HOW LEN FOOLED THE PROFESSOR.
CHAPTER VIII.
HOW LEN FOOLED THE PROFESSOR.
Entirely unaware that Old Bob had regarded them with so much interest, or had been so glad to overhear the fact that they would spend the night in town, Len and Max hastened to finish their errands, and then to go about the principal business which had brought them on the long walk to town. In one important point their squint-eyed friend had misunderstood them badly,—Sandy had remained at the mine.
As soon as possible, therefore, the two young men took their way briskly down the familiar path which led to the home of an old fellow who was known in the camp as “Mr. Professor.” His queer, solitary habits and sharp tongue had made him rather unpopular, but everyone acknowledged his expertness in judging ores, and his opinion was often sought by those who dared to face him.
“Are you sure you remember the shape of the specimens?” Max asked, for the twentieth time.
“As certain as anybody can be,” Len replied confidently.
As they approached the professor’s cabin, they saw that worthy chopping at a log beside it, whereupon they slackened their eager pace and sauntered up to his door with an air of unconcern.
“Good morning, Professor,” said Len pleasantly.
“Mornin’,” was the short reply, while the chips flew right and left.
“You must have learned how to chop in sme good school,” Max observed, in a tone expressing admiration.
“Raised in No’th Ca’lina,” was the gruff response.
“Is that so?” Len exclaimed. “Why, that’s not far from my home—I was raised in Roanoke county, Virginia. Sorry I didn’t know that before. I should have liked to come over and talked with you about things down in that region. Don’t see many men out here that know much about the Piedmont country. Were you ever up in Roanoke?”
“Many a time.”
Thus the ice was broken, and the lads won their way through the crust which this stern old miner was proud to wear, though it cut him off more and more from the society of those around him, who voted him an unsociable old curmudgeon that somehow had picked up a lot of information about rocks and ores.
Max did not smoke, but he had bought the best cigar he could get in town, for the special purpose of giving it to the old man, and this gift, with Len’s pleasant chat, quite thawed the professor in the course of a quarter of an hour or so. Len was very diplomatic. He seemed to be in no hurry, but finally steered the conversation around to rare minerals. Then, as if by chance, he recalled a package he had brought to the professor from Denver, on his return from that recent journey which Bob had alluded to in his conversation with Scotty, and asked the old man to show him the specimens again, and to tell him more about them than he had done on the evening when they were delivered.
Ordinarily a request like this would have met with refusal; but now the old man consented at once, and led the way into his cabin.
Many rude little shelves were stuck up against the log walls, upon which were heaped dusty rows of minerals and various other objects. One shelf contained several cigar-boxes. These the professor took down and opened one after another. Rummaging through half a dozen he finally found the one he wanted, and unfolded from their wrappings the five small bits of rock which Lennox had brought to him from Denver.
Selecting three of the specimens the professor took them to the light and began to talk about what they represented.
“That’s an ore of tellurium,” he said, holding one of the pieces between his thumb and finger, “and it carries gold,—or may sometimes—a right smart percentage of it, too—in the shape of a telluride. It is a very nice smelting ore and a valuable one.”
“Is there much of it in the Rockies?” he was asked.
“Mighty little’s been found yet, worse luck. It almost always occurs in veins with a lot of lead and other stuff, and everywhere I have ever seen it, it’s alongside a porphyry dyke.”
This last remark made Len’s heart jump, but he showed no excitement. In a well-controlled voice he remarked that he wished they had a magnifying glass so that the professor might point out to them more effectively the peculiarities of the mineral, which he was turning over in his fingers.
“I’ve a good one,” the old miner answered.
“I’ll get it,” and he stepped back into the cabin.
Instantly Len drew from his pocket three fragments of the brown rock taken from the deepest part of the Last Chance lode, and slipped the Denver specimens out of sight. He thought the change would not be noticed; certainly there was no difference between the former and latter specimens discernible to a careless eye, and if they deceived this expert, he might feel sure that his pieces of ore were as truly tellurium as were the others.
The professor came out wiping the lenses of a small but powerful magnifier upon the lining of his old coat. Taking one of the changed specimens unsuspectingly from Len’s hand, he began to scrutinize it very carefully under the microscope.
“By George,” he exclaimed, “that’s a bully specimen! I wonder where Pete,”—his Denver acquaintance,—“got it. I never saw anything richer in tellurides.”
Then he took the other pieces and examined those in the same way. “Guess the glass must ’a’ been dusty when I looked at ’em before,” he muttered, as he handed them and the magnifier to Len that he might study them; and then he went on to say what were the particles to be seen in the rusty rock which denoted the presence of telluride of gold, and that certain other black spots, filling small cavities, seemed to be carbonate of lead, which might contain silver.
“Well,” he remarked, as the boys finished their examination, “If Pete’s got a mine of that stuff he ought to be a rich man pretty soon. It’ll assay mighty high, or I don’t know coals from chalk.”
To re-exchange the specimens and give the professor his own back again, was a matter of no great difficulty while they talked, and as both the lads were eager to get away by themselves and sing a song over their tokens of success, it was not long before they took their leave,—the warmth of that proceeding causing the old miner considerable astonishment.
“Darned queer fellows, them,” he said to himself, as he watched them go down the road very sedately for a little way, then suddenly fall to shaking one another by both hands and slapping one another’s backs.
