Lone Pine: The Story of a Lost Mine

by R. B. Townshend

As he arrived there, he saw another mysterious horseman ride away from the corral at the back of the house into the night, and had he been able to get close enough to him he might have seen that he, too, bore a burden, for the rider was no other than the Navajo chief himself, and the burden that he bore consisted of several bottles of Mr. Backus's fiery whiskey, while a round number of what had lately been a part of Don Nepomuceno's precious hoard of dollars were now lining the interior of the storekeeper's wallet.

Stephens's counsel had been disregarded. The Spaniards have a riddling proverb which asks, "What is the cheapest thing on earth?" and the answer is, "Good advice." In the eyes of the Navajo the advice to let whiskey alone was very cheap indeed. The morrow's sun would find him neither ten leagues from San Remo nor sober.

Felipe encountered Backus at his own door, and hastily recounted to him how he had just seen the prospector ride off in the direction of the sierra with a spade across his saddle.

"Be after him then, man," cried the storekeeper; "there's your chance, if you haven't lost it. He's gone after something with that spade, you bet. Keep him in sight, and don't ever let your eye be off him till he begins to use it, and when he's busy at work with it, there's your opportunity. Or if you like to risk a fuss, show yourself boldly, and go up to him and mebbe he won't suspect what you mean to do. But don't miss your chance."

Felipe was gone like a shot.

No sooner had the boy disappeared than Backus began to regret it. He had been rather flustered, before Felipe came up to him, by his interview with the Navajo chief, for Mahletonkwa had begun by taxing Backus with not having kept Stephens from sending for the soldiers, by making away with his letters to the governor and the general, and he had retorted by declaring that he had done so, that no soldiers were coming, and that if Mahletonkwa had allowed himself to be bluffed he had only himself to thank for his idiocy. But they did not waste much time in disputing, for Mahletonkwa's visit to him had not been to quarrel but to obtain liquor, while Backus's strongest desire was to become the possessor of a goodly lot of those shining dollars of Don Nepomuceno that had attracted his cupidity.

Now, however, on thinking over what Felipe had reported, a possible explanation of the spade flashed upon him. Suppose Stephens had got the secret of the mine from the Navajos! He had remarked the vigour and determination with which the prospector had placed himself apparently on the side of the Navajos as against the Mexicans when they arrived. Probably this was a return for their having shown him the mine, which, moreover, would account for the unaccountable delay of the party in arriving that afternoon.

The idea of the prospector having stolen a march on him like this, in the matter of the mine, irritated him intensely; he knew so little practically of mining that he thought it quite possible that Stephens had started off thus in the night with a spade to dig up silver out of an old mine, as a man might dig up the coins of a buried hoard. Filled with this idea, he took a sudden resolution to follow Felipe and see what took place, and, if there was any secret worth getting hold of, to do his best to make himself master of it.

He hastily belted on his revolver, caught up an overcoat, as he recognised that he might have to lie in wait for an indefinite time, and the night air in the sierra was chill, and started forth on Felipe's track. He knew the direction; and assuming that Stephens had taken the trail for the sierra, according to the information Felipe had brought, he decided to take the same line.