, while his eyes kept wandering about, “but I see none.”
“Silver—silver,” said the chief again, as he looked up and then down, ending by addressing some words in the Indian dialect to the interpreter, who pointed in the direction of the camp.
“The Beaver-with-Sharp-Teeth says, let us eat,” he said.
This brought back Bart’s hunger so vividly to his recollection that he laughed merrily and turned to go.
“Yes,” he said, “let us eat by all means. Shall we come in the morning and examine this place, sir?”
“Yes, Bart, we will,” said the Doctor, as they turned back; “but I’m afraid we shall be disappointed. What was that?”
“An Indian,” said Bart. “I saw him glide amongst the rocks. Was it an enemy?”
“No; impossible, I should say,” replied the Doctor. “One of our own party. Our friends here would have seen him if he had been an enemy, long before we should.”
“And so you think there is no silver here, sir?” said Bart.
“I can’t tell yet, my boy. There may be, but these men know so little about such things that I cannot help feeling doubtful. However, we shall see, and if I am disappointed I shall know what to do.”
“Try again, sir?” said Bart.
“Try again, my boy, for there is ample store in the mountains if we can find it.”
“Yes,” he said, as they walked back, “this is going to be a disappointment.” He picked up a piece of rock as he went along between the rocks; “this stone does not look like silver-bearing stratum. But we’ll wait till the morning, Bart, and see.”
Chapter Fifteen.Dangerous Neighbours.Upon reaching the waggon it was to find Joses smiling and sniffing as he stood on the leeward side of the fire, so as to get the full benefit of the odour of the well-done sage grouse which looked juicy brown, and delicious enough to tempt the most ascetic of individuals, while Maude laughed merrily to see the eager glances Bart kept directing at the iron rod upon which the birds had been spitted and hung before the fire.“Don’t you wish we had a nice new loaf or two, Bart?” she said, looking very serious, and as if disappointed that this was not the case.“Oh, don’t talk about it,” cried Bart.“I won’t,” said Maude, trying to appear serious. “It makes you look like a wolf, Bart.”“And that’s just how I feel,” he cried—“horribly like one.”Half an hour later he owned that he felt more like a reasonable being, for not only had he had a fair portion of the delicate sage grouse, but found to his delight that there was an ample supply of cakes freshly made and baked in the ashes while he had been with the Doctor exploring.Bart took one turn round their little camp before lying down to sleep, and by the wonderfully dark, star-encrusted sky, the great flat-topped mountain looked curiously black, and as if it leaned over towards where they were encamped, and might at any moment topple down and crush them.So strange was this appearance, and so thoroughly real, that it was a long time before Bart could satisfy himself that it was only the shadow that impressed him in so peculiar a way. Once he had been about to call the attention of the Doctor to the fact, but fortunately, as he thought, he refrained.“He lay down directly,” said Bart to himself as he walked on, and then he stopped short, startled, for just before him in the solemn stillness of the great plain, and just outside the shadow cast by the mountain, he saw what appeared to be an enormously tall, dark figure coming towards him in perfect silence, and seeming as if it glided over the sandy earth.Bart’s heart seemed to stand still. His mouth felt dry. His breath came thick and short. He could not run, for his feet appeared to be fixed to the ground, and all he felt able to do was to wait while the figure came nearer and nearer, through the transparent darkness, till it was close upon him, and said in a low voice that made the youth start from his lethargy, unchaining as it did his faculties, and giving him the power to move:“Hallo, Bart! I thought you were asleep.”“I thought you were, sir,” said Bart.“Well, I’m going to lie down now, my boy, but I’ve been walking in a silver dream. Better get back.”He said no more, but walked straight to the little camp, while, pondering upon the intent manner in which his guardian seemed to give himself up to this dream of discovering silver, Bart began to make a circuit of the camp, finding to his satisfaction that the Beaver had posted four men as sentinels, Joses telling his young leader afterwards when he lay down that the chief had refused to allow either of the white men to go on duty that night.“You think he is to be trusted, don’t you, Joses?” asked Bart sleepily.“Trusted? Oh yes, he’s to be trusted, my lad. Injuns are as bad as can be, but some of ’em’s got good pyntes, and this one, though he might have scalped the lot of us once upon a time, became our friend as soon as the Doctor cured his arm. And it was a cure too, for now it’s as strong and well as ever. I tell you what, Master Bart.”No answer.“I tell you what, Master Bart.”No answer.“I say, young one, are you asleep?”No reply.“Well, he has dropped off sudden,” growled Joses. “I suppose I must tell him what another time.”Having made up his mind to this, the sturdy fellow gave himself a bit of a twist in his blanket, laid his head upon his arm, and in a few seconds was as fast asleep as Bart.The latter slept soundly all but once in the night, when it seemed to him that he had heard a strange, wild cry, and, starting up on his elbow, he listened attentively for some moments, but the cry was not repeated, and feeling that it must have been in his dreams that he had heard the sound, he lay down again and slept till dawn, when he sprang up, left every one asleep, and stole off, rifle in hand, to see if he could get a shot at a deer anywhere about the mountain, and also to have a look down into the tremendous canyon about whose depths and whose rushing stream he seemed to have been dreaming all the night.He recollected well enough the way they had gone on the previous evening, and as he stepped swiftly forward, there, at the bottom of the narrow rift between the mass of fallen rock and the mountain, was the pale lemon-tinted horizon, with a few streaks above it flecking the early morning sky and telling of the coming day.“The canyon will look glorious when the sun is up,” said Bart to himself; “but I don’t see any game about, and—oh!—”Click—click—click—clickwent the locks of his double rifle as he came suddenly upon a sight which seemed to freeze his blood, forcing him to stand still and gaze wildly upon what was before him.Then the thought of self-preservation stepped in, and as if from the lessons taught of the Indians, he sprang to shelter, sheltering himself behind a block of stone, his rifle ready, and covering every spot in turn that seemed likely to contain the cruel enemy that had done this deed.For there before him—but flat upon his back, his arms outstretched, his long lance beneath him—lay one of the friendly Indians, while his companion lay half raised upon his side, as if he had dragged himself a short distance so as to recline with his head upon a piece of rock. His spear was across his legs, and it was very evident that he had been like this for some time after receiving his death wound.For both were dead, the morning light plainly showing that in their hideous glassy eyes, without the terrible witness of the pool of blood that had trickled from their gaping wounds.Bart shuddered and felt as if a hand of ice were grasping his heart. Then a fierce feeling of rage came over him, and his eyes flashed as he looked round for the treacherous enemies who had done this deed.He looked in vain, and at last he stole cautiously out of his lurking-place; then forgot his caution, and ran to where the Indians lay, forgetting, in his eagerness to help them, the horrors of the scene.But he could do nothing, for as he laid his hand upon the breast of each in turn, it was to find that their hearts had ceased to beat, and they were already cold.Racing back to the camp, he spread his news, and the Beaver and his little following ran off to see for themselves the truth of his story, after which they mounted, and started to find the trail of the treacherous murderers of their companions, while during their absence the Doctor examined the two slaughtered Indians, and gave it as his opinion that they had both been treacherously stabbed from behind.It was past mid-day before the Beaver returned to announce that there had only been two Indians lurking about their camp.“And did you overtake them?” said Bart.The chief smiled in a curious, grim way, and pointed to a couple of scalps that hung at the belts of two of his warriors.“They were on foot. We were mounted,” he said quietly. “They deserved to die. We had not injured them, or stolen their wives or horses. They deserved to die.”This was unanswerable, and no one spoke, the Indians going off to bury their dead companions, which they did simply by finding a suitable crevice in the depths of the ravine near which they had been slain, laying them in side by side, with their medicine-bags hung from their necks, their weapons ready to their hands, and their buffalo robes about them, all ready for their use in the happy hunting-grounds.This done they were covered first with bushes, and then with stones, and the Indians returned to camp.
