CHAPTER VIII—CHET SHOOTS A HAWK
Mr. Fordham had run forward to meet his partner and shake him by the hand.
“I’m mighty glad to see you, Jim!” he said, assisting Chet’s father to the ground. “The boys say you’ve hurt your foot. Is it bad?”
“Bad enough,” answered Mr. Havens, with much disgust, and standing like a stork on one leg until they brought him a stool to sit upon. “It’s going to keep me from going over to Grub Stake, Fordham, as I had planned.”
“Well, well! I’m glad you’re out of that hole. That’s enough to be joyful over. We’ll worry about the other thing later. What about that scamp yonder?” and Mr. Fordham swung about to point at the ugly, gorilla-like man who stood at one side, sucking on the stem of an old pipe.
“Tony Traddles? Let him go—and let him go quick, Fordham,” replied Mr. Havens earnestly, with a glance around at the rough men.
“I was tempted to have him jailed. A constable was up here,” said Mr. Fordham.
“No use. We couldn’t prove anything more than malicious mischief—and we’d have hard work to do that, I think. But it’s only by the mercy of Heaven that he hasn’t the lives of six men upon his conscience.”
“Ha!” snapped Dig’s father. “That fellow has no conscience.” Then he raised his voice: “Come here, you Tony!”
The ugly-looking man shuffled over to his employers. He looked sheepish as well as ugly, and still pulled furiously at his old pipe.
“Well, Tony, you played us a bad trick that time,” said Mr. Havens quietly. “You knew when I asked you if the timbering was secure that you had not wedged your cross-beams. Your neglect came near costing six lives. We cannot have you work on the Silent Sue any longer. Mr. Fordham will give you your time and money, and you can go.”
“I dunno what I done,” growled Tony, in a much injured tone. “I couldn’t help the shaft caving in.”
“You know it wouldn’t have caved if you had done your work properly,” said Mr. Fordham sharply.
“I could have forgiven you for that,” Mr. Havens hastened to say. “But your falsehood led us to suppose that it was safe to fire the shot. That is your crime, Tony—the misstatement of fact.”
“Aw, yer both down on me,” growled Tony Traddles. “I might as well take my time and beat it.”
“You might just as well, I think,” said Dig’s father grimly. “Here’s your money. Count it. Sign here in the book. Now be off—for your own good; for let me tell you the men who worked with you don’t feel very kindly toward you.”
“Aw, let ’em blow! I ain’t afraid of ’em,” growled Tony Traddles.
The boys had been watching Tony and the mine owners, but from such a distance that they could not hear the conversation. They heard the men talking, however—the men who had been thrown out of work for several days because of Tony’s carelessness.
Chet, after listening to several threats, looked about for Dig. The latter had gone to Rafe Peters’ shack for a sandwich. Young Fordham had already expressed himself as being “half starved.” He was not used to going without his dinner.
“Hi, Dig!” shouted Chet, beckoning to his chum.
“Now, don’t ask for the core,” mumbled Dig, with his mouth full. “There ain’t going to be no core. Ask Rafe for a hand-out yourself.”
“Don’t think everybody is as greedy as you are,” said Chet. “Come on here. I believe there is going to be trouble.”
He said the last in a low voice after his chum had reached his side.
“What d’you mean—trouble?” queried Dig.
“The men are dreadfully sore on Tony Traddles.”
“And why shouldn’t they be?” demanded Digby. “He’d ought to be tarred and feathered.”
“Sh! Some of them might hear you.”
“And I should worry about that!” cried Dig slangily.
“There’s something going to happen to Tony, I do believe,” whispered Chet. “You see, your father’s paid him. Now he’s going up the hill. And a bunch of the men hurried over behind that hill a few minutes ago.”
“Whew!” exclaimed Dig. “Maybe—maybe they’re going to lynch him!”
“Don’t talk so foolishly!” cried Chet. “These miners aren’t murderers, I should hope! Why—there’s Bob Fane, and Jeffers, and Ike Pilsbury. Why, we know most all of them! They’re decent men and wouldn’t kill even Tony.”
Dig chuckled. “Guess you think he deserves it, whatever they do to him?” he suggested.
“Come on! Father and your father are busy. I want to see if they do get Tony Traddles,” Chet said eagerly, and set off for the grove of trees directly above the mouth of the mine that had been caved in because of Tony Traddles’ negligence.
