Thissettled, Max and Sandy returned to their mining, while Len and Morris lay down behind the newly-strengthened breastwork. The elder man filled his pipe and stretched himself in the sunshine, while Len brought out one of the few books they had and read the stirring story of the robber Doones, and the giant farmer who got his sweetheart from among them by such a pleasant mixture of strategy and strength.
Morris was interested, but his position was easy, the pipe was soothing, the sun was warm, and Len’s steady tones were slumberous in their influence. The reader, therefore, presently found his listener asleep, in spite of his interest and his resolution. Seeing this he shut the book, and fell into areverie over the strange series of circumstances that had brought him to this remote spot and outlandish surroundings, how—Crack—ping!
Morris was wide-awake. Len’s dreams had vanished. Both men were on their knees behind the breastwork, guns in hand and every sense alert.
On the opposite dump they saw all three of the jumpers sitting with guns by their sides. They were gesticulating toward the smooth, whitish panel on the cliff walk which showed where the dyke had been cut through by the ice and floods that in ages past had carved this channel in the mountain side; they seemed to be paying no attention to the Last Chance people, but were pointing as though at a target, on the face of the cliff. After a short time Scotty raised his rifle and took steady aim, apparently at the target previously pointed out. The report of his gun was followed by the sharp click of the ball against the porphyry wall, and then byits rattling among the rock on the slope of the dump in front of our sentinel friends.
“What do you suppose they’re shooting at?” muttered Len, straining his eyes to find some mark.
Morris did not reply. He was watching the enemy going through another pantomime, which looked as though Bob was explaining something wrong in the shot. This was speedily concluded by Scotty’s moving his position and aiming a third time at the face of the cliff, sighting at a little different angle than before.
Crack!—ping! went the report, and almost at the same instant a spruce log which lay just in front of Morris’s face jarred under the blow of a half-ounce of lead, which sank deeply into its tough core.
“Great Harry!” shouted the incensed miner. “They’re caroming on us!”
And before Len could interfere, Morris rose on one knee, brought his rifle to bear on the gambler, and pulled the trigger.
Scotty’s hat flew off, and he tumbled over, while Bob and Stephens let loose a volley, which rattled harmlessly against the breastwork.
But Morris’s snap shot had not gone quite true, for Scotty picked himself up almost instantly and scrambled out of range, followed by his two companions.
This firing had brought Sandy and Max to the door of the mine with anxious faces, and you may believe they were not only enraged, but made very solicitous by the incident.
“It’s clear,” remarked Max, “that they mean to kill us if they can do so without open-handed murder. Of course they intended those balls to glance and hurt somebody.”
“I meant mine to, anyhow!” exclaimed Morris.
“I am glad you fired; it’ll teach those scoundrels that we are wide-awake. But do you not think they knew you!”
“No, they couldn’t see well enough. I was kneeling behind the wall.”
“There is a’ the mair necessity, Mr. Bushwick,” remarked Sandy, “why you should go to town to-night.”
“I feel it strongly, and Morris and I’ll get away as soon as it is dark. You fellows have worked enough to-day, haven’t you? Suppose you stay out now.”
“All right; we will. We’ve got a fair sort of a hole in there, anyhow. It’s pretty deep, and a man can walk upright all the way except in one or two places.”
They saw no more of the enemy that day, however, and Sandy occupied himself by cooking an extra good supper.
By seven o’clock that evening a deep gloom filled the gulch, and was scarcely less heavy on the cliffs, for thick clouds stretched like a canopy from peak to peak.
The only means by which the jumpers could get away from their camp was by the trail down the cañon, along which, during daylight, any one would be exposed for some distance to the fire of our friends in the garrison.
From the Last Chance, however, a man might easily ascend, as we know, and then, by care and trouble, he could pass along ledges above the Aurora, to where, some distance beyond, a crevice enabled him to clamber down to the bottom of the gulch, a few hundred yards below where the trail crossed the creek.