Upon reaching the waggon it was to find Joses smiling and sniffing as he stood on the leeward side of the fire, so as to get the full benefit of the odour of the well-done sage grouse which looked juicy brown, and delicious enough to tempt the most ascetic of individuals, while Maude laughed merrily to see the eager glances Bart kept directing at the iron rod upon which the birds had been spitted and hung before the fire.
“Don’t you wish we had a nice new loaf or two, Bart?” she said, looking very serious, and as if disappointed that this was not the case.
“Oh, don’t talk about it,” cried Bart.
“I won’t,” said Maude, trying to appear serious. “It makes you look like a wolf, Bart.”
“And that’s just how I feel,” he cried—“horribly like one.”
Half an hour later he owned that he felt more like a reasonable being, for not only had he had a fair portion of the delicate sage grouse, but found to his delight that there was an ample supply of cakes freshly made and baked in the ashes while he had been with the Doctor exploring.
Bart took one turn round their little camp before lying down to sleep, and by the wonderfully dark, star-encrusted sky, the great flat-topped mountain looked curiously black, and as if it leaned over towards where they were encamped, and might at any moment topple down and crush them.
So strange was this appearance, and so thoroughly real, that it was a long time before Bart could satisfy himself that it was only the shadow that impressed him in so peculiar a way. Once he had been about to call the attention of the Doctor to the fact, but fortunately, as he thought, he refrained.
“He lay down directly,” said Bart to himself as he walked on, and then he stopped short, startled, for just before him in the solemn stillness of the great plain, and just outside the shadow cast by the mountain, he saw what appeared to be an enormously tall, dark figure coming towards him in perfect silence, and seeming as if it glided over the sandy earth.
Bart’s heart seemed to stand still. His mouth felt dry. His breath came thick and short. He could not run, for his feet appeared to be fixed to the ground, and all he felt able to do was to wait while the figure came nearer and nearer, through the transparent darkness, till it was close upon him, and said in a low voice that made the youth start from his lethargy, unchaining as it did his faculties, and giving him the power to move:
“Hallo, Bart! I thought you were asleep.”
“I thought you were, sir,” said Bart.
“Well, I’m going to lie down now, my boy, but I’ve been walking in a silver dream. Better get back.”
He said no more, but walked straight to the little camp, while, pondering upon the intent manner in which his guardian seemed to give himself up to this dream of discovering silver, Bart began to make a circuit of the camp, finding to his satisfaction that the Beaver had posted four men as sentinels, Joses telling his young leader afterwards when he lay down that the chief had refused to allow either of the white men to go on duty that night.
“You think he is to be trusted, don’t you, Joses?” asked Bart sleepily.
“Trusted? Oh yes, he’s to be trusted, my lad. Injuns are as bad as can be, but some of ’em’s got good pyntes, and this one, though he might have scalped the lot of us once upon a time, became our friend as soon as the Doctor cured his arm. And it was a cure too, for now it’s as strong and well as ever. I tell you what, Master Bart.”
No answer.
“I tell you what, Master Bart.”
No answer.
“I say, young one, are you asleep?”
No reply.
“Well, he has dropped off sudden,” growled Joses. “I suppose I must tell him what another time.”
Having made up his mind to this, the sturdy fellow gave himself a bit of a twist in his blanket, laid his head upon his arm, and in a few seconds was as fast asleep as Bart.
The latter slept soundly all but once in the night, when it seemed to him that he had heard a strange, wild cry, and, starting up on his elbow, he listened attentively for some moments, but the cry was not repeated, and feeling that it must have been in his dreams that he had heard the sound, he lay down again and slept till dawn, when he sprang up, left every one asleep, and stole off, rifle in hand, to see if he could get a shot at a deer anywhere about the mountain, and also to have a look down into the tremendous canyon about whose depths and whose rushing stream he seemed to have been dreaming all the night.
He recollected well enough the way they had gone on the previous evening, and as he stepped swiftly forward, there, at the bottom of the narrow rift between the mass of fallen rock and the mountain, was the pale lemon-tinted horizon, with a few streaks above it flecking the early morning sky and telling of the coming day.
“The canyon will look glorious when the sun is up,” said Bart to himself; “but I don’t see any game about, and—oh!—”
Click—click—click—clickwent the locks of his double rifle as he came suddenly upon a sight which seemed to freeze his blood, forcing him to stand still and gaze wildly upon what was before him.
Then the thought of self-preservation stepped in, and as if from the lessons taught of the Indians, he sprang to shelter, sheltering himself behind a block of stone, his rifle ready, and covering every spot in turn that seemed likely to contain the cruel enemy that had done this deed.
For there before him—but flat upon his back, his arms outstretched, his long lance beneath him—lay one of the friendly Indians, while his companion lay half raised upon his side, as if he had dragged himself a short distance so as to recline with his head upon a piece of rock. His spear was across his legs, and it was very evident that he had been like this for some time after receiving his death wound.
For both were dead, the morning light plainly showing that in their hideous glassy eyes, without the terrible witness of the pool of blood that had trickled from their gaping wounds.
Bart shuddered and felt as if a hand of ice were grasping his heart. Then a fierce feeling of rage came over him, and his eyes flashed as he looked round for the treacherous enemies who had done this deed.
He looked in vain, and at last he stole cautiously out of his lurking-place; then forgot his caution, and ran to where the Indians lay, forgetting, in his eagerness to help them, the horrors of the scene.
But he could do nothing, for as he laid his hand upon the breast of each in turn, it was to find that their hearts had ceased to beat, and they were already cold.
