20 The Hidden Mine

A few days devoted to hunting refreshed us and improved our tempers. Deer were fairly abundant in the vicinity, and we killed and cured our winter’s supply of meat, for we intended to carry out Boaneau’s threat of digging up the entire riverbed if necessary in order to find the gold. While on these expeditions we also kept a wary watch for our enemies, but we found nothing to indicate that they were near.

On the fifth day of our change of programme I took my rifle and strolled along the riverbed. I intended to follow its course for two or three miles and then bend off into the mountains.

I noted, not without amusement, the marks of our fruitless labors. The sand was thrown up in great patches here and there as if we had intended to turn the riverbed bottom side upward. About a mile from the hill which had been our chief landmark I came to a place where the banks were steeper than usual. Their shelving surface was sprinkled with shorty stubby shrubs, and changing my plan, I climbed up the slope by means of them, thinking that I might find some game in the vicinity.

Just as I pulled myself up to the crest of the hill I saw a pair of gleaming yellow eyes intently regarding me. There was a thick undergrowth of vines and weeds, and from this mass two eyes flashed like two coals of fire.

I knew that the eyes belonged to some fierce wild beast, but the undergrowth was so dense I could not see the body at first. Taking a step or two nearer I secured a better view, and discovered the long, lank and crouching figure of a mountain lion. Now, I was not hunting mountain lion, but since this big fellow had thrust himself in my way I was too much of a sportsman to let the opportunity pass.

With my rifle cocked and my finger on the trigger, I edged around for a better position. The animal growled and followed me with his blazing eyes. He was drawn up ready to spring, and though I feared that he would make his leap before I could get into position for a shot, he did not stir.

I moved around until the lion’s head was in full view. Then I raised my rifle to my shoulder and poised it for a good shot. There was a spot of reddish hair between the animal’s eyes, and I aimed at it. I pulled the trigger, and as the rifle cracked the lion gathered himself in a great bunch and shot through the air towards me. He struck me on the shoulder. My rifle flew from my hand, and I tumbled over backward.

In seeking vantage ground for a shot I had moved very near the edge of the shelving bank. When the lion struck me both man and beast were near the verge. The superior momentum of the lion carried him past me. He bounded off my shoulder as if he were a huge rubber ball and shot down the bank ahead of me. I grasped instinctively at the shrubs which grew on the sandy slope. My weight jerked them by their roots from the thin soil, but they broke the rapidity of my fall, and when I leaped lightly and unhurt to my feet I found the lion lying stone dead beside me. My bullet had struck him on the red spot between the eyes just as he was preparing to spring, and the impulse which he acquired before the bullet ended his life had lifted him into the air and hurled him against my shoulder. Satisfied at having made a good shot, I turned my attention to myself and was amazed to find that I was still grasping a shrub in each hand. They had been torn up by the roots, and when I looked down at them I found several lumps, one or two of which were nearly as large as my fist, clinging to the roots. I detached the largest lump, brushed off the dirt, and then I opened my mouth and uttered a yell of delight.

I was not much of a miner, but I knew enough to know that I held in my hand an almost pure nugget of gold. I brushed off the others and found that they, too, were gold, mixed to some extent with other substances, but as pure as one ever finds it in the earth.

I scrambled up the bank to the place where I had pulled up the shrubs and, scratching with my hands in the sand and gravel, found more lumps. Then I could contain my feelings no longer and I uttered another shout of delight.

I had found the hidden mine.

Pedro’s tale was true, and by the sheerest accident I had found the gold which its original finder was never to enjoy.

In my pleasure and excitement I started in a run to our hut. When I had gone two hundred yards I found that I had left my rifle lying on the bank where it had fallen when the lion struck me. Somewhat ashamed or myself I hurried back, recovered the weapon and started again, but at a more deliberate pace this time, for our house.

My chest expanded with my sense of importance, but I grew cooler as I approached our place. It chanced that all the boys were at home, and I saw them sitting on the logs in front of the house. I had carefully brushed off all the dust my clothing had gathered when I went down the bank, and I walked up, stepping as briskly and as high as a yearling colt just turned out to pasture.

“Hello,” said Henry, “Here comes Joe, empty handed, too, and walking as if he didn’t care either. How high and mighty we are to-day.”

“Well,” said I, lying down comfortably where the grass was thickest and longest, and speaking in a drawling, lazy manner, as if I did not care whether school kept or not, “I’m getting tired of this thing, fellows.”

“Why, what’s got into the boy’s head?” said Pike in surprise. “Gettin’ tired of what, Joe?”

“Why, all this hunting for gold and never finding, it,” I replied.

“We have been hunting game and not gold for the last two or three days,” said Henry.

“I know, I know,” I replied, “but the gold’s the main thing. That’s what we are here for.”

“Don’t we know that?” said Mr. Sheldon. “What of it?”

“Are we any nearer to finding the gold than we were, when we first came to this spot?” I asked.

“No,” replied Pike, “but are you losin’ your nerve, Joe? Why, you’re the last one I expected to see cave in like this!”

The others stared at me in wonder, but I kept my countenance.

