“I sure did,” replied the miner. “I was lying nice and quietly asleep when all of a sudden I felt something nosing me, and could feel its warm breath on the back of my neck. If I had not been so sleepy, I’d have known it was a b’ar by the strong smell of its fur, but as it was, I thought it was Hank Higgins or Noggy Wilkes. I soon found out my mistake, though.”
After this interruption the boys turned in and slept quite soundly till daybreak, when they were up and the journey to Calabazos resumed, after the bear had been skinned and the steaks enjoyed. Before the start was made Bart gave the boys full instructions for landing the Golden Eagle in Calabazos, which lay across a small canyon not very many miles ahead.
The road now began to dip down hill, and the auto rattled along at a lively clip. Here and there the boys noticed small huts, and tunnels drilled in the hillside, which the miner told them were abandoned claims.
“Some of them is worked yet by Chinamen,” he explained: “but when the poor yellow men do unexpectedly make a strike there’s always some mean cuss ready to come along and take it all away from them. I think the gov’ment ought ter do something about it.
“Half a mile ahead now is the bridge across the canyon, and then we’ve only got a short distance to go before we’re in Calabazos. My mine is about ten miles from there,” he said a few minutes later. “I wonder who is sheriff there now. You see, that makes a whole lot of difference when yer are filing a claim against a rival. You’ve got to have the sheriff on your side, for he can make a lot of trouble for you in getting to the gov’ment office, where first come, first served is the rule.”
“But you have your claim staked, have you not?” asked Billy.
“Sure; but that don’t bind it till you’ve registered your claim,” rejoined the miner. “You see, mine’s an abandoned claim, too. Old fellow name of Fogg had it once. At least I found his name cut on a tree.”
And now they came to a sharp turn in the road.
“The bridge is right around the corner,” said the miner, “you had better put on your brakes, Billy, or we may have a runaway, for there’s a terrible steep bit of hill runs right down to it.”
The boy obeyed, and it was well he did so, for while they were speeding toward the bridge, a rude affair of pine trunks laid across long stringers suspended high in the air above a pine-clad canyon, there was a sudden shout from Bart Witherbee, who was acting as lookout.