“Bet you they’ve been a leetle too long at the El Dorado,” he suggested aloud to himself, as there was no other auditor; and Himself quite agreed with the speaker. “Now just look at that!”
They danced and chorused their yah, yahs! till they were out of breath, an ending not long delayed in the thin air of the high Rockies. And as the aged and weather-beaten wanderer looked at them, he felt such an attack of memory, and suffered such twinges of boyish feeling, as had not pierced his cynical old frame in many and many a day.
“They’re way-up boys!” he exclaimed to himself. “I hope they’ll get the drop on that cantankerous old female they call Fortune,—and I reckon they will!”
SANDY McKINNON’S EAVES-DROPPING.
CHAPTER IX.
SANDY MCKINNON’S EAVESDROPPING.
Taking the absence of Max and Len as a holiday, Sandy locked the tunnel entrance, pulled the house-door shut (it never had a lock), and started off on a long tramp up the mountain, within an hour after his partners left the cabin. He carried his rifle, intent upon both game and glory, for apart from the desire for fresh venison in the larder, he thought it would be a fine thing to go back some day to Scotland and tell how, single-handed, he had met and killed a grizzly bear on some snowy pinnacle of the wild Sierra San Juan.
He walked far and reached a great elevation. He looked abroad upon magnificent pictures, shot an elk and some smaller animals, and had a variety of interesting experiences, though he got no nearer a grizzly than to catch sight of one on the further side of an impassable chasm. But these adventures do not come into our story, which was resumed in his surprising experiences that afternoon.
Turning homeward, when warned to do so by the declining sun, he was caught in a thunder-shower, which, at the great altitude where it encountered him, meant a deluge of sleet, hail, and most uncomfortably cold rain. Drenched, sore and shivering, Sandy made his way as rapidly as he was able down toward the crest of the cliff under which the cabin was sheltered. In the foggy condition of the air,—to those in the valley this fog was a rain-cloud,—and in his weary and half-dazed state, he passed beyond the point where the faint trail led down the precipice; but early discovering his error, turned back, creeping slowly along the brink of the ledge in search of it.
He had scarcely begun the search, however, when he was startled by the sound of human voices. The first thought was that his partners had come back. The next instant, however, he perceived that the voices were strange to him, and with cautious curiosity he crept stealthily to the bushy brink and peered over the low cliff.
He found himself squarely above the entrance to the Aurora, which was hardly fifty feet beneath him. Three rough men were standing on the dump in front of the tunnel, trying to open the door, but it stood firm under their pulling. They tried some keys, but none would fit the lock, and Sandy grinned as he thought of something his grandfather used to say,—“Lock your door that you may keep your neighbor honest.”
“Let’s smash it!” exclaimed the smallest of the three, whom we know to be Stevens.
At the sound of his voice Sandy pricked up his ears; he was sure it must be the same man who had spent a night at their cabin a few days before, and stolen the knife. He could not see their faces, however, because of his position and their slouched hats.
“No,” objected the tallest, whose voice also seemed vaguely familiar to the listener—“No, we don’t want ’em to know we’ve been here; leave no traces to set ’em a-watching. We musn’t disturb nothing, and we must get out o’ here as soon as we can, so’s not to be caught prospectin’ their trail. What we want is to surprise ’em some fine mornin’, when they aint lookin’ for no visitors, drop on ’em like a gobbler on a June-bug. I reckon there’ll be some regular squealing fun ’bout that time, eh, old pard!” and Scotty banged the rheumatic back of his squint-eyed companion in a way that made Bob howl, and did Sandy’s heart good.
“You bet!” echoed Stevens, “and wont there be a racket afterward! I aint had a real red-hot blow-out in a coon’s age—I say, pard, it’ll be at my expense, remember, all at my expense. I’ll have the money and I’ll spend it too, you’ll see!”
“Nae doot,” was Sandy’s inward soliloquy overhead; “but I’m thinkin’ ye’re cawking the claith ere the wab be in the loom.”
“Oh, dry up!” came the gambler’s rejoinder. “You’re a fool! You haven’t got inside the mine yet. Now, mates, I reckon this is our best lay: To-day is Wednesday. We need time to get an outfit to live on cached near here, somewheres, so that after we’ve captured the place we can hold the fort for a little while, if they should come back at us. You see we’ve got to give ’em back their grub and furniture, cause if we take that it’s stealin’, and we aint no thieves, leastwise not in this deal.”
“A liar should hae a gude memory,” thought Sandy.
“And, besides, they could drop on us for that, whereas this is a free country and we’ve a perfect right to jump a man’s claim—”
“Pervided we kin hold it!” Old Bob interrupted.
“Yes, of course. Well, as I was a-saying, to-day’s Wednesday; and I reckon Saturday night’s about our figure. We’ll come up here in the evening, and then along about twelve o’clock we’ll capture this ’ere mine, and then bounce ’em right out o’ their beds and send ’em down the cañon. Next day, if they’re civil, we’ll give ’em their blankets and notice to leave. And if they aint civil—”
The villain paused and glared right and left at his companions, with a satanic grin on his face. Slowly drawing from the leg of his rust-red cowhide boot a huge knife, he finished the sentence with slow and venomous emphasis,—
“We’ll give ’em this!”
After that boodthirsty remark the three conspirators rose from their seats and scrambled down the farther slope of the dump.
