I seemed to be in a dream as I listened to all this. I looked around, and saw plainly enough the truth of what he said. There, running in every direction through the rocks, were the white seams of quartz; and thick amid their snowy surface shone the rich yellow lumps of gold. A few yards away, where the splintered rocks lay piled together, small nuggets lay mixed with gravel and broken stones; and in the hollow beneath the stone which he had at first moved from its position, was the hoard, long since gathered and hidden there by the old Indian who had discovered the place. And now all this was mine—mine to do what I liked with. I who but a day since was a poor wanderer, possessing only a horse, a gun, and a few items of prairie trappings, was now the owner of this golden glen, with enough to purchase all Glencar twice over. And yet I was not elated at the sudden change in my fortunes. I saw that the end of my wild life had come. I saw the future, with its smoke of cities, its crowds chained to the great machine called civilization, pulling slowly along the well-beaten road. No more the great wilderness; no more those vast and gorgeous sunsets; no more my companionship with this strange lonely man.
The Sioux read my thoughts. “You think the wild life would be better than this gold I have given you. You look upon your life as closed. My friend, you are wrong. Your life is still all before you. You are only setting out upon its prairies. Many long years from now, when you are in sight of the Mountains of the Setting Sun, you will know that I, Red Cloud the Sioux, showed you the right trail, though he could not follow it himself. We cannot change our colours. The red man cannot give up the wilderness; he dies amid the city and the fenced field. You cannot make this wild life your own, even though you may wish to do so. You have other work to do; you must go back and do it.”
“And you?” I said, rousing myself from the dream into which I had fallen, “will you not come with me, and share the wealth you have given me? With the hundredth part of the gold lying around us here, we can traverse the earth from side to side. There are vast spaces in other lands as well as in this one. Asia has wilds as lonely as America. There are sky-bounded plains in Southern Africa, where the wild animals roam in savage freedom. Come with me, and we will seek these huge horizons, far away from the bustle of crowds and the smoke of cities.”
He shook his head. “My brother,” he said, “it would not do. The great prairies are dying; the buffalo are going. The red man must pass away too. Come, let us to work while there is yet time.”
He began to collect together several pieces of gold in the hollow where the old Shuswap had made his store. When many pounds’ weight had been gathered, he filled two saddle-bags; but there was still remaining enough to fill two more leather wallets. The Shuswap’s store held pieces of pure gold of every shape and size—some flattened pieces, others rugged knobs like walnuts, and rounded nuggets as large as eggs.
It was indeed a wonderful sight, all this treasure lying hidden away in this remote and desolate valley, thousands of feet above the sea level! “Curious!” I thought. “Man struggles and strives for this metal, lives for it, dies for it, forgets every other pursuit, gives up health for it; and here it lies a stone amid other stones. The winds blow heedlessly upon it; the sun looks down in summer; the snow covers it in winter, and the pine-tree rustles in the evening breeze unmindful of its presence.”
The sun was getting down behind the western ridges as we started on our way back to camp laden with our golden loads. When we reached the camp the two Indians had returned, both bringing loads of mountain mutton, the result of their hunt. Red Cloud said nothing to them about our day’s work. The fewer persons who knew the secret of the Golden Valley, the better would it be, he thought, for mankind in general, and for Indians in particular. So we ate our supper of wild mutton that night, and lay down under the stars, wrapped in our robes; but all the golden wealth that lay beside me could not reconcile me to accept with contentment the prospect of abandoning this wild roving life for the smoother roads and softer beds of civilized existence.
For a long while I tried in vain to sleep; my mind was dwelling too strongly upon the events of the preceding day to allow my eyes to close in rest. Our camp lay facing towards the east; right opposite, a great tooth-shaped mountain top lifted itself high into the starlit heavens. The stars, wondrously clear in the transparent atmosphere of our lofty position, rose from behind the triple peaks of this giant. I lay watching them as the night wore on; at last there came one lustrous star; right between the forked peaks it rose, throbbing in many-coloured rays of light, until it looked like a gigantic diamond glistening in the icy crown of the mountain king. Then I fell asleep, and dreamt that I had scaled the summits of the Rocky Mountains, and was looking down upon the great prairies of eternity.
The following day was a repetition of the one that preceded it. Again we sought the golden valley, and again we returned to camp with loads of the precious metal. The whole treasure when packed in wallets made a load just sufficient for one horse to carry. Red Cloud did the work of packing the loads himself.