Daylight is a wonderful panacea for those gloomy thoughts and anxieties which are nourished and magnified during the dark hours of the night; so, when the sun arose next morning, after the weary watch of Seth and the others, in the expectation that they might receive every moment the news of some disaster to their comrades who had been gone so long, instead of their fears being increased by the knowledge that the rescue party had not yet returned, they felt inclined to take a much more sanguine view of the situation—a view that Seth not only endorsed but was the prime agent in promulgating, possibly through the pain of his wounds having considerably lessened and caused him to look on things in a more hopeful way.
“Tha’are all right b’ys, I reckon,” said he. “No noos is good noos; fur ef anythin’ had kinder happen’d to ’em, we should have heert afore.”
“So thinks I,” said Tom Cannon; “and let’s set to work agin, mates, at the shaft, to let the boss see, when he comes back, that we ha’n’t been idle in his absence; p’raps, too, we’ll have something to show him in the gold line, as I don’t think as how we’re far off the lode now.”
“That’s yer sort,” echoed Seth, from amidst the pile of buffalo rugs alongside one of the fires in the open space before the hut, where he would persist in staying, to be the first to receive the rescue party on their return, and where he said he could nurse his injuries far better than going to bed in the anxious frame of mind he was in. “That’s yer sort, b’ys! Tackle to the job with a will, my hearties; it’ll be a durned sight better nor restin’ on your oars and doin’ nothin’, as I’m forced to do, like the battered old hulk I am!”
These cheery words from Tom Cannon and Seth had the desired effect of restoring a little more activity to the scene around the creek; and the small band of the remaining miners, dividing their attenuated forces into two gangs and taking short shifts turn about at intervals, worked with such praiseworthy diligence, that when Mr Rawlings and the other adventurers arrived in safety near mid-day, escorting the recovered Sailor Bill scatheless in triumph back to the camp, they had got through a surprising amount of work. The tubbing had been put into position two days before, and had been found to act admirably; the water had been pumped out, and the men at work were driving to the left, as Ernest Wilton thought that they were at present only on the wall of the lode, which was a very strong one, and that it would be found much richer upon the other wall.
As soon as mutual congratulations had been interchanged amongst the leaders, and the joy of the whole party at being once more reunited had somewhat subsided, Tom Cannon, and one of the leading miners who had been last down the new shaft, approached the spot where Mr Rawlings, Ernest Wilton, and Noah Webster were grouped, chatting together, with Seth—behind whom Sailor Bill had taken up his usual place, on his return to camp, with his customary apathetic air, the boy not exhibiting the slightest increase of animation, despite all the excitement and unwonted scenes through which he had recently passed, or any return to that sudden change of demeanour, almost amounting to a fit of frenzy, which he had again displayed for an instant, as Seth asserted, when he interposed to save his life from the onslaught of the savage, on the prairie, as he had done when he came forward in a similar way to rescue him on board the Susan Jane on the ship’s being taken aback the previous year.
“I guess thaar’s sunthin’ up now,” said Noah Webster, as the two men came towards him and the others, noticing a slight assumption of mystery on the part of Tom Cannon and his companion, a man who was familiarly styled “Left Bower” amongst the miners, from the fact not only of his surname being Bower, but on account of the singular dexterity he exhibited in the great American card game of euchre.
“Guess so,” said Seth, sotto voce. “They’ve been downright busy since you’ve been gone, workin’ like hosses, that they have! Waal, b’ys,” he added aloud for the benefit of the coming deputation, “what’s the rumpus neow? Panned out anythin’ tall?”
“See!” said Tom Cannon, opening his closed fist and displaying a little tiny heap of gold dust lying in the palm of his hand. “All that came out o’ one lump o’ quartz taken out of the gravel in the heading we’ve begun. We can see it everywhere in the rock, and it was getting richer every inch we got in.”
“Ay,” put in Left Bower, “heaps, I reckon, boss,” addressing himself to Mr Rawlings, who turned as pale at the receipt of the news as if he were going to faint. “We’ve struck the lode at last, mister, and run slick inter a bonanza if ever they were one; may I never see Frisco again, if we haven’t!”