So cold and stiff was the young Highlander with lying in wet clothes upon the rough rocks, that at first he could hardly travel; but slowly picking his way down to the cabin he made haste first to build a fire, and after
“WE’LL GIVE ’EM THIS.”
Silver Caves, [Page 98.]
giving himself a brisk rubbing, to put on dry clothing, so that no ill result ensued.
He did not enjoy that night, alone among those storm-breeding heights, nearly as much as he had expected to, yet quickly fell asleep, not to awake until rather late on the following morning.
Hurrying through breakfast, he set off at once down the trail in hope of meeting Max and Len, for he thought it important to gain every moment between that and Saturday in the effort to forestall the enemy.
FACING THE NEW SITUATION.
CHAPTER X.
FACING THE NEW SITUATION.
Sandy’s partners, meanwhile, having left the village as early as possible, had made so good progress that the three met at about the half-way point.
“Hello!” Len sang out gaily, as he caught sight of Sandy, “here’s our canny Scot! But why makest thou such a walking arsenal of thyself? ’Fraid of Injuns?”
“Weel,” was the slow reply, as the tall son of Saint Andrew glanced down at himself, “he needs a long shankit spoon wha sups kail wi’ the deil. I’m no likin’ neeknames as a rule, but may be ye’re no far wrang when you ca’ me an arsenal. Did ye obsairve the new trick I’ve learned?”
Stooping down, while the twinkle in his eyes belied the gravity of his face, he solemnly pulled from his boot-leg the long butcher-knife with which the boys were wont to slice their bacon.
This was too much. Both tumbled upon the nearest bed of moss and made the rocky walls ring with shouts of laughter, but Sandy remained as grave as an undertaker.
“Laugh at leisure, ye may greet ere e’en,” he said in his proverbial style, adding, when they had checked their merriment, “Now if you’re wantin’ to hear a vera pretty tale, why I’m willin’ to tell ye, though you’ve not been ower respectfu’ to a puir body during the last five minutes or so.”
“Oh, go on Sandy, go on. We don’t mind you’re making yourself a scalp hunter from the wild west, if you like it. Go on, let’s have your story. What sort of a mare’s nest have you found this time?”
“I’m not sure ye quite heard my remark aboot bein’ respectfu’; an’ if I ha’ foond a mare’s nest, I’m thinking ye’ll find yoursel’ unco eenterested in the aiggs.”
After this parting shot Sandy began to tell what he had seen and heard, as he lay on the edge of the cliff. Two of the men he knew, as we have seen, and his description of the third at once identified him in the minds of the rest as Old Bob.
“So that’s where you learned to carry a knife in your boot is it?”
“Ay,” admitted Sandy, “That’s where I learned it. I was tickled, dinna ye ken, wi’ the idea that a man like him, hating me as he did, should be teachin’ me sumthin’.”
“But that’s no way to carry a knife,” Max interrupted with fine contempt. “At least no gentleman would do so, though a gambler might.”
“How then?” asked Sandy, considerably crest-fallen. “Where does a gentleman usually carry his bowie-knife?”
“Down the back of his neck.”
“Weel, weel, what would my old grandmither up in Dundee say to that! This is what I’m thinkin’ she would remark, that a wise man gets learnin’ frae them that has nane to themsel’s.”
This ten-strike scored to Scotch credit, they settled down again to their study of the new situation, the full meaning of which grew upon them as they talked it over.
“It strikes me,” said Sandy, “that it wad be a gude thing if Bushwick were to go directly back to town and see that Mr. Morris. Perhaps, considerin’ a’ the saircumstances, he would watch the rascals a wee bit. I suppose he’s na ower-fond o’ that blackleg, and maybe he wad come up on Saturday night, and so gie us a bit o’ help if we happened to be needin’ it. Meanwhile Brehm an’ mysel’ will put our castle in a state o’ defense, as it were.”
This course was decided upon. Len unslung his load of groceries, ammunition, the ever-welcome mail, and other purchases, and it was shouldered by Sandy, who gave him in return one of his pistols. Then Len started back toward town, caring little for the extra walk.
The other two lads meanwhile hastened home, busily talking as they strode along.
Max recounted how Lennox had secured an entirely unbiased judgment from the old miner, who had assured them positively that the brown stuff which had been so long the object of their attention was certainly a telluride ore of gold, and apparently a rich one.
“Ay, that sounds well,” Sandy assented, “but can you be quite certain this Professor, as you dub him, kens well what he’s talkin’ aboot?”
“I think he does,” Max assured his friend, and gave his reason.
“But how has it escaped notice heretofore?” the Scotchman persisted.
“It’s an extremely uncommon ore in northern Colorado, where most of the mining has been done up to this time, and few of our citizens have ever seen it. Moreover, I suppose the early prospectors here were looking wholly for chlorides, or sulphurets, or ruby silver, or some other well known ores of that sort, and this is like none of these, or any other silver indication I know of. But if they had gone a little deeper, I am inclined to think they’d have found plenty of that, too, and consequently, that we would never have got possession of this prospect hole.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Oh, I judge so from the way the rock looks.”
“Then you think we may strike a silver ore in addition to this telluride of gold?”
“Don’t know, can’t see into the ground further’n your pick-point. Sorry I didn’t get a letter from the Denver assayer, to whom we sent our specimens for analysis. I expected to have heard from him by this time.”
