“I’m to practise, under Danny Randall, from now until the first trip.”
“When is that?”
“Do you think we’ll advertise the date? Of course I’d tell you, Jim; but honestly I don’t know yet.”
Since the matter seemed settled, and Johnny delighted, I said no more. My cradle occupied me for three days longer. In that length of time Johnny banged away an immense quantity of ammunition, much of it under the personal supervision of Danny Randall. The latter had his own ideas as to the proper practice. He utterly refused to let Johnny shoot at a small mark or linger on his aim.
“It’s only fairly accurate work you want, but quick,” said he. “If you practise always getting hold of your revolver the same way, and squeeze the trigger instead of jerking it, you’ll do. If you run against robbers it isn’t going to be any target match.”
When my cradle was finished, I went prospecting with a pan; and since this was that golden year 1849, and the diggings were neither crowded nor worked out, I soon found ‘colour.’ There I dragged my cradle, and set quite happily to work. Since I performed all my own labour, the process seemed slow to me after the quick results of trained cooperation; 295 yet my cleanings at night averaged more than my share used to be under the partnership. So I fell into settled work, well content. A week later Johnny rode up on a spirited and beautiful horse, proud as could be over his mount.
He confided to me that it was one of the express horses; that the first trip would be very soon; and that if I desired to send out my own savings, I could do so. I was glad to do this, even though the rates were high; and we easily persuaded Yank of the advisability. Nobody anticipated any danger from this first trip, for the simple reason that few knew anything about it. Randall and his friends made up the amount that could be carried by the three men. For the first time I learned that Johnny had companions. They started from our own tent, a little after sundown. Indeed, they ate their supper with us, while their beautiful horses, head high, stared out into the growing darkness. One of the express riders was a slight, dark youth whom I had never seen before. In the other I was surprised to recognize Old Hickory Pine. He told me his people had “squatted” not far from Sacramento, but that he had come up into the hills on summons by Danny Randall. The fact impressed me anew as to Randall’s wide knowledge, for the Pines had not been long in the country.
The trip went through without incident. Johnny returned four days later aglow with the joy of that adventurous ride through the dark. Robbers aside, I acknowledge I should not have liked that job. I am no horseman, and I confess that at full speed I am always uneasy as to how a four-hoofed animal is going successfully to plant all 296 four of them. And these three boys, for they were nothing else, had to gallop the thirty miles of the road to Sacramento that lay in the mountains before dawn caught them in the defiles.
Johnny seemed to glory in it, however. Danny Randall had arranged for a change of horses; and the three express riders liked to dash up at full speed to the relay station, fling themselves and their treasure bags from one beast to the other, and be off again with the least possible expenditure of time. The incoming animal had hardly come to a stand before the fresh animal was off. There could have been no real occasion for quite so much haste; but they liked to do it. The trips were made at irregular intervals; and the riders left camp at odd times. Indeed, no hour of the twenty-four was unlikely to be that of their start. Each boy carried fifty pounds of gold dust distributed in four pouches. This was a heavy weight, but it was compensated for to some extent by the fact that they rode very light saddles. Thus every trip the enormous sum of thirty-five thousand dollars went out in charge of the three.
The first half dozen journeys were more or less secret, so that the express service did not become known to the general public. Then the news inevitably leaked out. Danny Randall thereupon openly received shipments and gave receipts at the Bella Union. It seemed to me only a matter of time before the express messengers should be waylaid, for the treasure they carried was worth any one’s while. I spoke to Randall about it one day.