The men had melted away from about the shaft. Even Rafe Peters, the foreman, had disappeared. Mr. Havens and Mr. Fordham were busy at the corrugated iron shack that served as an office. The women and children had taken their recovered husbands and fathers home; it was only the younger and more irresponsible element of the Silent Sue workmen that had gone over the hill.
And in their tracks sped the two chums. Chet and Dig were both eager and curious. They saw the bewhiskered and long-armed Tony Traddles staggering along the rough trail over the hill, occasionally turning to shake his hairy fist in the direction of the mine. He was probably muttering threats, too, against the mine and its owners.
The boys had taken a shorter path over the rise; besides, they were running. But the miners who had been associated with Tony had got over the hill first. They were hidden in the chaparral on the edge of the trail Tony was following, and when he came down the slope they sprang out and surrounded him.
Chet and Digby could not hear what was said at first; but Tony began to show fight almost at once. He was no coward.
The miners rushed in on him, tied his wrists together, and amid a great deal of noise and some laughter, hoisted him upon a fence-rail which four of them carried on their shoulders. His ankles were then triced together. His helplessness made him ridiculous.
“Oh, bully!” cried Dig, in delight. “That serves him right!”
“I wish they hadn’t done it,” said Chet. “They’re going to ride him over the mountain.”
“Sure they are! And they are going to warn him not to come back,” said Dig. “Serves him just right, I tell you.”
“But suppose he does something to get square?” breathed Chet, much excited as well as anxious.
“Pooh! what could he do?” returned Dig. “He may as well go out and hunt for that big buffalo he was telling us about. I don’t believe Tony Traddles would know a buffalo if he met one in his soup.”
“What a ridiculous thing, Dig,” said Chet. “And you needn’t scorn the fact of the existence of the buffaloes. Rafe told us about them, too. And maybe we’ll get a shot at them.”
“How?” demanded Digby, fired by the thought.
But at that instant something happened to the miner who was being ridden on a rail, which attracted their attention again.
“Hi! see that somersault!” cried Dig.
“Oh, dear me!” Chet exclaimed. “That was enough to break his neck.”
“And serve him just right!” quoth the savage Dig.
Tony Traddles, in struggling to free himself, and while raised on the shoulders of the men, had turned completely over and now hung head-down, his long hair brushing the uneven ground over which he was being carried.
The rough men laughed and cheered; nor did they offer at first to help the discharged miner. Tony struggled and fought and finally was helped to a sitting posture again.
The boys were too far away to hear all the prisoner said—and that was fortunate. But now they ran forward and, above the cheers and laughter of the gang, heard Tony Traddles mouth out his threats:
“I’ll git square with you all! I’ll make ye all eat dirt fur this day’s work! Mark me, I’ll do fur ye all yet!”
The men hooted and laughed at him, and Tony’s rage grew.
“I’ll make ye all sing another tune. An’ I’ll git square with old Havens. Mark what I say now! I’ll git square.”
The rough men went on with their prisoner, tossing the rail up and down and making his seat as uncomfortable as possible. Chet stopped in the trail and halted Digby by clinging to his coat-sleeve.
“Let’s go back,” he said. “I wish the men hadn’t angered Tony so. Perhaps he will do my father some harm.”
“A fat chance he’d have of doing that!” exclaimed the other boy. “He’ll never dare come back here again. You tell your father. He’ll be on the lookout for Tony.”
“No, no! He’s got enough to worry him. I wouldn’t say anything now that would disturb his mind. And say, Dig, that reminds me! Let’s try and get ’em to let us go to Grub Stake.”
“Huh? To Grub Stake?” cried Digby, in surprise. “What for? Though I’d go quick enough if it were only to buy a lemon.”
“There’s a bigger reason than that,” laughed Chet Havens. “Didn’t you hear my father say something about getting some papers signed by a man named Morrisy who lives at Grub Stake?”
“Yes, I remember.”
“Well, it’s important. Father can’t go because his foot’s hurt. Let’s tease to go. And on the trail we might run across that big buffalo.”
“By the last hoptoad that was chased out of Ireland!” ejaculated the excited Dig, falling back upon his favourite exclamation, “that would be great. But you do the askin’, Chet. My father will think I’ve got something up my sleeve if I undertake even to hint at such a trip.”
Chet agreed to this; but it was not a propitious moment to broach the subject when the chums returned to the shaft of the Silent Sue. Mr. Havens had just been helped upon Chet’s horse again, and was going home. He expected to remain at home for some weeks, and the business of the Silent Sue was to be under Mr. Fordham’s sole direction.