As they neared the house they fell to discussing what it would be best to do toward preparing for their unwelcome visitors. Sandy asked why they could not have Old Bob and his crew arrested, whereupon Max explained the loose condition of legal matters in that country, and that they had no ground to stand a trial upon. Sandy had no witnesses to threats he had heard. They could not legally prevent any one from going on the Aurora dump, or into the Aurora tunnel, or even from staying in it, since it was not their property, and they themselves were there only by permission. This gave them no rights which they could defend without blame.
“But we have such rights in the Last Chance premises,” Sandy persisted, “and can protect that?”
“Yes, but in this region it would be a poor plan to call in the sheriff, at any rate before we’re attacked; and when the attack comes on I reckon the sight of that knife-handle sticking out of your boot-leg will keep ’em off better than all the sheriffs in the San Juan. By the way, I can find a second bowie for the other boot if you want it!”
“Not this moment, thank’ee. Then as I understand, you mean to let ’em take the Aurora, but you’ll fight for the Last Chance and the cabin, our hearthstone, as it were?”
“Yes, I don’t see what else we can do. It would be difficult to defend both if we tried, and when they get possession of the Aurora I fancy they wont go to any great trouble or risk to wrest this from us. You see they believe it is the Aurora we are working and that there the riches lie. I don’t believe they have a hint of the cross-cut or the real state of things, do you?”
“Not to judge by what I overheard yesterday. But once they get possession of the Aurora entrance, wont they be able to find it all out in a few minutes, and seize on the cross-cut and the new work? Our army is rather sma’ to garrison the mine-chamber and the cabin too; besides, how can we get in or out, if they hauld the entrance? I’m ’fraid, my friend, ye’re biting off mair than your cheeks’ll hold.”
“Not at all. Come with me and I’ll show you how I mean to begin a flank movement on the enemy.”
PREPARATIONS FOR WAR.
CHAPTER XI.
PREPARATIONS FOR WAR.
Schemes looking toward the same object were at the same time busily advancing down at the camp.
Len had made his way back as rapidly as possible, and fortunately met Morris just as he was riding away into the mountains to be gone over night. He explained to him the whole situation, excepting that interview at the Professor’s, and at once enlisted his sympathy and interest. This was doubled when he heard that the real leader of the would-be jumpers was his antagonist in that El Dorado affair of which we have heard, whose overthrow would give him much satisfaction. He promised, therefore, that he would watch the three rascals sharply, and would certainly be on hand if they made any attempt to carry out their plans.
“More’n that,” he said, “I shouldn’t wonder if Buckeye Jim would be there too. That was all bosh, of course, that I told Bob about his being dead. I didn’t suppose the old fool’d swallow it as slick as he did. All the boys know he’s ’live and hearty, and he wrote me he was coming up here in a few days. If he’s on hand I ’low there’ll be some fun.”
“I hope there wont be any fighting,” said Len.
“Oh, of course, we all hope that; we’re all men of peace up here! All the same, if we should happen to want to shoot at a mark on t’other dump, or something of that kind, for a little amusement, after supper, you know, why it would do any fellow proud that happened to be over there, to kind o’ lay low, don’t you see, for fear of stray bullets, cause Jim and me shoots kind o’ free when once we turn loose.”
And having delivered himself of this long and oracular speech, Morris shook hands and turned his broncho’s head up hill.
Len might now have gone home, but he thought it worth while, as another mail would come in soon, to wait for possible letters, or what were even more desirable, the newspapers and magazines that his far-away people at home sent with pleasant frequency. He was rewarded by a bundle of these, and one letter, addressed to Max. It bore the card of the Denver assayer to whom specimens of the ore from the interior of the Last Chance had been sent for analysis. Perhaps it might dash their hopes, and his hand trembled a little as he put it away in his pocket. Then he tied the newspapers in his rubber coat, flung it over his shoulder, and had turned his face homeward, when a thought struck him.
Going back, he walked round the corner to the office of the Bull Pup mine, which had been bought, and was now operated, by a Mr. Anderson, the same eastern capitalist whose refusal to buy Old Bob’s prospect had been the beginning of Max’s adventures and our history, Len’s intention was to ask the agent whether Mr. Anderson was expected at the camp soon, and what was his present address.
In response to these questions he learned that Mr. Anderson would arrive ten days hence, and that meanwhile he could be communicated with at Denver.
“I think, if you will let me sit down here a moment, I will write a letter to him,” said Lennox.
“Certainly,” the agent replied, and gave him pen and paper.
His letter was a short one. It merely recalled Max Brehm and himself to Mr. Anderson’s recollection, stated that they had opened a prospect tunnel wherein they believed they had discovered good indications of a new and valuable sort of gold ore in paying quantities, and begged him to come and see it as soon as he could, with a view of buying a part of it, or otherwise helping them to develop the mine.
This done, Len lost no time in leaving town.
Not a sign of either of the three blacklegs had he seen all day, and when on his way out he passed Old Bob’s cabin, it was dark and silent.
In fact these worthies were not in town, but early in the morning had gone up the creek with two pack-loads of tools, provisions, and so on, which they cached at Bob’s old prospect-hole, the Cardinal, in order to have them convenient after they had jumped the Aurora and had driven B. B. & Co., dead or alive, out of the cañon.