This is what Morris and Len did, as soon as the shadows of the range enveloped them in its curtaining gloom. When they had made their way far enough, they crept to the edge of the cliff, and could see the jumpers eating their supper around their fire on the safe side of the dump. A horse was hitched near by, and Old Bob was saddling him.
“You are right,” Lennox whispered. “He’s going to town to-night, and is most ready to start. We’d better hurry up, if you want to get into ambush ahead of him.”
Moving as quietly as possible, they hastened to where the shelving of the cliff let them get down to the bed of the creek.
A SHORT CUT.Silver Caves,Page 159.
A SHORT CUT.Silver Caves,Page 159.
A SHORT CUT.
Silver Caves,Page 159.
Just as they reached this point, where they most needed the light to aid them, a fierce squall swept down upon the groaning and cracking branches of the spruce fringing the border of the crags, the air became suddenly colder, and whirling volleys of snowflakes were dashed in the faces of the wanderers.
“This is bad!” growled Morris. “’Taint none too easy a job to crawl down here in daylight, let alone trying to do it in this pitch; look out!”
Len had slipped on a wet stone and started to make the descent by an extremely short cut, but caught hold of a young tree stem just in time to stop himself. Warned by this, they felt their way with more caution, and finally succeeded in clambering down to the creek-bed without serious mishap. On reaching the trail the coating of snow was found undisturbed, showing that as yet no one had passed over it.
A few rods below, the path was crowded into a narrow passage between a steep bankand the water. This place Morris thought would suit his purpose capitally, and here he proposed to meet the unsuspecting enemy and turn him back.
His first movement was to cut and carefully trim a stout cudgel.
“Quakin-asp is the kind of a stick to make his bones ache,” said Morris, as he trimmed away the twigs.
“I’ve no doubt of it, and I’d like to stay and see the fun, but I reckon I’d better mosey if I’m to get to town before this snow buries me.”
“You bet you had!” was the earnest advice of his roughly-speaking but good-hearted comrade. “It’s no soft job you’ve got on hand, and you want to be mighty careful. Got a thick overcoat?”
“Yes.”
“Any matches?”
“Yes, lots of ’em.”
“Got your pistol?”
“Yes, borrowed Max’s. Thought I mightmeet wolves. I’ve heard ’em howl down here once or twice.”
“They’re ’round on snowy nights, but they’re cowardly. Any whisky?”
“No; and I don’t want any.”
“Hm! I’m not so sure about it. Whisky’s always good, I’m thinkin’, especially on a cold night like this.”
“You and Old Bob could agree on one point, at any rate.”
“Me and Squint-eyes agree?—not much! Still,—whisky’s good.”
“Well, I’ll wager you a jug o’ molasses, or a new hat, that I can get to town better to-night without whisky than with it.”
“Mebbe you’re right. I know whisky’s done me a heap more harm ’n it ever did me good, or any other fellow I ever heard of. Still, whisky’s good!”
Len laughed at this defiance of rhyme and reason, and shaking hands, started away, Morris calling out as a last word that if he lost the trail in the snow, or got bewildered, theonly proper thing to do was to build a fire and camp “right there,” instead of working into worse difficulties.
The brief gale with which the storm had leaped down from its headquarters in the heights of the Sierra had wholly subsided now, or only reappeared in occasional momentary squalls. The snow continued falling steadily, nevertheless, and already the ground, tops of the bushes, and all the protruding rocks were white. The stars of course were blotted out, but there was a pale, unearthly luminosity in the air which showed that somewhere the moon was shining.
“How splendid a sight it would be,” thought the plucky young traveler as he pushed steadily on, “to be above this storm, and able to look down upon the wide sea of heaving, billowy snow-clouds, a sea of wan, soft vapor, gleaming in the moonlight here and there as rounded masses are rolled upward, and showing shadowy hollows orcurving wrinkles, coming and going, forming and changing before one’s eyes.”
