At the summit he turned to the left across a corner of MacCleod’s Park; he crossed a whorl of low ridges at the head of Apache Cañon and came to Hidden Tanks—a little limestone basin, now brimming with rainwater, perhaps a dozen barrels in all. Adam had fenced this in with a combination of stone wall and cedar brush, to keep cattle out. He now climbed to a little low cliff near by. There he had cached his outfit in a little cupboard of a cave, the floor of it shoulder high to him where he stood. Here he unpacked. He added to the cache his little store of sugar, coffee, rice, bacon and flour, all packed in five or ten pound baking-powder cans against the ravages of mice, gray squirrels and trade rats. The little deep cave gave protection against larger pests and shelter from rain. He rolled up his bedding, lifted it into the mouth of the cave and shoved it back.
Two empty five-gallon kegs were left of his pack; he had not dared to leave them in the cache, to fall apart in the dry and sun-parched air. These kegs he filled at the tanks and slung on the pack saddle; with them he made his way to the hill of his hopes. It was close by; he had hidden there his pick, shovel and the broad shallow basin used for panning gold. He hobbled the horses; by ten o’clock, or a little later, he was deep in the interrupted task of a month before.
Freakish chance had timed that interruption to halt him on the very brink of success. Before he had taken out a dozen pans he was in rich dirt. Noon found him shaken from the poise and mastery of years. Abandoning the patient and systematic follow-up system, he pushed on up the hill, sampling at random, and finding each sample richer. The scant supply of water was nearly gone, the gold frenzy clutched at his heart. By sighting, he roughly developed the lines showing the probable limit of pay dirt, as marked by the monuments of his earlier labor; he noted the intersection of those lines, and there began a feverish panning with his remnant of water. He found gold in flakes, in scales, in millet-seed grains—in grains like rice at last! He had tracked down a pocket to make history with, to count time from. And the last of his water was used.
Adam sat down, trembling to think his find had been unprotected by the shadow of a claim for the last month; reflected then that it had lain unclaimed for some thousands of years, and with the reflection pulled himself together and managed a grin at his own folly.
He went back to his saddle. Tucked in the saddle pockets was a goodly lunch, but he did not touch that. He untied his coat and took out two printed location notices, several crumply sheets of blank paper and a pencil. He filled in the blanks as the location notice of the Goblin Gold Mine—original notice and copy. On the blank paper he wrote out four more notices, two originals and two copies, for the Nine Bucks Placer Claim and the Please Hush. For the Goblin Gold he wrote himself as locator, Charles See and Howard Lull as witnesses; he reserved this for the highest and richest claim. For the next below, Charles See was locator, Forbes and Lull were witnesses; and the third was assigned to Howard Lull, with See and Forbes to bear witness.
Adam paced off the three claims adjoining each other and built a stone monument at each corner, with a larger monument for the location-papers at the center of each claim; the central monument of the Goblin Gold about where he had made the last panning. And then, even as he started to slip the first location notice in its monument, he lifted up his eyes and saw, across the tangled ridges, three men riding up from the deeps of Apache Cañon.
The cool judgment that had brought him safe through a thousand dangers was warped now by the fever and frenzy of gold lust; his canny instinct against disaster failed him in his need. There must be no shadow of irregularity on these claims, his hot brain reasoned; his find was too rich for chance-taking in the matter of mythical witnesses; yonder, by happy and unlooked for chance, were witnesses indeed; he must have their names to his location notices, and then he would get the copies to Hillsboro for recording at the earliest; he would mail them in Garfield post office that very afternoon.
He reversed his pencil and erased the names of his fictitious witnesses; he saddled his horse and rode to intercept the three horsemen, half a mile away now, trailing slowly across the park toward MacCleod’s Tanks. He waved them to stop. As he drew near he knew two of the men—Jody Weir, of Hillsboro, and Big Ed Caney, a deputy sheriff from Dona Ana County; two men he trusted not at all. Time was he would have deemed this conjunction sinister; to-day, madness was upon him. The third was a stranger. Each man had a blanket and a bulging slicker tied behind his saddle. Evidently they carried rations for several days’ camping.
“Hello, Adam!”
“You’re another—three of ’em. Got any water in those canteens? If I was to do a piece of wishin’, right now, I’d mention water first off. This is sure one old scorcher of a day! She’s a weather breeder. Rain before morning, sure as snakes. I see thunder-heads peeping up over the Black Range, right now.”