CHAPTER XXII.
THE GUARDIAN OF THE SILVER LODE.
As has been mentioned before, Thad had a plan in view when he left the camp in company with Aleck, somewhere about midnight. Though for certain reasons which he considered good, he had not seen fit to take a single one of his comrades into his confidence, the scoutmaster believed that the only way for Aleck to win his own game was to find the long-lost mine, and take possession of the same in the name of his father, who had been the original discoverer of the lode.
Scores of hungry prospectors, besides Kracker, had done everything in their power to locate the mine; though none had descended to his last unworthy methods of trying to torture Jerry Rawson's son, in the hope of profiting thereby. As the claim of the original discoverer rested only on a scant foundation, of course the man lucky enough to find the silver lode again would have a right to hold possession, in the eye of the law. He might choose to pay the widow something, but even that was a matter resting solely upon his conscience.
Thad had a reason for carrying the only lantern belonging to the scouts; and he hoped that if they were so lucky as to find that Aleck's rude little chart told the truth, they might utilize that means of illumination when entering the mine.
Of course both of them carried their guns, for there was no telling when they could return to camp. An arrangement had been with Allan, so that day and night there would be a sign shown, calculated to tell the absent ones whether the coast were clear, or the lawyer and sheriff still hovered near by, waiting to entrap the Rawson boy, should he show up.
They had moved along for some time, when Aleck broke the silence by saying, with considerable feeling in his voice:
"It makes me glad to know you believed what I told you, Thad, about that business of my uncle. If you could only meet up with him once, I'm sure you'd know the tricky kind of man he is, just from his looks, and the smooth way he talks. But no matter what they all do and say, I'm just bound to carry my plans out. My mother approves of what I am doing; and she is thinking of me, and praying all the time I'm up here, trying to take dad's place."
"Don't mention it," said Thad, quickly. "Of course we all believe every word you told us, no matter whether we've met this rascally uncle of yours or not. Our chum Step Hen did, and I reckon he wasn't much impressed with him, from the way he talked. And as you belong to the scouts, our first duty is to stand by you through thick and thin."
"Only as long as you believe in my word, Thad," added the other.
"That's true," returned the other, quickly; "even a scout has no business sticking up for a comrade when he knows the other is in the wrong; but we believe in you, Aleck. And if only you could find that mine, I feel sure all of this funny business would stop. Once you had put in a claim, with the proper witnesses, and hurried to file it before the court, nobody could steal it away. And that's going to be just where the Boy Scouts can help you."
"Well, we'll know more than we do now, before a great many hours," asserted the miner's son; "unless this little map is all wrong, and poor dad only believed he had found a rich lode. But remember, he brought home specimens that were nearly pure silver; and every one who saw them said they beat the world for richness. I can remember my dad saying that there were tons and tons without end of that same sort, in his mine. And then he was suddenly taken down sick, and died with the secret untold. All these long years, when we've been poor and wanting many things, there that secret lay in my hand, oh! hundreds of times, and I never dreamed of it still accident showed me the paper, back of the glass in the little pocket mirror that dad had carried with him a long time."
They relapsed into silence again for a long time, each busy with his thoughts. Aleck knew what few simple directions his rude chart carried; he had gazed at it so many times that it was photographed on his mind, and there had been no need for him to rip the seam of his coat, and take the slip of faded paper out. Kracker had not dreamed how near the coveted clue had been to his hands, at the time he actually held the boy, and closely examined all his pockets.
"It's lucky," remarked Thad, after fully an hour more had passed, with both boys pushing forward steadily all the time, over rugged ways that severely tried their abilities—"it's lucky, I say, that we are heading exactly away from the direction where that Sheriff, and your uncle, must be coming from."
"Yes, but I knew we'd do that before we ever started out," replied Aleck.
"You've been sizing up the region all day in camp, and laying your plans, if the chance ever came to try them out; isn't that so, Aleck?"
"You never said truer words in your life, Thad," answered the other. "I found a pretty high rock on which I could perch; and that gave me a chance to look over in this region with those fine glasses of yours. And I tell you now, it gave me a great thrill when I recognized something dad had marked on that little chart. It seemed just as if I could hear his voice calling me from the grave, and telling me I was doing the right thing—to go ahead, no matter who tried to stop me."
"What sort of a land-mark was it you saw?" asked the other scout.
"Why, you see, he made a rough sketch of a rock that looks a whole lot like a human head," Aleck went on to say, earnestly.
