THE HIDDEN TREASURE.
Snow had fallen thick and fast during the night, and as we looked out over the prairie and saw it still being driven in long rolling drifts by the strong western wind, we shuddered and turned again gratefully to the fire within the house.
The cold was so intense on that winter morning that we were slow in getting out to our daily duties, a dilatoriness which we shared with our fellow-citizens of the frontier town. When late during the day we strolled down the street, we were struck by a change in the appearance of what had been one of the dreariest, most desolate and dilapidated houses in the place. The house had been vacant for some time, but there was on the morning of which we speak unmistakable evidence of life within its roughly built walls.
In the early spring three young men had paid our town a visit. They did not remain long; apparently they were not favorably impressed with its appearance or with the manner of its citizens. Our people were certainly not of a style to attract, nor did they on their part care for the presence of strangers. This peculiarity probably arose from the fact that respectable strangers seldom found their way there, and the townsmen had lost all desire to cultivate the acquaintance of any but those who belonged to the community. Being, as we have said, a frontier town, situated not far from the international boundary line, many fugitives from justice had sought refuge among us, and the presence of such an element was not conducive to the growth of the town, either socially or commercially. The shanties which these rough characters had made their homes were, during the long winter nights, veritable pandemoniums, and the looks and behavior of their occupants were sufficient to deter any honest young man from taking up residence among us. Many of the houses, like that we have described, had fallen into a dilapidated condition; log buildings were falling to pieces, while in many of them factory cotton stretched over the sashes was the substitute for glass long since broken, or possibly never inserted. The roadways, too, were in a wretched condition, even on the one street the town could boast of.
It was little wonder, therefore, that the young men referred to had made so short a stay in the town. Following the river, and choosing a beautiful site on its banks farther north, they had pitched their buffalo-skin lodge, and there they had lived for the months preceding our story, cutting cord-wood, fishing and shooting.
We had seen so little of these men that we did not at first connect them with the altered appearance of the old shanty on this bitter winter morning. In a town like ours, the inhabitants of which were composed of such a heterogeneous mixture of men and manners, we did not ask many questions of who or what a man was, unless there appeared to be some good cause for such inquiries. It was only after we recognized in two of the young men the strangers who had passed through the town in the early spring, that the surmise occurred to us that the third might be the inmate of the old house.
We learned that the poor fellow had been ill for some time, and as he grew worse and the weather more severe, his companions had decided to bring him into the town, and see if any better help could not be procured for him than they could give in their camp.
The hearts of the rough and even the most wicked men in the West beat tenderly for the helpless, and it is well known that many of the most hardened among them will give their last cent, aye, even their last crust, to aid such among them as are rendered helpless by accident, misfortune or disease. This characteristic trait of the old-timer was known to these strangers, and their confidence in the manifestation of sympathy for their friend was not misplaced. They had brought the sick man into town upon a rudely-made sled, taking the precaution to wrap him warmly in buffalo robe and blanket, that he might be protected from the cold. The journey over the smooth snow had been safely accomplished, but the bed they found in the rough shanty was of the barest description. They had, however, made the best they could of it. A curtain over the windows, the floor well swept, and the simple furniture, consisting of the merest necessaries, gave it at least a habitable appearance. Here his friends left him.
Learning the poor man was alone, we went to see him. At first, although it was evident he was anxious for sympathy and help, he regarded us with suspicion. The water left by his bedside was frozen in the cup, the fire had gone out, and the cold wind seemed to find its way through every crack and crevice in the rude log walls. The man was pale and emaciated, and, when spoken to, his replies were interrupted by the difficulty of breathing and pain of body.
"You have been sick for some time?" we asked.
"Yes—some—weeks."
"Where is your home?'
"In—Oregon."
"Are your parents living?"
"Yes."
"Have you any money?" A quick glance of suspicion was the only reply to this last question. We hastened to explain that we had no desire for his money, and our question was prompted only by a wish to help him.