A new moon was just holding its sickle over the notch in the mountains toward which the cañon opened, when Len reached the cabin, where his tired partners were getting supper; and he was glad to learn, a little later, that they approved his course in writing the letter to Mr. Anderson.
Two days remained before the expected attack, and the firm agreed that out of these must be squeezed all possible advantage, by double work. This was a time when, if their fortune was to be made, or even if the results already achieved were to be saved, every effort must be put forth. They had wit enough to see that whether the Last Chance held a fortune, or contained nothing, it would never do to relinquish it at this stage of trial.
Men who were on the threshold of success have failed to attain it often because of the want of sagacity to understand, and of energy and self-sacrifice to work hard, at just such a crisis as this. The next man, seizing with a firm grip, and holding his chances at every risk until the opposition has vanished, finds a great reward.
But in order that our friends might hold on to their property it was necessary to put it on a war footing. Their way of operating the mine through the Aurora’s tunnel must be abandoned, of course, unless they proposed to defend that, too, which they could not do, as they had no legal rights there. The plan proposed, then, was to enlarge the waterway through their own vein into a tunnel of serviceable size, and at the same time to turn the stream of water into the Aurora, and drain the whole of the remoter part of the mine out that way.
They abandoned their arrangement of two-hour stints, and all worked together just as hard as they knew how.
Going into the interior chamber of the mine, they first dug a drain through the cross-cut, and then, as fast as they tore down the rock in enlarging their own tunnel outward, it was heaped up in the cross-cut; for they wished to block that up completely. By Friday night this barrier was almost built.
All were stiff and sore when they arose at daybreak on Saturday morning, but each knew they could not afford to spare themselves, and that this one day’s hardship might be repaid tenfold.
Before noon they tapped the main fountain, and brought its stream, which would have measured a foot wide and a foot deep, into their new drain.
When this great point had been gained, they felt that the worst was over, and by night they had finished barricading the cross-cut. They were obliged that evening, when their day’s work was done, to worm their way out to daylight through the narrow, ragged, insecure, and still dripping waterway which threaded the Last Chance, but was by no means a tunnel in any proper sense of the word, nor a safe place for a man to work in.
Lennox, who was of slighter build, and at the same time of more enthusiastic temperament than his associates, was entirely used up when he reached daylight, and could only fall down and lie still. Fortunately for him, however, Sandy and Max had strength enough left to cook supper.
While they were eating supper, and before darkness had come, the three young miners were startled by a loud hallo, and on running to the door saw Morris sitting on horseback at the foot of the dump.
“Can I ride up?” he called out.
“No, leave your nag down there. I’ll show you later how to get him around behind the cabin, where there is some pasture.”
So Morris drew the bridle reins over his horse’s head and let them hang down from the bit, knowing that by this sign the horse would understand that he was to stay where he was until his rider returned. Then he scrambled up the rough side of the dump, saying, as he reached the top and shook hands with Max:
“Well, you needn’t worry over any jumpers to-night.”
“Why,” exclaimed Len. “What’s up?”
“Oh, the regular thing with that crowd. The minute they got a little excited over a scheme, they had to go and drink a lot o’ whisky on it, and there they are, sittin’ round the El Dorado, stupid as ground-hogs. That is, two of ’em are; that beauty they call Scotty was a-begging to fight all hands when I came away. I reckon somebody’ll accommodate him before midnight.”
“An’ did ye say he’s called Scotty?” asked Sandy, appearing in the doorway of the cabin for the first time.
“Yes,—why, hello, stranger! You know the El Dorado, when you see it, don’t you? How are you,” extending his hand with great cordiality, “put it thar! I shouldn’t wonder if we could pull a double team when it comes to layin’ out that same gambler from over the range, eh?”
“Weel, we hae done something o’ the kind a’ready, Mr. Morris, an’ I dare say he’s no in love wi’ eyther of us.”
“Not he. He’d like nothing better than to blow up the whole of us with giant powder. Now how are you fellows going to handle this crowd when they do try it on? I thought if you didn’t mind I’d stay and see the fun. Likely enough I could help you some. When my Winchester here turns loose people ’d better stand one side!”
So they explained to him how they had used the Aurora as a new means of entrance to their mine, the cutting of the cross-cut through the dyke, and the way they had closed this approach by turning all the water into the other tunnel and barricading the cross-cut.
“You see we had no right in the Aurora, and couldn’t fairly fight for it. So we made up our minds to let ’em jump that and welcome.”
“But I have rights there—Jim and I own that together, and you’ve done enough work on it to keep up the assessment, so that it’s ours, and nobody can jump it while I’m around, unless they’re a heap stronger ’n I am.”
They argued with Morris as to the uselessness of this resolution. He admitted that the Aurora wasn’t worth fighting over, but urged that it riled him to have it drop into the clutches of such small potatoes as Old Bob and his pals.
Finally, however, it was agreed that the question of defending the Aurora should be left until the attacking party appeared; and, meanwhile, that they would devote themselves to getting their own property into still better shape.
That night, relieved of the strain of watching, they had a long and refreshing sleep, continued until far into the morning, for this was Sunday.
The day of rest passed quietly.
