On the second day Gilbert and his companions found the stream, which fought its way among the upturned rocks, cavernous gorges and fallen logs. At the sight of it Gilbert eagerly led the search along the east bank, and every spot was carefully searched. But the bowlder, the two dead trees—every other characteristic landmark on Gilbert's chart—could not be found. All search was vain. The map was not that of the locality they were in—as Gilbert himself was obliged to admit.
During that summer Gilbert led out four other searching parties, but never got any nearer the lost lead. Then he again went South for the winter. When he next returned it was with a flushed cheek that contrasted horribly with his pale, pinched look and steadily failing strength. In spite of all disappointments, he was still hopeful, and to humor him his uncle's miners occasionally made excursions into the maze of peaks and gulches.
One morning, late in the season, Gilbert asked for one more chance to solve the mystery of Hell's Cañon. He had had a dream, he said enthusiastically, that this time he would be successful. The miners did not put much faith in dreams, but, for his uncle's sake, and because it was recalled that this was the second anniversary of the great discovery, they made up a party and started out in the usual direction. Although they moved slowly, the young man's feebleness increased until it became necessary to carry him on a litter made of boughs. This delayed them even more, and it was late on the third day before they reached the stream. At the sight of the dashing water, Gilbert's strength appeared to rally, and, sitting up, he directed them to cross to the west bank. At this strange order the bearers exchanged significant glances and called the rest of the party. They all believed that with a brief return of physical strength the young man's mind had broken down. The one point on which he had always been most positive—that the vein was on the eastern bank of the stream—he had now abandoned. It was evident to them that the lost lead would never be found.
But it was time to camp for the night, and the west bank was much more sheltered. With much difficulty, bracing themselves against the stones, they carried the litter across the swift current. Selecting a site sheltered by a huge bowlder, the men sent in advance to pitch camp began with picks to clear a spot for the tent. With a ring that could not be mistaken the steel struck the rock. The men gave a great cheer. Gilbert raised himself on his litter when it was brought up, and gazed excitedly at the great bowlder and its surroundings, which had come to him so vividly in that prophetic death-dream—his last on earth.
"The Lost Lead!" he cried in a triumphant tone, and then adding in a weak voice, "Bury me here, boys," he sank back—dead.
Spring freshets had changed the torrent's course, and the east bank had become the west!
They buried Louis Gilbert with the treasure he had never possessed, and while the rich mine became known in financial circles as "The Lost Lead," yet old miners themselves speak of it only as "The Grave of Gold."
THE MYSTERY OF THE THIRTY MILLIONS[1]
At eight o'clock on the morning of March 14, the Anglo-American liner, the Oklahoma, left her dock in North River on her regular trip to Southampton.
The fact of her departure, ordinarily of merely local interest, was telegraphed all over the United States and Canada, and even to London itself; for there was a significance attached to this particular trip such as had never before marked the sailing of an ocean steamship from these shores.