Story 1—Chapter XX.
Indian Alarms.
The men now worked with unflagging vigour. The cross-cut was first pushed across the vein, which was found to extend thirteen feet beyond the side of the shaft. It was not unbroken quartz, as here and there the rock came in, but seemed to consist of four separate veins, which sometimes joined together, sometimes were separated by partitions of rock. The richest portion of the vein was two feet from the farthest wall, and here the gold was everywhere thickly scattered through the quartz. Now, they drove right and left along the course of the lode, and found that in both directions the walls were coming closer together.
“It is only a pocket,” Ernest Wilton said. “You will see that in about five fathoms either way the quartz will finish in to its usual width, and become poor. However, we must not mind that; if it holds for a few fathoms in depth there will be half a million pounds’ worth at least. Twenty tons of quartz like this we see would suffice to make us all rich men, and we know that there is double that at least.”
As the young engineer predicted, the lode fell away to its original width, and soon ceased to carry visible gold.
Then they began to sink deeper. Twenty feet lower the walls of the lode again began to approach each other, and there was now a possibility of calculating the amount of quartz in the “pocket.”
“I am of opinion,” Ernest Wilton said, “that there will be fifty tons of the richest stuff, and nearly two hundred of what I may call second class, but which is still exceedingly rich. But it is time now that we should carry out our plans. We must get up a small mill with five stamps, with a wheel to be worked by water from the mountain stream. It is likely enough that such a set could be got in one of the mining-camps, and I must make a short journey to Bismark and perhaps further west in search of gear. While I am away, the men will have to cut a leet to bring the water along the side of the hill from the torrent, and get all the quartz out of the mine.”
All this time, however, even with the confident expectation of untold wealth being now almost within his grasp, not one of the party had forgotten the parting threat of Rising Cloud, and his warning that, ere many months were over, the camp at Minturne Creek would be assailed by the Sioux tribe in full force.
Indeed, if Mr Rawlings or Seth, or Noah especially, who had had such a long experience of the dangers of backwoods life away from the settlements, and thoroughly appreciated the old adage that “he who is forewarned is forearmed,” were at all inclined to laugh at the Indian’s declaration as an empty boast, many circumstances would have constrained them to alter their opinion, and make them be prepared for anything that might happen.
In the first place, a stage used to run from Bismark to the Black Hills at stray intervals, when they first camped at Minturne Creek—although it did not come within some miles of their own valley—and continued running until the winter set in; but when the spring developed, and the roads got in working order again, no stage was to be met with; and rumour had it that it had been “frightened off the track by the Injuns.”
In the early months of summer this rumour received additional confirmation by the arrival of some scouts from the settlements, with the news that the Sioux had declared war against the United States authorities, and that all the outlying settlers had been warned to withdraw into the townships, where they could join together and resist any attack made on them.
And, later still, a special messenger from one of the military stations on the Missouri, where “Uncle Sam’s” troops were quartered, brought them word that intelligence had been received that Rising Cloud had published his intention of attacking the Minturne Creek miners especially, and that his band of warriors had already started on the war-path—although the commander of the detachment at Fort Warren assured them that he was following up the Indians, and would revenge them should they happen to get “wiped out” before he came up with the redskins!
This, naturally, was no very cheering intelligence; but the miners were not discouraged, although they took every wise precaution so that their wary foe should not catch them napping; and so, whether they were working in the mine or went hunting—as they did more frequently when the buffalo came northwards later on, led from the southern plains, which form their more common habitat throughout the year, by the rich blue grass, and other prairie delicacies which these bovine beasts loved, that flourished among the valleys of the Black Hills; or whether they were digging in the kitchen garden that Josh and Jasper had improvised at the back of the little hut where they all lived—every man went armed or had his arms handy. In addition to this, sentinels were posted through the day at the entrance of the Creek, to warn them of the approach of any suspicious strangers to the camp; while Seth caused as rigid a watch to be kept at night, taking the first and fourth turns himself, as if he were still a first mate with the responsibilities of a ship on his hands and walking the deck of the Susan Jane.