Racing back to the camp, he spread his news, and the Beaver and his little following ran off to see for themselves the truth of his story, after which they mounted, and started to find the trail of the treacherous murderers of their companions, while during their absence the Doctor examined the two slaughtered Indians, and gave it as his opinion that they had both been treacherously stabbed from behind.
It was past mid-day before the Beaver returned to announce that there had only been two Indians lurking about their camp.
“And did you overtake them?” said Bart.
The chief smiled in a curious, grim way, and pointed to a couple of scalps that hung at the belts of two of his warriors.
“They were on foot. We were mounted,” he said quietly. “They deserved to die. We had not injured them, or stolen their wives or horses. They deserved to die.”
This was unanswerable, and no one spoke, the Indians going off to bury their dead companions, which they did simply by finding a suitable crevice in the depths of the ravine near which they had been slain, laying them in side by side, with their medicine-bags hung from their necks, their weapons ready to their hands, and their buffalo robes about them, all ready for their use in the happy hunting-grounds.
This done they were covered first with bushes, and then with stones, and the Indians returned to camp.
Chapter Sixteen.In Nature’s Storehouse.All this seemed to add terribly to the sense of insecurity felt by the Doctor, and Joses was not slow to speak out.“We may have a mob of horse-Injun down upon us at any moment,” he growled. “I don’t think we’re very safe.”“Joses is right,” said the Doctor; “we must see if there is a rich deposit of silver here, and then, if all seems well, we must return, and get together a force of recruits so as to be strong enough to resist the Indians, should they be so ill advised as to attack us, and ready to work the mines.”“’Aven’t seen no mines yet,” growled Joses.The Doctor coughed with a look of vexation upon his countenance, and, beckoning to the chief, he took his rifle. Bart rose, and leaving Joses in charge of the camp, they started for the edge of the canyon.There was no likelihood of enemies being about the place after the event of the morning; but to the little party every shrub and bush, every stone, seemed to suggest a lurking-place for a treacherous enemy. Still they pressed on, the chief taking them, for some unknown reason, in the opposite route along beneath the perpendicular walls of the mountain, which here ran straight up from the plain.They went by a rugged patch of broken rock, and by what seemed to be a great post stuck up there by human hands, but which proved, on a nearer approach, to be the remains of a moderate-sized tree that had been struck by lightning, the whole of the upper portion having been charred away, leaving only some ten feet standing up out of the ground.A short distance farther on, as they were close in by the steep wall of rock, they came to a slight projection, as if a huge piece had slipped down from above, and turning sharply round this, the Beaver pointed to a narrow rift just wide enough to allow of the passage of one man at a time.He signed to the Doctor to enter, and climbing over a few rough stones, the latter passed in and out of sight.“Bart! quick, my boy! quick!” he said directly after, and the lad sprang in to help him, as he thought, in some perilous adventure, but only to stop short and stare at the long sloping narrow passage fringed with prickly cactus plants, which slope ran evidently up the side of the mountain.“Why, it’s the way up to the top,” cried Bart. “I wonder who made it.”“Dame Nature, I should say, my boy,” said the Doctor. “We must explore this. Why, what a natural fortification! One man could hold this passage against hundreds.”Just then the chief appeared below them, for they had climbed up a few yards, and signed to them to come down.The Doctor hesitated, and then descended.“Let’s see what he has to show, Bart. I have seen no silver yet.”They followed the Beaver down, and he led them straight back, past the camp, through the narrow ravine, once more to the shelf of rock overlooking the canyon, and now, in the full glow of the sunny afternoon, they were able to realise the grandeur of the scene where the river ran swiftly down below, fully a thousand feet, in a bed of its own, shut out from the upper world by the perpendicular walls of rock.At the first glance it seemed that it would be impossible to descend, but on farther examination there seemed in places to be rifts and crevices and shelves, dotted with trees and plants of the richest growth, where it might be likely that skilful climbers could make a way down.From where they stood the river looked enchanting, for while all up in the plain was arid and grey, and the trees and shrubs that grew there seemed parched and dry, and of a sickly green, all below was of the richest verdant hues, and lovely groves of woodland were interspersed with soft patches of waving grass that flourished where stormy winds never reached, and moisture and heat were abundant.Still this paradise-like river was not without signs of trouble visiting it at times, and these remained in huge up-torn trees, dead branches, and jagged rocks, splintered and riven, that dotted the patches of plain from the shores of the river to the perpendicular walls of the canyon.Bart needed no telling that these were the traces of floods, when, instead of the bright silver rushing river, the waters came down from the mountains hundreds of miles to the north, and the great canyon was filled to its walls with a huge seething yellow flow, and in imagination he thought of what the smiling emerald valley would be after such a visitation.But he had little time for thought, the chief making signs to the Doctor to follow him, first laying down his rifle and signing to the Doctor to do the same.Dr Lascelles hesitated for a moment, and then did as the chief wished, when the Beaver went on for a few yards to where the shelf of rock seemed to end, and there was nothing but a sheer fall of a thousand feet down to the stones and herbage at the bottom of the canyon, while above towered up the mountain which seemed like a Titanic bastion round which the river curved.Without a moment’s hesitation the chief turned his face to them, lowered himself over the edge of the shelf down and down till only his hands remained visible. Then he drew himself up till his face was above the rock, and made a sign to the Doctor to come on.“I dare not go, Bart,” said the Doctor, whose face was covered with dew. “Would you be afraid to follow him, my boy?”“I should be afraid, sir,” replied Bart laying down his rifle, “but I’ll go.”“No, no, I will not be such a coward,” cried the Doctor; and going boldly to the edge, he refrained from looking over, but turned and lowered himself down, passing out of Bart’s sight; and when the latter crept to the edge and looked down, he could see a narrow ledge below with climbing plants and luxuriant shrubs, but no sight of the Doctor or his guide.Bart remained motionless—horror-stricken as the thought came upon him that they might have slipped and gone headlong into the chasm below; but on glancing back he saw one of the Indians who was of the party smiling, and evidently quite satisfied that nothing was wrong.This being so, Bart remained gazing down into the canyon, listening intently, and wondering whither the pair could have gone.It was a most wonderful sight to look down at that lovely silver river that flashed and sparkled and danced in the sunshine. In places where there were deep, calm pools it looked intensely blue, as it reflected the pure sky, while other portions seemed one gorgeous, dazzling damascene of molten metal, upon which Bart could hardly gaze.Then there was the wonderful variety of the tints that adorned the shrubs and creepers that were growing luxuriantly wherever they could obtain a hold.There were moments when Bart fancied that he could see the salmon plash in the river, but he could make out the birds in the depths below as they floated and skimmed about from shore to shore, and over the tops of the trees that looked like shrubs from where he crouched.Just then, as he was forgetting the absence of the Doctor in an intense desire to explore the wonders of the canyon, to shoot in the patches of forest, to fish in the river, and find he knew not what in those wondrous solitudes where man had probably never yet trod, he heard a call, and, brought back to himself from his visionary expedition, he shouted a reply.