CHAPTER XIII.
THE LITTLE SCHEME WHICH FAILED.
The one main street of Rocky Gulch was lit up from end to end by the numerous kerosene lamps which burned in the saloons and other buildings lining the right-hand side of the thoroughfare.
Every drinking place had its crowd of patrons, attracted by various devices, such as a wheezy piano played by an indifferent performer, an asthmatic flute, from which uncertain notes floated out on the night air, or a squeaky violin in the hands of a poor musician.
The miners of Rocky Gulch, however, were not particular to a shade.
Like children, they were easily pleased by any old thing.
And the more liquor they imbibed the less they cared for the entertainment provided to draw them into the saloon.
In the very last house of resort in the row two men were seated by themselves at a rough apology for a table, talking earnestly together and paying very little attention to the rest of the assembled company, which had begun to thin out somewhat.
The pair in question was composed of Otis Clymer and Dave Plunkett.
They had arrived at Rocky Gulch the day before, after a visit to Trinity, where they had gone after finding they had been euchred in the mine scheme. They had made this trip for the purpose of shadowing Gideon Prawle and the boys, in an effort to discover some means of recovering their lost advantage.
They had found no difficulty in becoming acquainted with the immediate plans of the rightful owners of the deserted copper mine, and laid plans accordingly to try and circumvent them.
They had made friends with the proprietor of the saloon in which they were now seated, and instead of putting up at the hotel when they came back this time, they arranged to bunk in this place.
After sounding the saloonkeeper, whose name was Coffey, they had partially taken him into their confidence—that is, to the extent of telling him they wanted to get possession of the Sanders claim at Beaver Creek—without betraying the fact that the ground covered a copper deposit of great value.
They told Coffey that the Prawle party had got ahead of them, and they were anxious to turn the tables on them.
Coffey was a man of no principle at all, and this fact had recommended him to their notice.
He suggested to Clymer and Plunkett that a good plan would be to try and steal the bill of sale given by Jim Sanders to Prawle.
As neither of the two conspirators had the nerve to engage in such a hazardous enterprise himself, Coffey proposed, for a $20 bill, to send a Chinaman he employed about the premises, on this mission to the camp of the newcomers at the creek.
He introduced them to Meen Fun, who he said was the individual for the job.
So the Mongolian was duly instructed and dispatched.
“If he succeeds in getting his fingers on that paper the game will be in our hands,” said Plunkett to his partner in the nefarious scheme, as they sat at the table in Coffey’s saloon awaiting the return of their moon-eyed agent.
“Yes,” coincided Clymer, “for we have already managed to get a duplicate from Sanders in our own names to take the place of the original. A hundred dollar bill will induce the old soak to swear that he sold the claim to us, and that he doesn’t know anything about this man Prawle and his companions.”
“Coffey says we can depend on the Celestial to get the document, if it is to be obtained, for he says the Old Nick isn’t a circumstance alongside of Meen Fun,” returned Plunkett, blowing a cloud of smoke ceiling-ward as he puffed one of the establishment’s villainous cigars.
“If it is to be obtained!” ejaculated Clymer, with an ugly frown. “It must be obtained, or——”
“Well,” remarked Plunkett, as his companion paused, “or what?”
“We must adopt extremer measures.”
“Such, as for instance?” asked Plunkett, with a wicked leer.
“No use of anticipating matters,” returned Clymer, wriggling out of an explanation; “let us wait till we see what the Mongolian accomplishes.”
“Huh!” snorted Plunkett, regarding his associate contemptuously.
“It is now nearly twenty-four hours since Meen Fun departed on his mission,” said Clymer, reflectively. “It is to be hoped we shall hear from him soon.”
“That man Prawle looks like a person who won’t bear fooling with,” remarked the Sackville hotel man. “If he should happen to tumble to the chink’s little game I should feel kinder sorry for Meen Fun. What do you think about it?”
“It will be his funeral, not ours,” replied Clymer, carelessly.
“It will be ours, too, for in that case we shouldn’t get the paper we want.”
Clymer frowned, and then feeling that talking was dry work ordered drinks for himself and his friend.
Coffey mixed and brought the liquor, and he did not forget himself in the order.
He judged from the liberal disposition of Plunkett especially that his new acquaintances were well supplied with the needful, and he was anxious to relieve them—without actually putting his hand in their pockets—of as much of their wad as he could entice in his direction.
“Well, gents, here’s hoping things are comin’ your way,” said Coffey, as the three touched glasses.
“They’ll come our way all right if that Mongolian of yours brings back the paper we want,” said Clymer, setting down his glass.
“He’ll get it if the thing is to be found,” replied Coffey, confidently. “I’ve seen many slick Chinamen in my time, gents, but Meen Fun can give ’em all cards and spades, and beat ’em out every time; take my word on it.”
“I hope so! but I want you to understand that he isn’t up against such an easy proposition. That prospector is a hard old nut to bamboozle, while two of those boys at least are as bright as you find them. If they catch your Chinaman up to any tricks it will go hard with him.”