Early on Monday they were at work again, Morris helping. Two had picks and labored in the interior of the tunnel, enlarging the passage-way. A third shoveled the rock torn down into a wheelbarrow and carried it part way out, where the fourth gave him an empty wheelbarrow, took his full one, and dumped the débris at the mouth of the mine.
By this arrangement somebody was outside nearly all the time and could watch against any surprise from the enemy, at the same time contributing his share of labor.
All of Tuesday and Wednesday they were undisturbed, and made such good progress that by Wednesday evening a man could pass readily into the farthest part of the mine, the barricade protecting the cross-cut easily against any enemy who could get to it by way of the flooded Aurora. It was a great gain in another direction, too, for they were expecting Mr. Anderson, and could now show him the whole length of the mine.
THE ENEMY APPEARS.
CHAPTER XII.
THE ENEMY APPEARS.
On Wednesday afternoon Len stopped work a little earlier than the others, though it was quite dusk, and left the mine to get supper. Turning his gaze down the cañon, the moment he came to the mouth of the tunnel, he saw three men on horseback riding up the trail nearly a mile away. It was merely by good chance that he happened to catch a glimpse of them, for had he been a moment later they would have been out of sight, not to reappear until the ford of the creek was reached, which was only a few yards beyond the foot of the Aurora dump.
Dropping his shovel he ran back and reported, whereupon all hands hastened to the mouth of the tunnel, and lay down behind a rough sort of wall of loose rocks which had been heaped up in front of the cabin in clearing the space around the door.
Ten or fifteen minutes passed, and the twilight was fast becoming dense in the cañon, though on the mountain-tops a full blaze of light glowed strong and red, bringing out every glorious feature of the white-headed old peaks.
Soon was heard the stumbling clatter, not loud, yet distinct enough, of horses’ shodden feet on the stony path, and, as the riders came nearer, the faint sound of human voices. A moment after this the three figures came into view, riding cautiously through the ford, peering right and left, with guns in readiness, as though fearful of ambuscades. A few steps further took them out of sight behind the jutting headland of the Aurora dump.
Then came sounds denoting that the jumpers had dismounted and were unsaddling. The clatter of the heavy wooden stirrups echoed along the rocky walls of the narrow gulch as the saddles were flung down.
After a short interval of silence, it became plain, by the rattle of rolling stones, that the invaders were charging up the dump. Instead of trying to steal to the top, they sprang up as fast as they could scramble.
“It’s evident,” whispered Sandy, “that they’re expectin’ to catch us in that tunnel like a fox wi’ his ’earth’ stopped. But it’s a puir fox that has na mair than one hole to his burrow!”
Sandy seemed to have hit it, for their first act, when Bob, Scotty and Stevens had reached the crest, and found no one there, was to rush to the door as though to shut it and fasten it.
Imagine their chagrin when they saw that it was already closed, and that a great quantity of water was rushing out under the sill. They pointed one another to it, as though asserting that nobody could work in a tunnel which was as nearly flooded as that. Still, to make matters quite sure, they began to heap great rocks at the door and kept at it until no three giants, much less our not over stalwart friends, could have forced it open.
It was vastly amusing to the spectators to see these men, who were more distinguished for their laziness than for their energy, toil at the big stones, and when, having made sure they’d secured full possession of the place, they sat down and wiped their brows, Max and Len and Sandy suddenly rose up and wished them good-evening.
“Thought you’d tree’d us in that hole, eh?” Len sings out with a sneering laugh. “Not much! We’ve been waiting for you fellows half the week. Why didn’t you come up Saturday night as you promised?”
Astounded and angry, the three ruffians hurled back a lot of brag and bad language, the substance of which was that nobody dare come and take back the Aurora.
They replied with a laugh, and went in with a parting shot in broad Scotch: “It’s the life o’ an auld hat to be weel cockit.”
Morris had already sneaked into the house and was slicing bacon for supper.
“I’ll lay low for the present, I reckon,” he said, “’t wont do no harm, and it may be worth something to let those fellows think you’re alone.”
A few moments later Sandy stepped out, and was amazed to find two of the adversaries stealing up the bank beside the cabin.
His alarm brought Max and Len in a hurry, and when they found themselves discovered the roughs retreated in great haste and a cloud of wrathful phrases, while Max shouted: “Hereafter we shall be watching, and it wont be healthy for any man to set foot on this side of the gulch.”
“Those men mean business, for sure,” Morris asserted, and added this counsel: “We musn’t show ourselves any mor’n we can help, and especially at night by the firelight. And it wouldn’t be a bad idea to make a better breastwork when it gets so dark they can’t see what we’re doing.”
“We might hang blankets on the wall along that side of the cabin, so that no one could see to shoot through the chinks,” Len suggested.
“Yes, that’s a good scheme, and somebody must be on watch night and day lest they play some trick on us. I don’t think they’ll shoot in the daytime, but I’ll bet they’ll take the first chance at night they can get. I tell you, gentlemen, not only your mine, but your lives are at stake in this yere scrimmage, and it’ll stand you in hand to take mighty good care of ’em.”
This was from Morris and was sober talk, but seemed to be no less than the truth, considering the character of the desperadoes.
Acting upon the suggestion, in his prompt, quiet way, Max remarked that he would take the first watch, and going to the door of the cabin which, it will be remembered, looked down the cañon, and hence faced the Aurora, opened it and started to pass out.