“The Beaver’s coming to you, Bart. Lower yourself down, my boy, and come.”These—the Doctor’s words—sounded close at hand, but the speaker was invisible.“All right; I’ll come,” cried Bart; and as he spoke a feeling of shrinking came over him, and he felt ready to draw back. But calling upon himself, he went closer to the edge, trying to look under, and the next moment there was the head of the Beaver just below, gazing up at him with a half-mocking smile upon his face.“You think I’m afraid,” said Bart, looking down at him, “but I can’t help that. I’ll come all the same;” and swiftly turning, he lowered himself down till his body was hanging as it were in space, and only his chest and elbows were on the shelf.Then for a moment he seemed to hesitate, but he mastered the shrinking directly after, and lowered himself more and more till he hung at the extremity of his hands, vainly seeking for a foothold.“Are you there, Beaver?” he shouted, and he felt his waist seized and his sides pinioned by two strong hands, his own parted company from the shelf, and he seemed to fall a terrible distance, but it was only a couple of feet, and he found himself standing upon the solid rock, with the shelf jutting out above his head, and plenty of room to peer about amongst the clustering bushes that had here made themselves a home.The chief smiled at his startled look, and pointing to the left, Bart glanced sidewise at where the precipice went down, and then walked onward cautiously along a rugged shelf not much unlike the one from which he had descended, save that it was densely covered with shrubby growth.This shelf suddenly ended in a rift like a huge crevice in the face of the mountain, but there was a broad crack before it, and this it was necessary to leap before entering the rift.Bart stopped short, gazing down into what seemed an awful abyss, but the Beaver passed him lightly, as if there were no danger whatever, and lightly leaped across to some rough pieces of rock.The distance was nothing, but the depths below made it seem an awful leap, till Bart felt that the Doctor must have gone over it before him, and without further hesitation he bounded across and stood beside the chief, who led the way farther into the rift to where, some fifty feet from the entrance, the Doctor was standing, hammer in hand, gazing intently at the newly chipped rock and the fragments that lay around.“At last, Bart!” he cried joyously.“What! Is it a vein?” said Bart, eagerly.“A vein, boy? It is a mountain of silver—a valley of silver. Here are great threads of the precious metal, and masses of ore as well. It seems as if it ran right down the sides of the canyon, and from what the Indian appears to know, it does, Bart, I never expected to make such a find as this.”As he spoke, he handed pieces of the rock to Bart, who found that in some there were angular pieces of what seemed to be native silver, while others were full of threads and veins, or appeared as pieces of dull metalliferous stone.“It is a huge fortune—wealth untold, Bart,” said the Doctor.“Is it, sir?” said Bart coolly, for he could not feel the same rapture as the Doctor.“Is it, boy? Yes! enormous wealth.”“But how are we to carry it away, sir?” asked Bart dryly.“Carry it away! Why, do you not understand that this mine will want working, and that we must have a large number of men here? But no; you cannot conceive the greatness of this find.”As he spoke, the Doctor hurried to the mouth of the rift, and then cautiously lowered himself into the chasm, over which Bart had leaped, clinging to the stout stems of the various shrubs.For a few moments Bart hesitated. Then he followed till they were both quite a hundred feet below the shelf, and the part of the rift they had first entered, and were able to creep right out till they were level with the side of the canyon, and able to look down to the river.But the Doctor did not care to look down upon the river, for tearing away some of the thick growth from the rock, he cast it behind him, so that it fell far out into the canyon. Then two or three pieces of rock followed, and somehow Bart felt more interested in their fall than in the search for silver, listening in the hope of hearing them crash down deep in the great stream.“Yes; as I thought,” cried the Doctor, excitedly, “the vein or mass runs right down the side of this vast canyon, Bart—the Silver Canyon, we must call it. But come, let’s get back. I must tell my child. Such a discovery was never made before. Discovery, do I say! Why, these poor ignorant Indians must have known of it for years, perhaps for generations, and beyond working up a few pieces to make themselves rings for their horses’ lariats, or to secure their saddles, they have left is as it is.”As he spoke, he was already climbing up towards the shelf, his excitement in his tremendous find making him forget the risks he kept running, for to one in cool blood, the face of the rock, the insecurity of the shrubs to which he clung, and the many times that silver-veined stones gave way beneath his feet, were very terrible, and Bart drew his breath hard, climbing slowly after his companion till at last they stood once more upon the shelf.And all this time the Beaver was looking calmly on, following each movement, helping his white friends to climb where it was necessary, and seeming half amused at the Doctor’s intense eagerness. In fact, Bart fancied that at times he looked rather contemptuously on at the Doctor’s delight with what he found, for it was so much whitey-grey metallic stone to him, and as nothing beside the possession of a fine swift pony, or an ample supply of powder and lead.
All this seemed to add terribly to the sense of insecurity felt by the Doctor, and Joses was not slow to speak out.
“We may have a mob of horse-Injun down upon us at any moment,” he growled. “I don’t think we’re very safe.”
“Joses is right,” said the Doctor; “we must see if there is a rich deposit of silver here, and then, if all seems well, we must return, and get together a force of recruits so as to be strong enough to resist the Indians, should they be so ill advised as to attack us, and ready to work the mines.”
“’Aven’t seen no mines yet,” growled Joses.
The Doctor coughed with a look of vexation upon his countenance, and, beckoning to the chief, he took his rifle. Bart rose, and leaving Joses in charge of the camp, they started for the edge of the canyon.
There was no likelihood of enemies being about the place after the event of the morning; but to the little party every shrub and bush, every stone, seemed to suggest a lurking-place for a treacherous enemy. Still they pressed on, the chief taking them, for some unknown reason, in the opposite route along beneath the perpendicular walls of the mountain, which here ran straight up from the plain.
They went by a rugged patch of broken rock, and by what seemed to be a great post stuck up there by human hands, but which proved, on a nearer approach, to be the remains of a moderate-sized tree that had been struck by lightning, the whole of the upper portion having been charred away, leaving only some ten feet standing up out of the ground.
A short distance farther on, as they were close in by the steep wall of rock, they came to a slight projection, as if a huge piece had slipped down from above, and turning sharply round this, the Beaver pointed to a narrow rift just wide enough to allow of the passage of one man at a time.
He signed to the Doctor to enter, and climbing over a few rough stones, the latter passed in and out of sight.
