The treasure of Mushroom Rock

by Sidford F. Hamp

“I hope not,” replied Jack, “because we can’t give it more than a month at most. It will be high time for you fellows to be going home; and what is more, at this altitude we are likely to have a snow-storm any day, which would cover up the country and stop our prospecting anyhow. Let us go back to camp now. To-morrow, while you are on guard, Percy shall go and bring in a deer, so that we may have a good supply of meat on hand, and I will come up here and make a preliminary survey, in order that we may get to work in a systematic, businesslike manner.”

This plan was duly followed out, and for twenty days thereafter Percy and I, taking it turn about, accompanied Jack up the mountain, tramping up and down all day long, prying into all its cracks and crannies, and bringing back every night one or more samples of rock for the sentinel of next day to grind up between two stones. And a blessing it was to the sentinel to have such an occupation to fill up the time; for, as it was not necessary that he should keep his eye glued to the loophole without intermission, he had a large amount of spare time on his hands.

But of all the dozens of samples we ground up not one showed so much as a trace of gold. It was very disheartening. To Jack, especially, it was a great disappointment. After our astonishing find in the pot-holes his hopes had been so high; he had felt so sure that before next spring the mine at Golconda would be going again, full blast; he was so full of plans for the future, when he and his father and mother and sister would be all living there together, that his disappointment at our non-success was all the more keen. And now our time was almost up. The threatening weather warned us that we must prepare to leave; and not a vestige of a gold-vein had we found for all our searching. Poor old Jack! He became more and more gloomy as the days went by; and what with the hard work and the shortened allowance of sleep—for he always took his share of night-watching—he was beginning to look quite gaunt and careworn. Percy and I had less cause for worry and more time for rest, but the work was beginning to tell upon us too. It was hard enough in any case, tramping over the rocks at the heels of a leader so eager and energetic as Jack, but the loss of one-third of one’s natural sleep made it almost unbearable. Day after day we became more and more tired; the tiredness seemed to accumulate, it became chronic; we dragged our feet after us as we walked; and as to running, nothing less than a ramping, raging grizzly bear could have induced us to run a step.

It was a good thing we had those samples of rock to grind up in the daytime, or, I fear, without that occupation for mind and body there would have been a very good chance of the sentinel being caught napping, had there been anybody to catch him—which apparently there was not;—for, all this time, we had seen no sign of Squeaky, and we had come to the conclusion that he must have been scared out of the neighbourhood altogether.

It was after supper on the evening of the twenty-first day of our stay in the valley that Jack came to the sentry-box where Percy and I were sitting over a little fire discussing our prospects, and after standing thoughtfully warming his hands for a few minutes, he said, evidently with much reluctance:

“Well, you fellows, the jig’s up. We must go. We’re all pretty well worn out; and what’s more, there is a snow-storm brewing; and a heavy snow might make it difficult to get out of the valley. We’ll put in one more day here, and the next morning we’ll pack up and get out. I hate to give up, but there’s nothing else for it that I see. We must go.”

“But look here, Jack,” said Percy. “It seems a pity to give up until we are obliged to do so. Let us take a day off to-morrow and rest up. And I believe we might leave off mounting guard at night if we all three were to sleep here in the fort; Ulysses would never let anyone come near us. Then we shouldn’t feel so desperately tired all the time, and we could go on with our prospecting until it does snow.”

“That seems to me to be a pretty good idea,” I put in. “And if it clouds up so that we feel sure that it is going to snow, why, then, we’ll clear out at once. I vote that we don’t give in till we must.”

“You may be sure,” said Jack, “that I don’t want to give in any more than you do; but I’m afraid it is going to snow very soon, and if it does, that will be the end of our prospecting, for the ground won’t be clear again till next spring. You have noticed, perhaps, how the wind has been blowing from the south for the last two or three days; well, it has chopped round to the north since supper, and that means snow before long, I expect. In fact, I would get out to-morrow, but that there are still two gullies I am anxious to inspect before we go. Percy and I will each take one of them, and if we make an early start we can give them a pretty thorough going over before dark. Then, whether we find anything or not, I think we must pack up and leave next morning. I’m really afraid of being caught down here by a snow-storm.”

“We ought to have some meat for the journey,” remarked Percy, who, as cook, took charge of such matters; “there is hardly enough left for three meals. How are we going to get it, if Tom is on guard, and I go with you up on the mountain?”