Len had no great difficulty in keeping upon the trail, though he often felt himself in very delicate places where a wrong step might mean a bad fall, if not death.
In the wooded district lying between the Panther Creek gorge and the village side of the mountain, he got bewildered once or twice, but by keeping his wits about him passed safely beyond the forest, and felt thereafter in no great danger of going astray. Yet he was not prepared for the way the storm had quickly disguised all the landmarks, so that he found the trail unexpectedly hard to follow.
This latter half of the journey was the strangest part of all. Now that he had got out of the gorge and past the woods upon the ridge, he could see abroad for the most part; but the whole wide and beautiful landscape with which he had grown familiar was so lost and transformed that it was hard torecognize its most familiar features. Where in the summer daylight, of that wonderfully crystal-clear daylight of the alpine air, he had been confronted by bold bluffs and clearly cut, prominent peaks, only the vaguest outlines of a few of the nearest headlands now appeared. Everything else was hidden under a veil of snowflakes. To his left, as he reached the opening, half-way down, which allowed the broadest view, a misty expanse took the place of a well-known rank of towering peaks; in front, an undefined, Titanic shadow against the sky showed dimly the wall of guardian cliffs enclosing the valley; while at the right, clusters of rugged and spruce-grown foot-hills were merged and invisible under the graceful arch of a mighty dome, faintly outlined in the tumult of the storm, which was wrapping its mantle so swiftly round every mountain.
In spite of his haste, and of the cold wind which hurled the powdered snow against his face and drove it into the crevices of hisclothing, Lennox stood still here to gaze upon this shadowy picture of a new world, this ghostly Walpurgis Night, which formed the most impressive scene he had ever beheld. And as he gazed, there came faintly to his ear, from far up the mountain behind him, a long, shrill scream as of some one in deadly distress.
Len knew it was the cry of the mountain lion, but in that palely-lighted dance of the snow-spirits among these awful rocks, it might well have been taken for the last cry of some forlorn and freezing witch.
Shaking off these fancies and the snow together, our hero turned his steps downward, and an hour later aroused the astonished landlord and went to bed at the hotel, thoroughly tired, but safe and far ahead of his adversaries.
Morrishad not to wait more than fifteen minutes after Len’s departure before he found his work at hand. The snow so softened the trail that the sound of the horse’s hoofs were not heard until they had approached within a few feet of the ambush, and amid the blinding flakes, it was impossible to recognize the face of the well-muffled rider.
It was certainly Old Bob, however, who had been seen saddling the horse, and Morris concluded that the man before him was he. Had it been Scotty, he might have hardened his heart to almost any degree of severity, but heretofore he had had no quarrel with Bob, for whom he felt contempt chiefly, and he intended to let him off as easily as it would be safe to do.
Rousing himself at the sound of the stumbling nag, Morris had but half a minute to pause, before suddenly springing in front of the horse, with a blow at the animal’s head and a yell like a wild Shoshone.
The startled and punished animal reared, spun round in the narrow trail as nimbly as a deer could have done, slipped on the wet stones, and fell headlong over the low bank at the edge of the trail, flinging his astounded rider over his head into the creek.
Morris, delighted at the effect of his first charge, followed it up with a second whoop, hearing which the horse picked himself up and rushed up the trail at break-neck speed, frightened out of its senses.
Old Bob, panic-stricken, dumb-founded, and shocked by his fall, was just rising from the shallow water, when Morris got down the bank. Leaping upon him, he seized the wretched victim by collar, and shook him by both hands as a terrier does a rat. Then snatching up his stick he began to lay it vigorously over Bob’s shoulders, keeping at it until the old fellow could find enough of his scattered wits and tangled legs to enable him to run away.
“Get back in your hole, you old sarpint!” Morris yelled, as he flung his cudgel after the retreating enemy. “Next time you thieves want to sneak off to town, mind you get permission of your betters!”
