Captain Bayley's Heir: A Tale of the Gold Fields of California

by G. A. Henty

"I have no doubt of it," Frank assented.

"Then you see he has a very strong interest in bringing you into discredit. Besides there were only, you say, five people who had any knowledge of this affair, and of your need for the money. None of the other four had the slightest possible interest in bringing you into disgrace; he had a very strong interest, and, take my word for it, your cousin is at the bottom of the whole affair."

"I cannot believe it," Frank said, rising from his chair and pacing up and down the verandah; "if I thought so I would return to England by the next ship and have it out with him."

"But you have no shadow of proof," Mr. Willcox said, "it is a matter of suspicion only. Even had the idea occurred to you at first, you would only have injured yourself by stating it, for it would have been regarded as a hideous aggravation of your crime to bring such a charge against your cousin unsupported by a shadow of proof. No; now you have taken your line you must go through with it, and trust to time to right you. It is a suspicion only, but you mark my words, if the mystery is ever solved it will be found that your cousin was at the bottom of it."

Frank spent a very pleasant week at the charming residence of Mr. Willcox. The latter entertained a good deal, and Frank met at his house several of the leading merchants of New Orleans, and acquired a good deal of knowledge of the state of the country. Most of them were incredulous as to the stories of the abundance of gold in California. That gold had been discovered they did not deny; but they were of opinion that the find would be an isolated one, and that ruin would fall upon the crowds who were hastening either across the continent, or by ship via Panama, to the new Eldorado. Several of them tried to dissuade Frank from his intention of going thither, and more than one offered to place him in their counting-houses, or to procure him employment of other kind.

Frank, however, was firm, for he was going, not for the sake of making money, but of finding adventure and excitement. He went down every day to the wharf and superintended the loading of the scows, and at the end of ten days he resumed his boatman's clothes and took his place on one of the scows. Hiram accompanied him, with eight negroes, two for each flat. A tug took them in tow, and they started up the river. Mr. Willcox was to follow by a steamer next day, and would arrive at Omaha some time before them, and have time to choose and buy a lot of land for his store, and to have all in readiness for their arrival. Frank had purchased a strong, serviceable horse for his own riding, and a pony for his baggage, together with blankets and other necessaries for the journey. His mining outfit he decided to get at Sacramento, as, although the cost would be considerable, he did not wish to encumber himself with it on his journey across the plains. The rifle and revolver had been presented him by Mr. Willcox, and he determined to practise steadily with both on his voyage up the river, as his life might depend on his proficiency with his weapons.

The voyage up the Mississippi and Missouri was performed without any notable adventure, although in the little-known waters of the upper river the tug ran several times aground. Those on board the flats had but little to do, their duties being confined to pumping out the water when there was any leakage; and the negroes had been taken up more for the purpose of unloading the cargo, carrying it to its destination, and putting up the store, than for any service they could render on the voyage. Frank, who had laid in a large store of ammunition for the purpose, amused himself by practising with his pistol at a bottle towed behind the scow, or with his rifle at floating objects in the stream, in feeding and taking care of his horses, and in listening to many yarns from Hiram.

"I can tell you, lad," the latter said one day, when, after passing St. Louis, they had entered the waters of the Missouri, "thar have been changes on this river since I was a youngster. I was raised at St. Louis, which was not much more than a frontier town in those days, and most of the work lay below; here and there there was a farm on the Missouri, but they got thinner as they got higher up, and long before we got to where we are going it was all Indian country. I used to go up sometimes with traders, but I never liked the job: first, I didn't like selling 'fire-water,' as they called it, to the Indians, for it made them mad, and brought on quarrels and wars; in the next place, it was a dangerous business. The Indians used to meet the traders at some place they had appointed beforehand, and there would be big feastings; sometimes the traders would come back with the boat loaded up with buffalo robes and skins, and Indian blankets, and such like; once or twice they didn't come back at all, and it was just a mercy that I didn't stay behind with them on one of the trips.

"I went up with a trading party to a place somewhere near this Omaha; we had three boats, with six voyageurs in each. I was about five-and-twenty then, and was steersman of one of them. There were four traders; they were in my boat, and they played cards and drank all the way up. One of the boats was a flat—not a flat like this, but just a big flat-bottomed boat,—for they were going, as I understood, to get some good horses from the Indians and take them down to St. Louis. We had pretty hard work getting her along, and a weak crew would never have got her against the stream, though of course we chose a time when the river was low and there wasn't much stream on. Sometimes we rowed, sometimes we poled, keeping along the shallows and back waters; and, though the pay was good, I wasn't sorry when we got to the place appointed; not only because the work was hard, but because I didn't like the ways of them traders, with their gambling, and drinking, and quarrelling. However, they gave up drink the last day, and were sober enough when they landed.

"I don't know why, but I didn't think things were going to turn out well. I had heard the traders say as they didn't mean to come up that part of the country agin, and I knew their goods warn't of no account, and that they were going to trade off bad stuff on the Indians. The first two days things went on all right; every evening large lots of goods were brought down to the boats, but except when I went up with the others to the traders' tent to bring the things down I didn't go about much. It was a large camp, with two or three hundred braves, as they calls 'em. I told the men in my boat what I thought of it; but they didn't think much of what I said, and traded a little on their own account, for it was part of the agreement that each man should be allowed to take up fifty dollars-worth of goods, and have room for what he could get for them. I traded mine away the first day for some buffalo robes, and so hadn't anything to take me away from the boat.