"Why, hello! I remember noticing that very same rock, the time I went up to take a look, and see if I could get a glimpse of our hunter squad. While about it, I turned the glasses around, to see if there were any sheep on the sides of the mountains to the south. And it was right then I saw that outline of a face, cut in the rock, just like somebody had used a giant chisel and made it—nose, mouth, chin, forehead, all complete. It startled me a little at first, Aleck."
"I should guess it would, Thad; but think what it meant to me, when I had seen it on dad's little chart; and knew that the entrance to his hidden mine lay almost in the shadow of that face! I think he looked on it as the rock guardian to his silver lode."
"Is that a fact?" ejaculated Thad, partaking in a measure of the excitement that shook the frame of his companion; "Well, that's more than you've seen fit to tell me before, Aleck; and it's some interesting, I own up."
"I meant to tell you everything, Thad, believe me," declared the other, quickly, and with some emotion. "After the fine way you and your chums rescued me from that shelf up on the face of the cliff, and said you'd stand by me, no matter what happened, why, I made up my mind that I would keep nothing back from you. By to-morrow I expected to take the map out from the lining of my coat, where it was sewed in by my mother's own dear hands, so that nobody would ever think things had been disturbed at all. And now, I'm surely hoping that we'll both set eyes on dad's mine before another dawn breaks."
"For your sake, Aleck, I hope that will come true. You deserve all the luck in the world, and that's what every one of our fellows say. But only for this moonlight I'm afraid we'd have had a hard job of it, coming all this distance; because the way is mighty rough, and both of us have stumbled lots of times as it is. We might have used the lantern, of course, but that would have put it out of business later, when we wanted it bad; and besides, it's flickering might have told our enemies where we were."
Aleck felt a thrill of pleasure at the way the other used that word "our;" why, it was just as though the Silver Fox Patrol had adopted him into the troop; and meant to make his cause their own. For a boy who had seldom had a friend to give him even words of encouragement, this was a glorious happening indeed. He felt that it had been the luckiest hour of his whole life when, in the midst of his bitter dejection, left alone on that high and isolated rocky ledge, he had discovered the strange movements of that fiery pencil, that seemed to be making all sorts of extravagant figures and circles in the air, which he knew stood for the means of communication between scouts.
"Let us work our way around this spur," he said, a while later, after they had continued to advance further into the depths of the mountains.
"I can guess what you are thinking," Thad went on to remark; "you believe that we must even now be in the neighborhood of that rock face."
"Well, I've tried to judge the distance, and how we got along; and it seems to me we ought to be nearly there. What do you think, Thad?" asked the other; and from his manner it was evident that he laid considerable importance on the opinion of his companion.
"Just what you do, which is, that we must be getting close to where we saw that great head outlined just as if some scupltor had chiseled it from the solid rock. But even if we fail to find it, Aleck, that may be because of the formation of the mountain. Besides, this moonlight is awfully deceptive, you know."
"Wait, and we'll soon learn," was the confident answer. "I sat there, and looked for nearly an hour. I guess I got every rock fixed on my mind."
"Well, I've had a few of the same impressed on my knees and shins," chuckled the scoutmaster, drily. "But we've no need to complain, because, considering all the things we've had to fight against, I reckon we've escaped pretty slick. See anything yet, Aleck?"
"No, I own that I don't; but then, that may come from lots of causes," the other boy replied, trying not to let his disappointment show in his manner or speech; for he knew that Thad did not believe in a display of weakness in scouts. "Perhaps, when we've pushed on a little further, we may be able to glimpse the face again."
"Wait right here," said Thad, suddenly.
"Oh! did you hear anything? Wouldn't it be too unbearably hard if we learned that some one, perhaps that cruel prospector, Colonel Kracker, had been ahead of us, and located the hidden mine? He could hurry to enter his claim, and my poor mother would not stand a ghost of a show. Was it a voice you heard, Thad?"
"I didn't hear anything to bother me," came the reply, accompanied with a low chuckle. "I was only thinking how often we strain ourselves to see something away off, when all we have to do is to turn our eyes up and look."
Aleck instantly "caught on" to what his companion meant. He bent his head back, and gave utterance to a low cry of satisfaction.
"Well, if that doesn't beat anything?" he ejaculated, apparently highly pleased; "it's the head, as sure as I live, and towering right above us, almost. No wonder I couldn't see it, looking away off, and thinking it lay further on. We've found the land-mark dad set down in his little map, Thad. And now to discover the crack in the wall, hidden by the hanging vines, where he followed a fox in, just out of curiosity, and discovered the richest silver lode he ever knew about. Oh! I'm just shaking all over with excitement. And I sure hope my mother's thinking about me right now, thinking, and praying for me to succeed!"