To this Bob replied, as was expected, by a couple of shots from his revolver, which, up to this time, he had fairly forgotten in the surprise of the unexpected attack, but Morris dodged behind a rock at the first flash, and no harm was done.
He did not return this random fire, but kept wide-awake for a few minutes, thinking Bob might come back with his companions. This, however, he did not do, and Morris lost no further time in starting home.
Bob admitted afterward, that he thought that at least two men had attacked him, which spoke well for Morris’s activity, and that itwas Max who was giving him the shaking. Wet, sore, chilled and altogether dazed, he was in no condition to lead an attack against an ambushed enemy in the middle of a snowy night, nor were his accomplices eager to go and avenge his wrongs, preferring, so long as their own precious skins remained whole, to stay where they were and scold at him for his failure.
All this happened on Friday night, and to that fact the superstitious miner attributed his misfortunes.
The storm ceased before daybreak. Then what a strange, new, glorious landscape was that the sun rose upon! Its beams streamed athwart limitless spaces of snow. Overhead, the height Sandy had partly ascended rose in rounded outlines, a huge dome of unblemished white. Ahead, as if a mighty drift had been heaped across the gap between the mountains, lay the saddle over which the trail led through the woods; and inside the gorge all the roughnesses were smoothed, all the bowldersand prostrate logs, the boughs of the spruces and cottonwoods, bushes, ferns, and weeds, were packed full and weighed down with the soft and flurry flakes.
Beyond calling for a little shoveling inside the fort, the snow was no hindrance, of course, to the underground work of the firm of B. B. & Co. They hammered away at improving their tunnel all day on Saturday and until late at night, and followed it by a pleasant Sunday’s rest, in spite of their cramped quarters and tedious guard-duty.
The case was far different with the unfortunate jumpers, who, at the Aurora, had no shelter, and no way of getting free from the snow and the wet.
This misfortune was doubled by a thaw on Sunday afternoon, suddenly letting loose a great flood of melted snow, and turning the creek into a torrent, which, before Monday morning, had so swollen as to cover the trail and ford with a rushing flood six or eight feet deep, that it would have been madness to cross.
Old Bob and his companions, therefore, were not only very uncomfortable, but between the impassable creek and the unscalable wall on one side, and the rifles of our friends on the other, they were really prisoners.
“I reckon they’re getting hungry over yonder, too,” remarked Morris, when a heavy rain on Monday night had produced a second flood in the creek. “I don’t believe they have grub enough to last much longer. They couldn’t have brought a great deal with ’em, and it must be about used up.”
That was the fact of the case. Rations were growing very short in the enemy’s camp, and if the end had not come pretty soon they would have been obliged to surrender, since it was impossible to get to where their provisions had been cached with such great labor preparatory to this campaign.
Even to our friends, who had no such miseries to fret them, the situation was becoming extremely monotonous and annoying.Max was glum and anxious. Sandy had lost his humor. Morris would growl softly at himself first for letting Old Bob get away with a single unbroken bone, and then for having allowed that kid, as he called Len, to go on alone to town in the storm. It was tedious enough to be shut up in this cabin, in the midst of such miserable weather, and in hourly danger of a bullet in one’s brain, but when to that was added the worry over Len’s safety, the suspense became nearly unendurable.
“Itellyou what it is!” exclaimed Morris, as Wednesday morning brought no tidings, and the clouds began to break away, “if that kid, or somebody else, don’t show up to-day, I’m going to look him up. I oughtn’t to ’a’ been such a dod rotted fool as to let him go nohow.”
No one opposed an objection; in fact it would have done no good if they had, since Morris was his own master, while at the same time, every one hoped he would be saved the journey.
The two went to work after breakfast, as usual, in the tunnel, and rejoined Sandy, who had combined sentinel with kitchen duty, to eat a famous dinner about one o’clock. The sun had been out an hour or two, and thecreek had fallen so rapidly, that Max thought it might now be crossed at a pinch.
“Heard anything from our neighbors this morning?” the guard was asked.
