The Cave of Gold / A Tale of California in '49

by Everett McNeil

"The trial will be by jury," announced the alcalde. "I summon to act as this jury," and his eyes searched the circle of surrounding faces, as he slowly called out the names of twelve men, who, as their names were called, stepped forth and took their stations by the side of the alcalde and in front of the prisoners and their accusers.

When the twelve jurymen had been selected, all were solemnly sworn by the alcalde to render a true and just verdict, according to the evidence presented; and the trial of Thure and Bud for the murder of John Stackpole, the miner, was ready to begin.

During all this time Thure and Bud had been doing some very serious and some very rapid thinking. At first the suddenness and the unexpectedness of the rush of men upon them in the busy street, followed so swiftly by their arrest and the dreadful accusations of the two men, whom they had every reason to believe had committed the crime themselves, had almost completely benumbed their faculties; but this condition of mind had lasted only a short time, and long before they reached the place of trial their minds were busy with the dreadful problem of how to prove themselves innocent of the crime charged, when two men were ready to swear that they saw them commit the crime, and when they did not have, could not have, a single witness who could swear to the truthfulness of their statements concerning the miner's death. No one but themselves had seen him die; and, so far as they knew, no one but themselves and their accusers knew the cause of his death. If they only had time to send home—But, even if they had witnesses from home, what could they prove? Only that the two boys had brought the dead miner home and had buried him; and that would be no proof that they had not killed him and invented the story of the two robbers.

True, on their side, they could accuse the two men of committing the murder themselves; but they had no positive proofs that they were guilty of the crime, only the description of his assailants given them by the dying miner. There might be other men with broken noses and pock-marked faces. All that they could swear to of their own knowledge was that one of the men they had seen murdering the old miner was larger than the other. They had not got near enough to the murderers to be able to recognize them again, even if they should see them, except by the description given by the murdered man. And for them to accuse the two men, who had caused their arrest, of the murder, in itself would look suspicious to those who did not know the real facts and would have a tendency to make them doubt their whole story of the death of the miner.

Then there was another matter that troubled the two boys greatly. Why had the two men accused them thus publicly of the murder of the miner? Why had they run this risk of turning suspicion against themselves? They must feel very certain that the "evidence" they would produce would convict; or, they never would have dared to have chanced accusing them of the crime; for their acquittal would be almost sure to turn suspicion in their own direction. True, there was the skin map, and, possibly, the accusation was some scheme to get the map into their possession; but, how could their hanging bring this about? If they were hanged, the map and its meaning would be almost sure to be made public; and then every man in Sacramento City would have as good a chance of finding the Cave of Gold as would the two scoundrels themselves, a condition of things that both boys felt quite sure the two men were exceedingly anxious to avoid, and the map itself would be almost certain to be kept from them.

Then, again, the possession of the skin map itself was the cause of the gravest anxiety and dread. If they confessed to its possession it would reveal to all the secret of the Cave of Gold, something that they were almost ready to give their lives to prevent, and would not help their case in the least. Indeed, under the circumstances it would, probably, be considered the strongest possible circumstantial evidence of their guilt.

But, what if the alcalde should order them searched and the map be found? Or, what if the two men, becoming desperate, should ask that they be searched, to see if anything that belonged to the miner could be found in their possession, and the buckskin bag and the gold nugget and the skin map should all be discovered in their place of concealment under Thure's left shoulder?

When the two horns of a dilemma are both equally long and sharp, how, then, can the peril be avoided?

Indeed, the longer and the closer Thure and Bud looked at their situation, the more dreadful and impossible of remedy it appeared. How could they prove their innocence, when they did not have a single witness to appear in their defense? How could their youth and inexperience, friendless and alone, hope to combat successfully with the cunning and the experience of these two unprincipled men, who would stop at nothing to accomplish their ends? But, they were not the kind of boys to give up a fight for life, as long as they could strike back; and the more difficult their situation appeared, the more grimly determined they became to win out somehow, or, at least, to die fighting.

"Not a word of the skin map and the Cave of Gold," hastily warned Thure in a whisper to Bud, as the alcalde, having completed the tale of the jury, again turned to them. "Tell everything just as it happened, but that. The telling of that would not help us a bit; and, if it were known that we had a map and a gold nugget that had belonged to the miner, it would look suspicious and might hurt us a lot; and we don't want to give away the Cave of Gold, not if we can help it."