“Bart! quick, my boy! quick!” he said directly after, and the lad sprang in to help him, as he thought, in some perilous adventure, but only to stop short and stare at the long sloping narrow passage fringed with prickly cactus plants, which slope ran evidently up the side of the mountain.
“Why, it’s the way up to the top,” cried Bart. “I wonder who made it.”
“Dame Nature, I should say, my boy,” said the Doctor. “We must explore this. Why, what a natural fortification! One man could hold this passage against hundreds.”
Just then the chief appeared below them, for they had climbed up a few yards, and signed to them to come down.
The Doctor hesitated, and then descended.
“Let’s see what he has to show, Bart. I have seen no silver yet.”
They followed the Beaver down, and he led them straight back, past the camp, through the narrow ravine, once more to the shelf of rock overlooking the canyon, and now, in the full glow of the sunny afternoon, they were able to realise the grandeur of the scene where the river ran swiftly down below, fully a thousand feet, in a bed of its own, shut out from the upper world by the perpendicular walls of rock.
At the first glance it seemed that it would be impossible to descend, but on farther examination there seemed in places to be rifts and crevices and shelves, dotted with trees and plants of the richest growth, where it might be likely that skilful climbers could make a way down.
From where they stood the river looked enchanting, for while all up in the plain was arid and grey, and the trees and shrubs that grew there seemed parched and dry, and of a sickly green, all below was of the richest verdant hues, and lovely groves of woodland were interspersed with soft patches of waving grass that flourished where stormy winds never reached, and moisture and heat were abundant.
Still this paradise-like river was not without signs of trouble visiting it at times, and these remained in huge up-torn trees, dead branches, and jagged rocks, splintered and riven, that dotted the patches of plain from the shores of the river to the perpendicular walls of the canyon.
Bart needed no telling that these were the traces of floods, when, instead of the bright silver rushing river, the waters came down from the mountains hundreds of miles to the north, and the great canyon was filled to its walls with a huge seething yellow flow, and in imagination he thought of what the smiling emerald valley would be after such a visitation.
But he had little time for thought, the chief making signs to the Doctor to follow him, first laying down his rifle and signing to the Doctor to do the same.
Dr Lascelles hesitated for a moment, and then did as the chief wished, when the Beaver went on for a few yards to where the shelf of rock seemed to end, and there was nothing but a sheer fall of a thousand feet down to the stones and herbage at the bottom of the canyon, while above towered up the mountain which seemed like a Titanic bastion round which the river curved.
Without a moment’s hesitation the chief turned his face to them, lowered himself over the edge of the shelf down and down till only his hands remained visible. Then he drew himself up till his face was above the rock, and made a sign to the Doctor to come on.
“I dare not go, Bart,” said the Doctor, whose face was covered with dew. “Would you be afraid to follow him, my boy?”
“I should be afraid, sir,” replied Bart laying down his rifle, “but I’ll go.”
“No, no, I will not be such a coward,” cried the Doctor; and going boldly to the edge, he refrained from looking over, but turned and lowered himself down, passing out of Bart’s sight; and when the latter crept to the edge and looked down, he could see a narrow ledge below with climbing plants and luxuriant shrubs, but no sight of the Doctor or his guide.
Bart remained motionless—horror-stricken as the thought came upon him that they might have slipped and gone headlong into the chasm below; but on glancing back he saw one of the Indians who was of the party smiling, and evidently quite satisfied that nothing was wrong.
This being so, Bart remained gazing down into the canyon, listening intently, and wondering whither the pair could have gone.
It was a most wonderful sight to look down at that lovely silver river that flashed and sparkled and danced in the sunshine. In places where there were deep, calm pools it looked intensely blue, as it reflected the pure sky, while other portions seemed one gorgeous, dazzling damascene of molten metal, upon which Bart could hardly gaze.
Then there was the wonderful variety of the tints that adorned the shrubs and creepers that were growing luxuriantly wherever they could obtain a hold.
There were moments when Bart fancied that he could see the salmon plash in the river, but he could make out the birds in the depths below as they floated and skimmed about from shore to shore, and over the tops of the trees that looked like shrubs from where he crouched.
Just then, as he was forgetting the absence of the Doctor in an intense desire to explore the wonders of the canyon, to shoot in the patches of forest, to fish in the river, and find he knew not what in those wondrous solitudes where man had probably never yet trod, he heard a call, and, brought back to himself from his visionary expedition, he shouted a reply.
“The Beaver’s coming to you, Bart. Lower yourself down, my boy, and come.”
These—the Doctor’s words—sounded close at hand, but the speaker was invisible.
“All right; I’ll come,” cried Bart; and as he spoke a feeling of shrinking came over him, and he felt ready to draw back. But calling upon himself, he went closer to the edge, trying to look under, and the next moment there was the head of the Beaver just below, gazing up at him with a half-mocking smile upon his face.
“You think I’m afraid,” said Bart, looking down at him, “but I can’t help that. I’ll come all the same;” and swiftly turning, he lowered himself down till his body was hanging as it were in space, and only his chest and elbows were on the shelf.
Then for a moment he seemed to hesitate, but he mastered the shrinking directly after, and lowered himself more and more till he hung at the extremity of his hands, vainly seeking for a foothold.
“Are you there, Beaver?” he shouted, and he felt his waist seized and his sides pinioned by two strong hands, his own parted company from the shelf, and he seemed to fall a terrible distance, but it was only a couple of feet, and he found himself standing upon the solid rock, with the shelf jutting out above his head, and plenty of room to peer about amongst the clustering bushes that had here made themselves a home.
The chief smiled at his startled look, and pointing to the left, Bart glanced sidewise at where the precipice went down, and then walked onward cautiously along a rugged shelf not much unlike the one from which he had descended, save that it was densely covered with shrubby growth.
This shelf suddenly ended in a rift like a huge crevice in the face of the mountain, but there was a broad crack before it, and this it was necessary to leap before entering the rift.
Bart stopped short, gazing down into what seemed an awful abyss, but the Beaver passed him lightly, as if there were no danger whatever, and lightly leaped across to some rough pieces of rock.
The distance was nothing, but the depths below made it seem an awful leap, till Bart felt that the Doctor must have gone over it before him, and without further hesitation he bounded across and stood beside the chief, who led the way farther into the rift to where, some fifty feet from the entrance, the Doctor was standing, hammer in hand, gazing intently at the newly chipped rock and the fragments that lay around.
“At last, Bart!” he cried joyously.
“What! Is it a vein?” said Bart, eagerly.
“A vein, boy? It is a mountain of silver—a valley of silver. Here are great threads of the precious metal, and masses of ore as well. It seems as if it ran right down the sides of the canyon, and from what the Indian appears to know, it does, Bart, I never expected to make such a find as this.”