“Not a word. I was a leetle suspeecious in consequence, and kept my een peeled as ye say out here, but I kenned naething wrong.”
“They’re up to some trick or other, you can bet your boots,” was the opinion of Morris, who followed his words by going out and peering through crevices in the barricade at the enemy’s fortifications.
He had no more than got there, when they heard him yell out in angry astonishment, and when they hurried out of the cabin were amazed to see him standing on top of the wall, rifle in hand, like a picture of Sergeant Jasper at New Orleans.
“Look there, will you?” he shouted, pointing down the cañon.
The place where the trail was visible from the cabin was a stretch of about forty yards,so situated between the cliff and the creek, that any one going up or down could not escape coming under rifle range from the fort. At its further end was the ford of the creek, which with the rise of the opposite bank could also be seen, a protruding bastion of rock cutting off all further view of the trail for a mile or more.
At the instant Morris had glanced through the crevice in the wall, he had seen his old enemy Scotty riding his horse at the top of its speed toward the creek, into which he was about to plunge, when he suddenly reined up, and seizing his rifle from the leathern sling, which held it balanced on the horn of his saddle, lifted it toward his shoulder. His horse, however, alarmed at the rapid motion, gave a shying jump, which nearly dislodged the man from the saddle, and the gun went off before any aim had been taken.
It was at this juncture that Morris had leaped upon the wall, and Sandy and Max had followed. Before they had time to speculateupon the matter, there rushed into view down the opposite bank of the creek the stalwart, buckskin-clothed form of Buckeye Jim, leveling a revolver at the disconcerted horseman, who with quick presence of mind threw his hands above his head in sign of surrender and so saved his life,—“a great peety!” in Sandy’s opinion.
Close behind Jim was to be seen Lennox with a stranger whom nobody at first recognized; and a moment later Mr. Anderson rode into view, driving slowly ahead of him the horses of the other three.
Jim still kept Scotty under his eye, while the others mounted and waded the stream. The stranger approached Scotty and took his rifle away from him, while Len seized the bridle of his horse. Then the hands came down and were placed behind his back, where they remained as though fastened, after which the cavalcade started up the trail toward the mines.
“Scotty’s been handcuffed,” Morris explained, when he saw these movements. “I can tell by the way he rides.”
Suddenly Max exclaimed, “They’re running right against the others’ guns,” and leaping over the wall he hurried, revolver in hand, straight toward the Aurora’s dump.
Divining his intention, the others followed him, stumbling over the slushy and rolling stones in hot haste, and rushed up the face of the enemy’s embankment like a storming party. They had almost as far to go as the others, and must make haste, breath or no breath. It was well they did so, for the first thing that met their eyes when they had reached the top of the dump, was Old Bob and Stevens lying behind two logs, guns in hand, ready to shoot the instant the approaching party should get clear of the last thicket.
Waiting for no orders or permission, Morris drew bead on the nearest man and fired, and with an awful cry Stevens sprang to his feet and fell back a senseless heap on the ground.
Bob, thunder-struck, whirled round to find the three men above him and all hope gone. Dropping on his knees in abject terror, and green with fright, the miserable poltroon shrieked for mercy, and he received the boon with the contempt of his foes not only, but of his friends, for the captured Scotty at once began pouring upon his head the most bitter revilings.
Except to take away his gun and give him a kick, nobody else paid any attention to him, for all were hurrying to congratulate Lennox upon his safe return, to welcome Mr. Anderson, to be introduced to Buckeye Jim and the stranger, who proved to be a Deputy Sheriff from Denver with a warrant for Scotty’s arrest, and to clap each other on the back over the fortunate escapes and successes which had marked the last five minutes with so much excitement.
Until this hand-shaking had been gone through with, no one thought of the wounded man. The time had not been long, however,and at first it was more needful to make sure of the living than to attend to the dead.
But was he dead?
“Na,” replied Sandy, who was the first to kneel by his side and place a hand within his shirt-bosom to feel if any life remained. “His hairt beats.”