"We have come to do what we can for you, and if you have no money, we can get some and use it for you, and see that you want for nothing."
"I guess—I'm not—down—to bed-rock—yet," was the muttered reply.
"Will you tell us your name?" we asked.
"Jerry—Lindley."
We needed no deep knowledge of the man to recognize that this was not his true name. We were not unprepared for it. Many of the old-timers had several, and it was not until we became intimate with them that we learned their true names.
We went again many times to see Jerry, and always found him alone. It seemed strange that his companions should desert him, and we also noticed that the old-timers avoided his shanty. They were not as ready to afford him the aid usually given to the lonely and helpless, whose lot it was to be among them. Jerry was a castaway—ostracized by whiskey-traders and gamblers. Why or wherefore we failed to learn.
The weather grew colder, the sick man every day worse, and at last it became absolutely necessary to remove him to some warmer shelter than the old shanty. There was in the town an old man who was known by the name of Kamusi, a genuine specimen of the "old-timer." He was rough and ready in language and manners, drank freely and gambled and grumbled continually, yet in all the country there was not a more tender-hearted man. He had an Indian wife and several half-breed children, whom he loved intensely and swore at incessantly. He led a careless, easy-going and, in some respects, a wild life, yet he was the most liberal giver to the Indian school and mission church. The log building, consisting of the kitchen, where Ling, the Chinaman, cooked, a small dining-room, a billiard and bar-room, which represented the hotel in the town, was owned and kept by Kamusi. This rough old man offered to take Jerry in and care for him free of expense.
We carried the sick man on a blanket, and laid him on an old mattress in the corner of the billiard-room. There, amid the strange surroundings of men and women, Indians, Mounted Police, half-breeds, traders, cowboys, and rough settlers, the sick man lay slowly dying. We went to see him frequently, and endeavored to lead his thoughts upward to higher things. The men at the billiard table, as we talked, would often lower their voices or play more quietly in deference to our presence, or it might be to the near approach of the deepening shadow of the death-angel's wings; and eager as they were over the games or the sums at stake, they gave many a thought to the dying man so near to them.
We had succeeded in getting a doctor to look at him, but he could do no more than repeat our own opinion that the man had not long to live. As we tried to tell him of the way of peace, and prayed, our hands resting on the side of the billiard table, the gamesters ceased, doffed their hats, and let their cues rest on the floor. Such a prayer-meeting, in such a place and with such a congregation, could not but leave abiding memories in many hearts, and, we trust, led some to better living.
A few days before his death one of Jerry's old comrades returned, and by his devoted attention and continuous watch over the dying man aroused the suspicions of some of the men who frequented the billiard-room. Rumors were soon floating about that Jerry was known to have possessed several hundred dollars. No one knew where it was hidden, and the general opinion was that Tom Hastings was after no good.
One night just before Jerry died, and after a draught had been given him to ease the pain he was suffering, he seemed anxious to communicate some intelligence. Unable to speak, he traced, with feeble, trembling fingers, some straggling characters on the wall against which he lay. We could not decipher their meaning, but the men standing near seemed to understand. Presently two of them mounted their horses and rode out of the town.
Jerry died the next day, and we buried him on the prairie. No one, not even his two "pals," knew or could tell where Jerry came from. We made some inquiries, but failed to find any of his relatives or obtain information of where his parents lived. We knew no more about him than what he had told us himself in answer to our first questions.
Some days after his companion's death, Tom Hastings went south with an ox-train. Before he left he paid all who had incurred any expense in befriending the sick man. Pete Rowley, the third of the trio, remained in the country and seemed to prosper for a time. He never worked, but was always well dressed and appeared to have all the money he required. After hovering about the billiard tables for several months he disappeared. No one cared to ask where he had gone.
What the writing on the wall betrayed, who had found the treasure whose hiding-place Jerry's trembling hand had described, we never knew; but we often thought that if wrong had been done by any or either of his friends, a day of retribution would surely come to the one who had acquired it, and the mystery surrounding it would then be fully revealed.