Before he could step across the threshold, a faint report rang out, not loud nor sharp, for the air was too thin to let much noise be made, and with an audible ping a bullet splintered the log over the door.
Max dropped so quickly his chums thought for an instant he must have been hurt, but he shouted “Keep back! Keep back!” and at once began to wriggle forward under cover of the wall toward the brink of the dump.
Dropping on hands and knees they followed him, and a few seconds later all four were lying behind the pile of stones, peering out into the gloom.
Nothing could be seen, or even heard, for a time, but presently muttered talking was detected on the other hillock and our friends concluded that the shot did not mean an attack, but had been fired, sharpshooter fashion, when Max exposed himself in the brightly lighted doorway. The enemy’s camp had evidently been made down behind the shelter of the dump, as was shown by the light reflected from the fire, but neither the blaze nor its kindlers were visible, so that the compliment of the shot could not have been returned had our boys felt so disposed.
“I make no doot they’re watching us as shairp as we’re peerin’ at them,” whispered Sandy; “and the sooner we improve our fortifications, the better.”
Max watched until midnight, then crept softly to where Morris was stretched upon the cabin floor and asked him to take his place; but nothing disturbed them, and the next morning two of the boys went to their work in the mine, leaving two outside on guard. These improved their time in strengthening the breastwork and in curtaining with blankets that wall of the cabin. In the afternoon they exchanged places with the men in the tunnel.
The jumpers were seen about the Aurora, but nothing was said to them. They broke down the mine door, and penetrated the tunnel a short distance, but soon returned, discouraged by the wetness within.
The night passed quietly and Friday morning went by without any incident. About the middle of the afternoon, while Len and Sandy were outside, Old Bob and Scotty came to the edge of the Aurora dump, and held aloft a pole with a handkerchief, supposed to be white, tied upon it, which they waved toward the cabin.
“What do you mean by that?” Len sung out, for he and Sandy happened to be on duty as sentinels.
“Flag o’ truce,” Bob yelled back. “One o’ you fellers come down in the hollow and meet me. I want to talk. Leave yer gun behind. I aint got no arms, you see. Will you come?”
“I reckon. Hold on, I’ll see my partner!”
Len lighted a little lamp and disappeared into the mine, whence he returned in five minutes. Max and Morris came as far as the door, but did not show themselves.
“All right,” Len called out, as he blew out his lamp and climbed over the breastwork. “Come down in the hollow if you want to talk.”
Old Bob moved clumsily down from the Aurora to meet him, while Sandy perched himself on the wall and Bob’s friends stood behind him on their own knoll.
A FLAG OF TRUCE.
CHAPTER XIII.
A FLAG OF TRUCE.
The younger man reached the bottom the sooner, and sitting down began to shy pebbles at a bowlder a few yards below, to see how far they would glance.
Bob came lumbering down the slope of loose stones, took a seat pretty near Len, and slowly drawing his knife from his pocket, opened it with great deliberation and began to whittle at a bit of spruce bark.
Nothing was said for some time, and neither took any notice of the other. Each was waiting for his opponent to begin. At last the eager disposition of the young Virginian, who never could bear to waste time in going about whatever he had to do, and who in consequence had often exemplified the maxim “more haste less speed,” overcame his reserve and broke the silence.
“Well, Bob,” he began in a careless manner, “I never expected to see you in as mean a scrape as this.”
If our embassador had studied over it for a week, he could not have made a remark which would better serve his purpose. Bob had long deemed himself a very wily old dog indeed. He had boasted of this to his associates more than once, and had assured them that they would see how, on this occasion, he would “argify and bamboozle that young cub of a Bushwick” until, figuratively speaking, he had tied him all up in a bundle and laid him away on a shelf in safe storage.
But Len’s cool remark, driving straight home to the very heart and spirit of all his pretensions, let the wind out of Old Bob’s behavior and arguments together. It angered him in an instant, and when a diplomat gets angry he loses his power. Instead of the soft words and sly reasoning by which he had hoped to fool his antagonist into opening his doors to the treachery which it was intended should follow; instead of the pretty speeches which Bob had carefully thought out and talked over, came furious retorts, bad language, and threats, to which Len listened with the utmost composure.
The substance of it all was, that Bob and his precious accomplices had jumped the mine, and yet they hadn’t jumped it, rightly speaking, because they had as much right there as anybody. The claim had been abandoned, and if anybody had gone to work at it why that was at their own risk, and they mustn’t complain when another man came along and took it away from the first party.
“Now I’ve got this yere ’Rora mine,” Bob shouted excitedly, “and I’m goin’ to keep it, don’t you forget that! An’ wot’s more, my friend Mr. Stevens is agoin’ to jump that claim you’re holdin’ now, ’n’ that cabin. That cabin belonged to my friend Pickens, ’n’ he told me, before he went away, that if I wanted it I could have it, and I can prove it.”
“Now,” Bob kept on, “you young roosters ’d better give up and crawl out. We’ll give you a chance to get away and take your blankets and things if you’ll quit peaceable-like and git out. We don’t want no trouble, nor nobody hurted.”
“Then why did you put a ball into our doorpost?” interrupted his listener.
“Scotty did that. I told him’t wa’n’t on the squar, an’ ’twas kinder haxidental anyhow. If you’ll quit shootin’ at us we wont shoot at you,—an’ I wouldn’t nohow.”
“We haven’t fired a shot.”