As he spoke, he handed pieces of the rock to Bart, who found that in some there were angular pieces of what seemed to be native silver, while others were full of threads and veins, or appeared as pieces of dull metalliferous stone.
“It is a huge fortune—wealth untold, Bart,” said the Doctor.
“Is it, sir?” said Bart coolly, for he could not feel the same rapture as the Doctor.
“Is it, boy? Yes! enormous wealth.”
“But how are we to carry it away, sir?” asked Bart dryly.
“Carry it away! Why, do you not understand that this mine will want working, and that we must have a large number of men here? But no; you cannot conceive the greatness of this find.”
As he spoke, the Doctor hurried to the mouth of the rift, and then cautiously lowered himself into the chasm, over which Bart had leaped, clinging to the stout stems of the various shrubs.
For a few moments Bart hesitated. Then he followed till they were both quite a hundred feet below the shelf, and the part of the rift they had first entered, and were able to creep right out till they were level with the side of the canyon, and able to look down to the river.
But the Doctor did not care to look down upon the river, for tearing away some of the thick growth from the rock, he cast it behind him, so that it fell far out into the canyon. Then two or three pieces of rock followed, and somehow Bart felt more interested in their fall than in the search for silver, listening in the hope of hearing them crash down deep in the great stream.
“Yes; as I thought,” cried the Doctor, excitedly, “the vein or mass runs right down the side of this vast canyon, Bart—the Silver Canyon, we must call it. But come, let’s get back. I must tell my child. Such a discovery was never made before. Discovery, do I say! Why, these poor ignorant Indians must have known of it for years, perhaps for generations, and beyond working up a few pieces to make themselves rings for their horses’ lariats, or to secure their saddles, they have left is as it is.”
As he spoke, he was already climbing up towards the shelf, his excitement in his tremendous find making him forget the risks he kept running, for to one in cool blood, the face of the rock, the insecurity of the shrubs to which he clung, and the many times that silver-veined stones gave way beneath his feet, were very terrible, and Bart drew his breath hard, climbing slowly after his companion till at last they stood once more upon the shelf.
And all this time the Beaver was looking calmly on, following each movement, helping his white friends to climb where it was necessary, and seeming half amused at the Doctor’s intense eagerness. In fact, Bart fancied that at times he looked rather contemptuously on at the Doctor’s delight with what he found, for it was so much whitey-grey metallic stone to him, and as nothing beside the possession of a fine swift pony, or an ample supply of powder and lead.
Chapter Seventeen.Untrustworthy Sentinels.They soon reached the little camp, where the Doctor eagerly communicated his news to his child, and then taking Joses aside he repeated it to him.“Well, that’s right, master. I’m glad, of course; and I hope it’ll make you rich, for you want it bad enough after so many years of loss with your cattle.”“It has made me rich—I am rich, Joses!” cried the Doctor, excitedly.“That’s good, master,” said the man, coolly. “And now what’s going to be done? Are we to carry the mountain back to the old ranche?”The Doctor frowned.“We shall have to return at once, Joses, to organise a regular mining party. We must have plenty of well-armed men, and tools, and machinery to work this great find. We must go back at once.”“Now, master?”“No, no, perhaps not for a week, my man,” said the Doctor, whose nervous excitement seemed to increase. “I must thoroughly investigate the extent of the silver deposit, descend into the canyon, and ascend the mountain. Then we must settle where our new town is to be.”“Ah, we’re going to have a new town, are we, master?”“To be sure! Of course! How could the mining adventure be carried on without?”Joses shook his head.“P’r’aps we shall stay here a week then, master?” he said at last.“Yes; perhaps a fortnight.”“Then if you don’t mind, master, I think we’ll move camp to that little patch of rocks close by that old blasted tree that stands up like a post. I’ve been thinking it will be a better place; and if you’ll give the word, I’ll put the little keg of powder in a hole somewhere. I don’t think it’s quite right to have it so near our fire every day.”“Do what you think best, Joses,” said the Doctor, eagerly. “Yes; I should bury the powder under the rocks somewhere, so that we can easily get it again. But why do you want to move the camp?”“Because that’s a better place, with plenty of rocks for cover if the Injuns should come and look us up.”“Let us change, then,” said the Doctor, abstractedly; and that afternoon they shifted to the cluster of rocks near the blasted tree, close under the shelter of the tall wall-like mountain-side. Rocks were cleared from a centre and piled round; the waggon was well secured; a good place found for the horses; and lastly, Joses lit his cigarette, and then took the keg of gunpowder, carried it to a convenient spot near the withered tree, and buried it beneath some loose stones.The Beaver smiled at the preparations, and displayed his knowledge of English after a short conversation with the interpreter by exclaiming:“Good—good—good—very good!”A hasty meal was snatched, and then the Doctor went off again alone, while the Beaver signed to Bart to follow him, and then took him past the narrow opening that led to the way up the mountain, and showed him a second opening, through which they passed, to find within a good open cavernous hollow at the foot of the mountain wall, shut in by huge masses of rock.“Why, our horses would be safe here, even if we were attacked,” exclaimed Bart.“Horses,” said the Beaver, nodding. “Yes; horses.”There was no mistaking the value of such a place, for there was secure shelter for at least a hundred horses, and the entrance properly secured—an entrance so narrow that there was only room for one animal to pass through—storm or attack from the hostile Indians could have been set at defiance.“Supposing a town to be built here somewhere up the mountain, this great enclosure would be invaluable,” said Bart, and, hurrying back, he fetched Joses to inspect the place.“Ah, that’s not bad,” said the rough frontier man. “Why, Master Bart, what a cattle corral that would make! Block the mouth up well, they’d be clever Injuns who got anything away. Let’s put the horses in here at once.”“Do you think it is necessary, Joses?” said Bart.“It’s always necessary to be safe out in the plain, my lad,” replied Joses. “How do we know that the Injuns won’t come to-night to look after the men they’ve lost? Same time, how do we know they will? All the same, though, you can never be too safe. Let’s get the horses inside, my lad, as we have such a place, and I half wish now we’d gone up the mountain somewhere to make our camp. You never know when danger may come.”“Horses in there,” said Bart to the Beaver, and he pointed to the entrance.The chief nodded, and seemed to have understood them all along by their looks and ways, so that when the horses belonging to the English party were driven in that evening he had those of his own followers driven in as well, and it was settled that Joses was to be the watchman that night.It was quite sundown when the Doctor returned, this time with Maude, whom he had taken to be an eye-witness of his good fortune. Bart went to meet them, and that glorious, glowing evening they sat in their little camp, revelling in the soft pure air, which seemed full of exhilaration, and the lad could not help recalling afterwards what a thoroughly satisfied, happy look there was in his guardian’s countenance as he sat there reckoning up the value of his grand discovery, and making his plans for the future.Then came a very unpleasant episode, one which Bart hid from the Doctor, for he would not trouble him with bad news upon a night like that; but all the same it caused the lad intense annoyance, and he went off to where Joses was smoking hiscigáritoand staring at the stars.