“Glad to hear he’s got one; where is he wounded?” asked Morris, also kneeling by his side. “Oh, here,” pointing to where the blood was slowly dripping from the left arm of the prostrate and unconscious man.
“We maun cut away his sleeve,” commanded Sandy, who seemed to know precisely what to do, “or he may bleed to death.”
To slit up the sleeves of the coat and woolen shirt was the work of only half a moment, and the pain caused by the chill air striking the lacerated flesh, brought back consciousness in short order.
Glancing around the circle of strange faces, catching sight of the handcuffed Scottyand mournful Bob, and feeling the numb pain in his naked arm, which Sandy was washing, the poor fellow turned aside his face, closed his eyes, and muttered in complete disgust:
“Why in thunder didn’t ye let me die?”
“There’s naething but mends for misdeeds,” was Sandy’s sententious rejoinder, as he cleansed the wound of blood, picked the shreds of cloth out of it, and lifted the arm to examine its extent.
“The ball ha’ passed quite through the muscles,” he announced, “and entered the man’s side. I’m not so sure, my fair body, that it was worth while to bring you to.”
“Eh! What’s that? you don’t mean to say—?”
“Keep cool!” commanded Sandy sternly “D’ye want to bleed to death, ye fool, before we can bind ye up? Keep quiet!”
Dipping a handkerchief in cold water he bound it tightly round the perforated arm, a proceeding which set Stevens groaning pitifully.
“Now let’s see what else,” he said; and began to search the chest of his patient for marks of harm.
The hole in the outside of the coat made by the bullet was plain enough, but no blood was visible on the vest or shirt. Opening his coat Sandy found the bullet-hole just over a pocket; and as he moved the garment farther, out tumbled a thick slab of tobacco holding a flattened bullet, which had not been able to force its way through. There was a black bruise on the skin, but to this ignoble agent the wicked man owed his life.
“Thank God!” he ejaculated, when it was shown him. No one echoed the words more fervently then Morris, for though he could have acquitted his conscience, had his bullet, in defence of his friends against reckless ruffians, proved the death of one of them, yet he was heartily relieved to know that his hand had sent no human soul to judgment.
“Aye, thank God!” retorted Sandy with deep sarcasm, “who, in His inscrutablewisdom, sends the greatest fuils the greatest fortunes.”
Having had his arm bandaged, Stevens was able to get upon his feet and walk, supported by Old Bob. The whole party then slowly made their way to the cabin, Sandy running in advance to get the cooking started again.
The wounded Stevens is given a bunk to lie in, and Scotty a box to sit on, but the Sheriff declines to take off the handcuffs.
“What is the charge against him?” the Sheriff is asked.
“Horse-stealing and various other things,” replied the deputy. “Mr. Anderson can tell you more about it than I, who am acting on a requisition from the Governor of Illinois.”
“He stole some valuable horses from my farm near Aurora, Illinois, several months ago,” said that gentleman, “and we only lately heard that he was in this region. It’s a sore subject with Buckeye Jim here,” continued Mr. Anderson, smiling on that big man, “for we suspected him for a while.”
“That’s all right now,” Jim responded heartily. “A man who is fool enough to keep the bad company I’ve been in sometimes, must share their color, I suppose, whether he deserves it or not. We’ll say no more about it.”
While this conversation is going on, and dinner is preparing, Max and Old Bob are talking outside the door.
“Why do you make all this trouble, Bob?” Max asked—“What did you expect you’d get out of it?”
“Reckoned I’d get a good mine. I lowed you wasn’t staying up here for nothin’.”
“And you thought it was the Aurora I was at work in?”
“To be sure; where else? this is no good!”
“Isn’t it? Well, we’ll see about that. At any rate the Aurora is worthless, and I have merely been using that as a runway to get to the back end of this mine easily, through a cross-cut. We’re not working the Aurora, we’re working the Last Chance. You coulda’ jumped that all day and we wouldn’t have objected enough to fight, but when you came over here we had to.”