“You’re jist ready to all the time,” Bob persisted, “so’s we gentlemen can’t work our property for fear of you.”
“You ‘gentlemen’! Your ‘property’!” repeated Lennox, with infinite scorn.
“Yes, ours. And, as I was sayin’, we’ll go to town and get help, if we arn’t enough alone, and we’ll bounce you out o’ that cabin which we want for ourselves, and you may thank your stars if you yet out with whole skins. The hull filin’ of ye must pack up and scoot ’fore sundown.”
“That’s rather sudden,” Len pleaded; “can’t you give us till to-morrow morning? It looks like it was going to rain to-night.”
“Well, we don’t want to be rough on young chaps like you, though you’re too cheeky for these parts,” Bob conceded, thinking he had frightened the lad; “and we wont crowd ye to-night. But, by this, that and the other! if you don’t skip out early to-morrow you’ll hear from us, you bet!”
“All right!” Len rejoined. “I’ll tell the boys. I’m glad you gave us till to-morrow to get out, for it looks mighty like a storm to-night.”
It required only a very brief report from Lennox to acquaint the firm with what Bob had threatened, and, no doubt, would try to carry out.
“They have no suspicion,” Len asserted, “that Morris is with us, and it will be a good thing if we can continue to keep it secret.”
“They’ll find it out mighty sudden and pointed-like,” muttered Morris, “if they don’t play cautious.”
There was a pause for a moment or two, until Len remarked that he supposed something should be said, or the enemy would think they intended to act upon Bob’s bluster and abandon the claim, “which, of course, nobody thinks of doing for an instant.”
“I understand it’s ours, fair and square,” said Sandy, “and sin’ possession’s nine points of the law, we might as well haud on for the other point. I remember that my grandfeyther used to say to us bairns,—‘better to keep the deil wi’oot the door, than drive him oot o’ the hoose.’ I’m thinking, though, I’d like to take that gambler-man by the nape of his neck and gie him the name of an auld Scotch dance down the bank,—I mean the Highland fling, ye ken?”
Max did not join in the laugh; in his despondent way, he was filled with hesitation which none of the others felt. Had he been quite alone, I’m not sure how much he might have wavered, postponed, and yielded; but while all were waiting for him to say something, a shout came across from the other dump:
“What’re you fellers a-goin’ to do?”
Len was roused. The indignation he had repressed hitherto now came to the surface.
“I’ll show those miserable sneaks that they can’t bluff me!” he exclaimed; and springing upon a heap of stones, he yelled back:
“You know you lied about your right to this mine. We bought it and we’re going to keep it. If you want it you’ve got to take it, and you’d better look right sharp after your own stake. This is ‘what we’re a-goin’ to do!’”
“Well,” said Max, as the excited lad leaped down out of rifle-range, “you’ve declared war for certain, and I imagine we’ll have to fight it out on this line if it takes all—”
“Don’t say ‘summer’; there’s snow and frost enough in this wind to furnish a Virginia January.”
“Well—all Winter, then. But they wont try it on—they know better.”
Evidently Max’s indecisions were over.
“No,” Morris agreed, “I don’t think they’ll attack by themselves, but they can make about as much trouble for you by simply staying there.”
“Besides,” Sandy put in, “one of ’em’ll start to town as soon as it comes dark, and na doot can find plenty o’ their own kind, who wad like na better sport than to join in a scheme o’ this nature.”
“I can put a stop to that,” said Morris.
“How?”
“Nobody’ll try to get away till night, and by that time I’ll be down there to stop him, whoever he is, and send him back again with a flea in his ear.”
“How will you get down the cañon without their spotting you?”
“I’ll climb up the cliff and work my way down about a quarter of a mile away. I know a spot that’ll suit me to a T. I wish Buckeye Jim was here, we’d make a break for those jumpers and clean out the whole nest in no time. He’d ought to a’ been here before this. Mebbe he’s in town now—there’s no telling.”
“Likely enough Mr. Anderson is there by this time, too,” said Len.
“Why, would it not be a good plan, borrowing a hint from the adversary, for one of us to go to town and be ready to hasten these gentlemen, or perhaps get assistance otherwise?”
It was Sandy who made this suggestion, to which, at first, there was only silent attention.
“I’m thinkin’ that the three of us left can stand off, as ye say, those fellows yonder, and if we can manage to hold ’em all in, our agent would come back with an overwhelming force and put ’em wholly to rout.”
“I guess you’re right, Sandy—but who shall go?”
“Weel, I’m vera willing to do that, or anything as ye weel ken, but I’m so much of a stranger in town, that probably I could be of more use here.”
“I reckon I’m your man,” said Len. “Max and Morris are both too heavy weights to be spared from the garrison, while I can do as well on this errand as any one else, I suppose.”
“It’s no fun for you to walk all the way down that mountain trail, with the weather so threatening, but undoubtedly you might gain a great deal for us,” Max interposed.
“If he didn’t get any more men to come up,” Morris suggested, “he might be able to stop the other crowd’s getting any recruits.”
“Yes, that’s so. When shall I start?”
“The sooner the better,” said Max and Sandy in the same breath.
“Meaning after dark this evening,” added Morris. “You go along down with me, and mebbe I’ll show you a bit of fun to cheer you up. It’ll be early moonlight; you wont have a bad tramp.”