“Tipsy! drunk!” he exclaimed. “What! Sam and Juan? Where could they get the stuff?”“They must have crept under the waggon, and broken a hole through, for the brandy lay there treasured up in case of illness.”“I’ll thrash ’em both till they can’t crawl!” cried Joses, wrathfully. “I didn’t think it of them. It’s no good though to do it to-night when they can’t understand. Let them sleep it off to-night, my boy, and to-morrow morning we’ll show the Beaver and his men what we do to thieves who steal liquor to get drunk. I wouldn’t have thought it of them.”“What shall you do to them, Joses?” said Bart.“Tie them up to that old post of a tree, my boy, and give them a taste of horse-hair lariat on the bare back. That’s what I’ll do to them. They’re under me, they are, and I’m answerable to the master. But there, don’t say no more; it makes me mad, Master Bart. Go back now, and let them sleep it out. I’m glad I moved that powder.”“So am I, Joses,” said Bart; and after a few more, words he returned to the little camp, to find the two offenders fast asleep.Bart was very weary when he lay down, after glancing round to see that all proper precautions had been taken; and it seemed to him that he could not have been asleep five minutes when he felt a hand laid upon his mouth, and another grasp his shoulder, while on looking up, there, between him and the star-encrusted sky, was a dark Indian face.For a moment he thought of resistance. The next he had seen whose was the face, and obeying a sign to be silent, he listened while the Beaver bent lower, and said in good English, “Enemy. Indians coming.”Bart rose on the instant, and roused the Doctor, who immediately awakened Maude, and obeying the signs of the Indian, they followed him into the shadow of the mountain, for the Beaver shook his head fiercely at the idea of attempting to defend the little camp.It all took place in a few hurried moments, and almost before they were half-way to their goal there was a fierce yell, the rush of trampling horses, and a dark shadowy body was seen to swoop down upon the camp. While before, in his excitement, Bart could realise his position, he found himself with the Doctor and Maude beyond the narrow entrance, and on the slope that seemed to lead up into the mountains.As soon as Maude was in safety, Bart and the Doctor returned to the entrance, to find it well guarded by the Indians; and if the place were discovered or known to the enemy, it was very plain that they could be easily kept at bay if anything like a determined defence were made, and there was no fear of that.Then came a sort of muster or examination of their little force, which, to Bart’s agony, resulted in the discovery that while all the Indians were present, and Harry was by their side, Joses, Sam, and Juan were away.In his excitement, Bart did not realise why this was. Now he recalled that when he lay down to sleep the two offenders had been snoring stertorously, and it was evident that they were helplessly stupefied when the Indians came, and were taken.But Joses?Of course he was at his post, and the question now was, would he remain undiscovered, or would the Indians find the hiding-place of the horses, and after killing Joses sweep them all away?It was a terrible thought, for to be left alone in that vast plain without horses seemed too hard to be borne. At the first blush it made Bart shudder, and it was quite in despair that with cocked rifle he waited for morning light, which seemed as if it would never come.Bart’s thoughts were many, and frequent were the whispered conversations with the Doctor, as to whether the Indians would not find thecacheof the horses as soon as it was daylight by their trail, though to this he had answered that the ground all around was so marked by horses’ hoofs that it was not likely that any definite track would be made out.Then moment by moment they expected their own hiding-place to be known, and that they would be engaged fighting for their lives with their relentless foes; but the hours wore on, and though they could hear the buzz of many voices, and sometimes dark shadowy forms could be made out away on the plain, the fugitives were in dense shadow, and remained unmolested till the break of day.By this time Bart had given Maude such comforting intelligence as he could, bidding her be hopeful, for that these Indians must be strangers to the place, or they would have known of the way up the mountain, and searched it at once.“But if they found it in the morning, Bart,” she said, “what then?”“What then?” said Bart, with a coolness he did not feel. “Why, then we shall have to kill all the poor wretches—that’s all.”Maude shuddered, and Bart returned to where the Beaver was at the opening, watching the place where the enemy had been plundering the waggon, and had afterwards stirred up the camp fire and were seated round.“Joses was glad that he had put away the powder,” thought Bart, as he saw the glare of the fire. “I begin to wish it had been left.”
They soon reached the little camp, where the Doctor eagerly communicated his news to his child, and then taking Joses aside he repeated it to him.
“Well, that’s right, master. I’m glad, of course; and I hope it’ll make you rich, for you want it bad enough after so many years of loss with your cattle.”
“It has made me rich—I am rich, Joses!” cried the Doctor, excitedly.
“That’s good, master,” said the man, coolly. “And now what’s going to be done? Are we to carry the mountain back to the old ranche?”
The Doctor frowned.
“We shall have to return at once, Joses, to organise a regular mining party. We must have plenty of well-armed men, and tools, and machinery to work this great find. We must go back at once.”
“Now, master?”
“No, no, perhaps not for a week, my man,” said the Doctor, whose nervous excitement seemed to increase. “I must thoroughly investigate the extent of the silver deposit, descend into the canyon, and ascend the mountain. Then we must settle where our new town is to be.”
“Ah, we’re going to have a new town, are we, master?”
“To be sure! Of course! How could the mining adventure be carried on without?”
Joses shook his head.
“P’r’aps we shall stay here a week then, master?” he said at last.
“Yes; perhaps a fortnight.”
“Then if you don’t mind, master, I think we’ll move camp to that little patch of rocks close by that old blasted tree that stands up like a post. I’ve been thinking it will be a better place; and if you’ll give the word, I’ll put the little keg of powder in a hole somewhere. I don’t think it’s quite right to have it so near our fire every day.”
“Do what you think best, Joses,” said the Doctor, eagerly. “Yes; I should bury the powder under the rocks somewhere, so that we can easily get it again. But why do you want to move the camp?”
“Because that’s a better place, with plenty of rocks for cover if the Injuns should come and look us up.”
“Let us change, then,” said the Doctor, abstractedly; and that afternoon they shifted to the cluster of rocks near the blasted tree, close under the shelter of the tall wall-like mountain-side. Rocks were cleared from a centre and piled round; the waggon was well secured; a good place found for the horses; and lastly, Joses lit his cigarette, and then took the keg of gunpowder, carried it to a convenient spot near the withered tree, and buried it beneath some loose stones.