“And you’ve won the turn,” said Bob dejectedly.
“Yes I’ve won, just as I did once before, Bob,—maybe you remember—when a couple of burglars tired to crawl into my window.”
“I don’t know nothin’ about that,” Bob replied, in a dogged tone.
“Don’t you? Well now, Bob, this makes twice you escaped being shot in your rascalities with me, and if you ever see your way out of this present scrape, I’m thinking you’d better leave the gulch.”
“Leave; you bet I’ll leave. I ’low you wouldn’t be none too friendly, but that there Scotty would murder me the first day he got loose, though this bust-up aint no more my fault ’n’ ’tis his’n.”
“Do you think so?”
“Think so; I know it! And I’ve got toget clear away from this country, or I’m a dead man!”
“Maybe I can be of some use to you—I mean in saving you from Scotty; but you must tell me who was with you that night you came to our cabin.”
“It was Stevens,” said Bob quietly.
“Could you prove it, if you were wanted to?”
“Yes, I could.”
“Well, Bob, there’s your horse, and a trail clear to Denver. Good-by. I hope you’ll do better hereafter than I’ve known you to yet.”
Max turned his back and went into the cabin, where all the rest were gathering around the table. By the time he had filled his plate and had found a seat on an inverted powder-can, Squint-eyed Old Bob was taking his unworthy self out of the cañon, and out of my story, at the best pace he knew how.
He got safely away and never came back; but I am sorry to say he behaved no better,and probably only escaped hanging at last by getting crushed in a snowslide.
Before dinner was ended, a new arrival, and a hungry one, appeared in the person of the Superintendent of Mr. Anderson’s mine near the village, a gentleman whom our firm knew well, and had a high respect for, both as an expert in mining and as an honest man.
Thecapitalist frankly told Max and Len, as the three sat a little apart from the others, that he had great faith in that region, and was willing to invest a reasonable amount of money in any prospect that gave him sufficient encouragement.
He recalled how the attempt had been made to dupe him at Old Bob’s diggings a short distance below, and said that he had felt so well satisfied that nothing this creek could show was good, that he had resolved never to look at any property on its banks again.
At the same time, the behavior of Mr. Brehm, during the examination of Bob’s prospect-hole to which he had just alluded, was so upright and intelligent, that when he heardthat something different had been discovered on Panther Creek, and by whom, he had readily consented to come and see it. “Now I want to see all you have to show me; and if you have anything good, I’ve no doubt we can make some sort of a bargain. But I don’t profess to understand these things as well as some, and at any rate two heads are better than one. ‘In a multitude of counsellors there is wisdom,’ the Wise Man says. Therefore I shall ask you to let my superintendent go in with us.”
This long speech was not in the least tiresome to its hearers, as you may well believe; indeed they took a great liking to Mr. Anderson’s frank, bluff, and business-like manner, which inspired both respect and confidence.
At once, therefore, the little lamps were lighted, old canvas coats were lent to the visitors, and the four started into the Last Chance tunnel, Max leading the way, and Len bringing up the rear.
Sandy remained at the cabin, partly becausehe felt himself an outside factor, and partly to bear company with Buckeye Jim, Morris, and the Deputy Sheriff, who were guarding the prisoner, and chatting over Rocky Mountain adventures in a way very entertaining to the Scotchman.
Apologies for the unworkman-like condition of the mine were unnecessary, since everybody knew the history of the undertaking, so that nothing was said until the inner chamber had been reached, at the crosscut, the shape and situation of which was first explained to the visitors.
“Is your title unquestionable?” asked Mr. Anderson.
“Yes; we had the papers examined by a lawyer, and the transfer properly recorded. There is no flaw, that we can discover.”
“Where does this water come from?”
“Mainly from a surface seam. I think it could be drained off above ground by a little engineering, and thus stopped entirely without much expense.”