“They’re welcome, to handle Meen Fun as roughly as they please if they detect him; but that they’ll never do.”
“I’d like to feel as sure about it as you do,” said Clymer, anxiously.
“One would think you gents had struck a lead down at the creek, you’re so desperately in earnest to get your flukes on that claim,” said Coffey, pointedly.
“It isn’t that,” replied Plunkett, quickly; “we’ve another reason for wantin’ to get hold of it.”
“There must be somethin’ worth findin’ there,” persisted Coffey, “or those chaps wouldn’t go into camp on that spot. Looks rather suspicious to me. Instead of coming by the short route through the Gulch here you tell me they have gone around by water. It doesn’t seem to me they would have done that if they didn’t aim to keep their presence there a secret as long as possible. I think you gents will find it to your interest to let me in on this thing, or I may take it into my head to do a little investigating on my own hook. Beaver Creek ain’t so far away but I could run down there in an hour or two, and there isn’t any law against a man using his eyes, or askin’ questions about matters that interest him.”
Coffey’s unexpected attitude disconcerted the two schemers.
They had hoped to keep the existence of the copper deposit in the background.
Now they realized that they would have to let the saloonkeeper into the secret, and once they did that they did not doubt but he would demand an interest in the mine in return for his silence and co-operation.
“Well, gents, am I with you in this?” asked Coffey, with a significant look, regarding his two patrons complacently, as if he believed he had them in a tight place, “or——”
What he was going to add never transpired, for at that moment the little, wiry form of Meen Fun appeared at the entrance to the saloon, and then like a shadow glided up to the table where the three men sat, and dropped Gideon Prawle’s pocketbook midway between them, a grin, child-like and bland, resting on his yellow countenance.
For a moment the group was taken by surprise, then three hands reached for the tempting object, and, as it happened, the saloonkeeper’s fingers were undermost and closed firmly around the pocketbook.
“That belongs to us,” cried Clymer, eagerly. “By what right——”
“Don’t lose your tempers, gents,” said Coffey, coolly, reaching for his revolver with his disengaged right hand and whisking it out in a jiffy. “Let’s come to an understandin’ in this matter. Good things are not so plentiful ’round hereabouts that I’m lettin’ one go by me when the chance offers. Come now, own up. What have you discovered at Beaver Creek?”
Both Clymer and Plunkett looked at him in sulky defiance.
“Take your hands off my fist, will you?” demanded Coffey, menacing them with his gun.
They obeyed the order with manifest reluctance.
The saloonkeeper drew the pocketbook toward him, but made no movement to open it.
“Well, since you won’t open your mouths, I’ll see if the Chinaman can’t throw a little light on the subject. He’s been there, and there isn’t much that escapes his sharp eyes. I may as well tell you, gents, that I sent him to the creek as much on my own account as on yours. Did you fancy I was such a fool as not to see that there must be somethin’ unusual in your eagerness to get hold of that claim? And I knew the other crowd wouldn’t take the trouble to go and camp out in that wilderness unless somethin’ was doin’. Now, Meen Fun, tell me what you saw down at the creek.”
“Alle light.”
Meen Fun then told his story of how he had reached Beaver Creek about sunrise that morning, how he thought he had fooled Prawle and the boys with his San Francisco yarn, and how he had asked for work.
“Me catchee job wheelee locks in ballow outee minee.”
“Oh, ho; so there’s a mine down there, is there?” laughed Coffey. “Is that your secret, gents? Funny nobody round here knows anythin’ about such a thing. What does it look like, Meen Fun?”
“Holee in lock.”
“Looks like a hole in the rock, eh? Quartz or fine gold, you yaller heathen?”
“No goldee.”
“What! No gold?”
The Celestial shook his head.
“Diggee plentee led locks outee minee. Putee samee in flatee boat.”
“Digging red rocks and loading them on a flat-boat. What is the meaning of that, gents? What is this red rock? Is it copper ore?” a new light breaking in on his mind.
“Yes, it’s copper ore,” answered Clymer sulkily, as the admission was reluctantly forced from him. “Now you know what we’re after.”
“You might have made a clean breast of that in the first place. Now, gents, are we pards in this mine?”
“I s’pose we are,” growled Plunkett. “You’ve got us where the hair is short, and we’ve got to take you in whether we like it or not.”
“Let us drink on it, then, and drown all hard feelin’,” said Coffey, making a sign to one of his employes.
The liquor was served, and the three having drained their glasses the Chinaman was dismissed, and Coffey, returning his gun to his pocket, opened the pocketbook.
“What we want, I think, gents, is the bill of sale of the Sanders claim, ain’t it?”
Clymer and Plunkett nodded and looked eagerly at each bit of memoranda brought to light.
When the last paper had been exposed to their gaze and the pocketbook shook out, they sat back in their chairs and stared blankly at each other.