The Beaver smiled at the preparations, and displayed his knowledge of English after a short conversation with the interpreter by exclaiming:
“Good—good—good—very good!”
A hasty meal was snatched, and then the Doctor went off again alone, while the Beaver signed to Bart to follow him, and then took him past the narrow opening that led to the way up the mountain, and showed him a second opening, through which they passed, to find within a good open cavernous hollow at the foot of the mountain wall, shut in by huge masses of rock.
“Why, our horses would be safe here, even if we were attacked,” exclaimed Bart.
“Horses,” said the Beaver, nodding. “Yes; horses.”
There was no mistaking the value of such a place, for there was secure shelter for at least a hundred horses, and the entrance properly secured—an entrance so narrow that there was only room for one animal to pass through—storm or attack from the hostile Indians could have been set at defiance.
“Supposing a town to be built here somewhere up the mountain, this great enclosure would be invaluable,” said Bart, and, hurrying back, he fetched Joses to inspect the place.
“Ah, that’s not bad,” said the rough frontier man. “Why, Master Bart, what a cattle corral that would make! Block the mouth up well, they’d be clever Injuns who got anything away. Let’s put the horses in here at once.”
“Do you think it is necessary, Joses?” said Bart.
“It’s always necessary to be safe out in the plain, my lad,” replied Joses. “How do we know that the Injuns won’t come to-night to look after the men they’ve lost? Same time, how do we know they will? All the same, though, you can never be too safe. Let’s get the horses inside, my lad, as we have such a place, and I half wish now we’d gone up the mountain somewhere to make our camp. You never know when danger may come.”
“Horses in there,” said Bart to the Beaver, and he pointed to the entrance.
The chief nodded, and seemed to have understood them all along by their looks and ways, so that when the horses belonging to the English party were driven in that evening he had those of his own followers driven in as well, and it was settled that Joses was to be the watchman that night.
It was quite sundown when the Doctor returned, this time with Maude, whom he had taken to be an eye-witness of his good fortune. Bart went to meet them, and that glorious, glowing evening they sat in their little camp, revelling in the soft pure air, which seemed full of exhilaration, and the lad could not help recalling afterwards what a thoroughly satisfied, happy look there was in his guardian’s countenance as he sat there reckoning up the value of his grand discovery, and making his plans for the future.
Then came a very unpleasant episode, one which Bart hid from the Doctor, for he would not trouble him with bad news upon a night like that; but all the same it caused the lad intense annoyance, and he went off to where Joses was smoking hiscigáritoand staring at the stars.
“Tipsy! drunk!” he exclaimed. “What! Sam and Juan? Where could they get the stuff?”
“They must have crept under the waggon, and broken a hole through, for the brandy lay there treasured up in case of illness.”
“I’ll thrash ’em both till they can’t crawl!” cried Joses, wrathfully. “I didn’t think it of them. It’s no good though to do it to-night when they can’t understand. Let them sleep it off to-night, my boy, and to-morrow morning we’ll show the Beaver and his men what we do to thieves who steal liquor to get drunk. I wouldn’t have thought it of them.”
“What shall you do to them, Joses?” said Bart.
“Tie them up to that old post of a tree, my boy, and give them a taste of horse-hair lariat on the bare back. That’s what I’ll do to them. They’re under me, they are, and I’m answerable to the master. But there, don’t say no more; it makes me mad, Master Bart. Go back now, and let them sleep it out. I’m glad I moved that powder.”
“So am I, Joses,” said Bart; and after a few more, words he returned to the little camp, to find the two offenders fast asleep.
Bart was very weary when he lay down, after glancing round to see that all proper precautions had been taken; and it seemed to him that he could not have been asleep five minutes when he felt a hand laid upon his mouth, and another grasp his shoulder, while on looking up, there, between him and the star-encrusted sky, was a dark Indian face.
For a moment he thought of resistance. The next he had seen whose was the face, and obeying a sign to be silent, he listened while the Beaver bent lower, and said in good English, “Enemy. Indians coming.”
Bart rose on the instant, and roused the Doctor, who immediately awakened Maude, and obeying the signs of the Indian, they followed him into the shadow of the mountain, for the Beaver shook his head fiercely at the idea of attempting to defend the little camp.
It all took place in a few hurried moments, and almost before they were half-way to their goal there was a fierce yell, the rush of trampling horses, and a dark shadowy body was seen to swoop down upon the camp. While before, in his excitement, Bart could realise his position, he found himself with the Doctor and Maude beyond the narrow entrance, and on the slope that seemed to lead up into the mountains.
As soon as Maude was in safety, Bart and the Doctor returned to the entrance, to find it well guarded by the Indians; and if the place were discovered or known to the enemy, it was very plain that they could be easily kept at bay if anything like a determined defence were made, and there was no fear of that.
Then came a sort of muster or examination of their little force, which, to Bart’s agony, resulted in the discovery that while all the Indians were present, and Harry was by their side, Joses, Sam, and Juan were away.
In his excitement, Bart did not realise why this was. Now he recalled that when he lay down to sleep the two offenders had been snoring stertorously, and it was evident that they were helplessly stupefied when the Indians came, and were taken.
But Joses?
Of course he was at his post, and the question now was, would he remain undiscovered, or would the Indians find the hiding-place of the horses, and after killing Joses sweep them all away?
It was a terrible thought, for to be left alone in that vast plain without horses seemed too hard to be borne. At the first blush it made Bart shudder, and it was quite in despair that with cocked rifle he waited for morning light, which seemed as if it would never come.
Bart’s thoughts were many, and frequent were the whispered conversations with the Doctor, as to whether the Indians would not find thecacheof the horses as soon as it was daylight by their trail, though to this he had answered that the ground all around was so marked by horses’ hoofs that it was not likely that any definite track would be made out.
Then moment by moment they expected their own hiding-place to be known, and that they would be engaged fighting for their lives with their relentless foes; but the hours wore on, and though they could hear the buzz of many voices, and sometimes dark shadowy forms could be made out away on the plain, the fugitives were in dense shadow, and remained unmolested till the break of day.
By this time Bart had given Maude such comforting intelligence as he could, bidding her be hopeful, for that these Indians must be strangers to the place, or they would have known of the way up the mountain, and searched it at once.
“But if they found it in the morning, Bart,” she said, “what then?”
“What then?” said Bart, with a coolness he did not feel. “Why, then we shall have to kill all the poor wretches—that’s all.”
Maude shuddered, and Bart returned to where the Beaver was at the opening, watching the place where the enemy had been plundering the waggon, and had afterwards stirred up the camp fire and were seated round.
“Joses was glad that he had put away the powder,” thought Bart, as he saw the glare of the fire. “I begin to wish it had been left.”