While this colloquy was in progress, the superintendent had taken up a pick and chipped off some pieces of rock from the roof and sides of the vein, at which he was looking very sharply under the flame of his smoky lamp. Lennox noticed with a thrill of gratification how his expert eye, with the instinctive perception acquired by a long training, threw away what they had learned was worthless rock, while the brown stuff, which they had proved to be valuable, was selected for closer examination.
“This is queer-looking stuff,” he remarked, “I never came across anything just like it. What do you take it to be, Mr. Brehm?”
“That, sir,” Max replied, with a bit of tremor in his voice, for this was the first announcement, “that, sir, I suppose to be a telluride of gold, carrying about twenty-eight ounces to the ton.”
“Great Scott! That’s the best show of gold in these parts! And this black grit must be a lead-carbonate!”
“So we are told by Denver assayers. They pronounce it a soft carbonate, rich in lead and iron, and worth—here’s the letter—about one hundred and twenty dollars to the ton.”
Both Mr. Anderson and the superintendent were vastly interested by this information, which evidently they accepted as true. The latter gentleman read aloud the assayer’s statement of his analysis of the ore, and pointed out that it gave very little black-jack, antimony, etc., which indicated that the ore would be easy to smelt, a most important consideration in estimating its value.
“Is the whole vein, so far as you have gone, like this?” Mr. Anderson asked, as he held up his light, and scrutinized the walls and roof of the small chamber.
“No; there is not much at the very entrance, though, after we learned to recognize them, we could find traces of both the carbonate and telluride clear to the door-way, but we saw much more in the interior, and argued that the deeper we went the richer the minewould grow, which has proved true up to the present time. If it hadn’t been for those pesky jumpers, we should have gone several yards deeper.”
“The vein doesn’t seem to be uniformly composed of the ore minerals.”
“No, it has been growing very strange in its distribution of late, a fact we began to notice when we were about two-thirds of the way to this point. The lode gradually became filled with more or less globular cavities, which steadily increased in size. The wall of each of these cavities is formed almost wholly of the telluride, and the spaces between are pretty nearly dead rock. Inside, whenever they are small,—there are some little ones in the roof, just over your head, which show it well,—they are quite filled with nearly solid carbonate; but when they are larger—the last one we struck, you can see a remnant of it in the breast, was as big as a barrel—they are only partly full, and the ore of the interior soft and crumbling.”
“They are like miniature caves or monstrous geodes,” said Mr. Anderson.
“Yes,” Len put in—he had been quiet as long as he could stand it, “and sometimes we are warned of what is ahead by the hollow sound.”
“Maybe we can find one now, to show you,” Max suggested; and, taking a pick, he moved toward the extremity of the tunnel, whither the rest followed him.
Tapping here and there the breast of rock forming the head of the tunnel, Max presently detected near the floor a peculiar echo; all listened, and agreed that this sound denoted a hollow.
“I’m not very sure, but I’ll try it,” he said, and slipping aside swung back his sturdy arms preparatory to delivering a tremendous stroke.
Down came the pick, crashed through a shell of rock, and sank out of sight, except a few inches of handle.
“You’ve hit it, sure!” exclaimed Mr.Anderson. “Make the hole a little bigger, so that we can see in.”
Max did so, knocking off the edges until Len could put head and arms in, whereupon he reported that he could neither touch nor see the further side.
Drawing back, the hole was again enlarged, and Max tossed in a stone, which was heard to roll downward a long distance.
The whole party was now excited in no small degree. Taking the superintendent’s candle in addition to his own, Mr. Anderson crept inside the aperture, cautiously descended a short incline, closely followed by the others, and soon reached a level bottom. The adventurers now found themselves in a large natural chamber—the interior, in fact, of an extensive cavity like those of a lesser size which have been described. The flickering rays of their lamps and candles let them see that overhead was a dome-like ceiling, seamed with bright streaks of galena, and interspersed, in a sort of rude fresco, with