A Waif of the Mountains

by Edward Sylvester Ellis

“And it might be well to take them,” suggested Captain Dawson.

“We are enough,” was the grim response of the parson.

Like so many phantoms, the men moved toward the 163 further end of the settlement. Opposite the last shanty a man assumed form in the gloom. He had just emerged from his dwelling and stopped abruptly at sight of the trio of shadows gliding past.

“What’s up, pards?” he called.

“Nothing,” was the curt answer of the captain, who was leading and did not change his pace.

“You needn’t be so huffy about it,” growled the other, standing still and puffing his pipe until they vanished.

“That was Vose Adams,” remarked the captain over his shoulder; “he’ll tell the rest what he saw and it will be known to everybody in the morning.”

The little party was carefully descending the side of the cañon, with now and then a partial stumble, until they reached the bottom of the broad valley where the grass grew luxuriantly nearly the whole year. It was nutritious and succulent and afforded the best of pasturage for the few horses and mules belonging to the miners.

Captain Dawson and Lieutenant Russell had ridden up the trail, each mounted on a fine steed, which had brought them from Sacramento. When the saddles and bridles were removed, the animals were turned loose in the rich pasturage, which extended for miles over the bottom of the cañon. There, too, grazed the pony of Nellie Dawson, the horses of Ruggles and Bidwell 164 and the three mules owned by Landlord Ortigies and Vose Adams. The latter were left to themselves, except when needed for the periodical journeys to Sacramento. The little drove constituted all the possessions of New Constantinople in that line. Consequently, if any more of the miners wished to join in the pursuit, they would have to do so on foot or on mule back,––a fact which was likely to deter most of them.

In the early days of the settlement, before the descent of that terrible blizzard, fully a dozen mules and horses were grazing in the gorge, subject to the call of their owners, who, however, did not expect to need them, unless they decided to remove to some other site. But one morning every hoof had vanished and was never seen again. The prints of moccasins, here and there in the soft earth, left no doubt of the cause of their disappearance. Perhaps this event had something to do with the permanence of New Constantinople, since the means of a comfortable departure with goods, chattels, tools and mining implements went off with the animals.