The partners in the mine knew nothing about the trouble Tony Traddles had gotten into with the rougher element of the miners. Nor did the boys say anything about what they had seen.
The next morning Digby was over bright and early at the Havens house to see if Chet had spoken to his father regarding the Grub Stake trip. He found his chum in the lot beside the corral, where his mother had a flock of hens, with his small, twenty-two calibre rifle. It was the little weapon Chet had learned to shoot with.
“What are you doin’ with that little play gun?” chuckled Digby. “Shootin’ horseflies?”
“Just you keep still a minute,” whispered Chet, who was crouching behind a shed wall. “Stoop down here. Keep still. I’m watching a hawk.”
“You can’t shoot even a chicken hawk with that thing!” exclaimed Dig, scorning a weapon of small calibre.
“You wait and see,” commanded Chet. “There he comes now!”
Far off against the sky appeared a dark spot, circling ever lower and lower. The great hawk swept down in narrowing circles, its objective point plainly being Mrs. Havens’ hen-run.
“Why don’t you get a gun?” growled Dig, for although he well knew Chet’s skill with firearms, he thought the tiny rifle a foolish thing.
Just then a voice behind the boys put in a word:
“I reckon your friend is going to wait for the hawk to drop on the chicken before he shoots. ’Twon’t carry more’n ten feet, will it?”
Chet turned rather angrily. He did not mind his chum’s joking; but this stranger’s scornful remark angered him.
And he was a stranger. Chet thought he had never seen the man before. The fellow wore a big black sombrero, but was not in working clothes. His boots were polished, he wore a ruffled shirt and silk tie and cuffs.
His countenance was not pleasant, for his eyes were too sharp and too near together. He had his brown moustache curled and there was an odour of strong perfume about him, as though he had just been to the barber’s.
“You wait a couple of minutes,” Chet Havens said sharply, “and you’ll see how far this gun carries. Providing that hawk isn’t frightened away,” he added, glancing upward.
The stranger leaning on the fence immediately became very still. Dig began to grow nervous—for his friend’s sake.
“Say! let me run in and get you a proper gun, Chet,” he whispered. “I know you can kill that hawk up there; but not with that dinky little thing.”
“The first hawk I ever killed I brought down with this rifle,” muttered Chet. “And I bet I haven’t forgotten the trick— That way!”
As the hawk suddenly swooped, Chet stepped clear of the shed. He didn’t even bring the butt of the rifle to his shoulder, but fired from the hip.
There was a shriek from the bird, and with several feathers flying, the hawk sank fluttering to the ground. Digby Fordham uttered a cry of admiration.
“I declare!” exclaimed the stranger, as the boys ran across the lot to secure the still fluttering bird. “I never saw a prettier shot—and him only a kid!”
He was gone when Chet and Dig returned with the dead hawk between them, each carrying the bird by an outstretched pinion.
“You gave me the laugh, Chet!” declared Dig, with enthusiasm. “I didn’t think you could do it. Hello! where’s that fellow gone?”
The stranger had disappeared. Just then, however, Mr. Fordham rode down from the mine and the boys hurried out to show Chet’s prize and hear what news he had brought to Mr. Havens, who sat upon the front porch of the house with his wounded foot on a stool.
“Everything all right at the Silent Sue, Fordham?” Mr. Havens was asking. “I’m glad to know you’re on the job. But I’m worrying about that other matter.”
“About those deeds to the Crayton claim?” queried Mr. Fordham.
“Yes,” said his partner. “The doctor says I shall be laid up here for three weeks. A lot may happen before I can get hold of John Morrisy. If we had somebody to send—”
Dig had been prodding Chet eagerly, and whispering in his ear. The other boy dropped the hawk and drew nearer.
“Can’t Digby and I go to Grub Stake for you, Father?” he asked, timidly. “It’s vacation, we’ve got good horses and know how to shoot if we need to, and I’ve heard you say yourself the trail is plain. Can’t we go?”
Mr. Havens and Mr. Fordham looked at each other. To tell the truth, the gentlemen had discussed this very thing, only the boys did not know it.
“Your boy is all right,” drawled Mr. Fordham, “but mine is such a scatter-brained youngster—”
“Oh, Dad! I promise not to scatter my brains—nor let them be scattered—if you say I can go with Chet to Grub Stake,” cried Dig, utterly unable to keep silent another minute, so great was his eagerness.