“I suppose we are to begin digging again in a day or two,” I said, pulling carelessly at the long stems of grass.

“That was our intention,” said Mr. Sheldon.

“I have been thinking a good deal about this matter,” I said, “and I have concluded that you fellows are of no account as gold hunters;”

“Can you do any better?” asked Henry.

“I might,” I replied, “but just watch me smash that butterfly that’s hopping on the grass there, by Pike.”

The butterfly, gorgeous in his many hues, had alighted on the grass at Pike’s foot. I thrust my hand in my pocket, pulled out the largest nugget, and tossed it carelessly at the butterfly, missing him, as I had expected, at least six inches. The insect flew away and the nugget rolled up against Pike’s foot.

“Are you carrying stones as big as my fist around in your pockets to throw at butterflies?” asked Henry.

“There seems to be as much profit in that as in anything else we are doing,” I replied.

“Pretty large missile for so small a target,” said Henry.

“Why, this is big enough to throw at a deer,” said Pike, picking up the nugget; “it’s big enough an’ heavy enough to bring down a full-grown stag ef you could only hit him right. Why, what in thunder is this?”

Pike was looking at the nugget with staring eyes.

“Oh, nothing much.” I replied carelessly. “Merely a queer-looking stone I’ve found. Thought maybe you’d like to see it. I’ve brought along a lot like it.”

I pulled the other nuggets out of my pockets and tossed them over towards the boys as if they were so much dirt. Then I stretched myself out at full length and pretended to close my eyes, as if I were tired, bored and sleepy. But I kept the corners open and watched the boys.

Pike’s exclamation had drawn the attention of the others, and every one held a nugget in his hand, examining it with growing excitement.

“Why, this is gold, ez shore’s I’m a livin’ sinner!” cried Pike, turning the nugget about in his hands.

“And this lump, too, is gold, or I am as much of a sinner as you are,” said Mr. Sheldon.

“Thar’s no doubt about it,” said Pike, “it’s gold, shore. Here, let me see the rest uv ’em.”

They began to examine the nuggets all together, and agreed that they were gold, the yellow gold for which men risk their lives. Then they turned to me for explanations, but by this time I was sound asleep—or at least pretended to be.

“Here you, Joe,” cried Henry, “where did you get these? Why, if he hasn’t gone to sleep! Here, wake up!”

But I began to snore.

“Turn him over and beat him on the back,” said Pike.

Sam and Bonneau turned me over, and when they had hit me a thump or two, I opened my eyes, yawned, sat up and exclaimed apparently in great heat and indignation:

“What’s the matter with you fellows? Can’t let a man who has worn himself out tramping and hunting get a little sleep?”

“Where did you get these?” asked Pike, holding up two of the nuggets. “Do you know these are gold?”

“Gold!” I replied. “Oh, I guess you’re joking. There isn’t any gold about here.”

“He is only ’possuming,” said Mr. Sheldon. “Sit up and tell us about it.”

I dropped my assumed indifference and told the story.

“It’s Pedro’s mine, shore!” said Pike. “What fools we wuz not to dig in the bank ez well ez on the river bottom!”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Henry; “we’ve found it after all.”

They were all eager to see the place, and I was not loth to show them the way. Nobody was willing to stay behind, and we left the hut unguarded, trusting to luck to find it all right again.

When we arrived at the spot we found the body of the lion lying as it had fallen, and in a few moments we were scratching in the sand and gravel of the cliff for more gold. Nor did we fail to find it, either. Nugget after nugget was turned up to the light, and we even found them at the very verge of the riverbed, not fifteen feet from a spot in which we had been digging a few days before.

“I guess this is the place where Pedro struck the gold,” said Henry, “and he miscalculated the distance from the hill, which I would say is much nearer a mile than half a mile from here,”

This, no doubt, was the truth about the matter.

We ceased our labors only when the darkness compelled us to do so, and then, with our pockets filled with the little chunks of gold, we took our way back to the hut, chattering in our glee like so many children. We were gold-struck, and we clinked the lumps together and began to calculate how long it would be before we would have as much gold as our mules could carry.

But even then we performed one more task before going.

“This mountain lion didn’t mean you any good,” said Pike, pointing to the carcass, “but his jump at you was a mighty lucky thing fur us, shore. Ef it hadn’t been fur it we might never hev found the gold. So I think out uv gratitood we orter give him decent burial.”

We speedily dug a deep hole in the sand in which we interred the body, and then, shouldering our picks, went home. We found that the hut had not been disturbed, and the mules were grazing peacefully on the grass near by.

Sitting in the shadow of the evening, we arranged our plans for working the mine, if mine it could be called when the gold was found so near the surface. The distance from the hut was not great—within easy hearing of a gunshot—and we decided that one of our number should always be on guard at the hut, and to signal at once for help in case enemies came. We would also store the gold in the hut.

“How does it happen,” asked Pike, after the more serious matters had been disposed of, “that this gold is lying thar in lumps so near the surface?”

“I have heard often about such cases,” said Mr. Sheldon, “and this is in accordance with my conjecture of what the truth would prove to be when I first saw this ancient water-course. All this gold has been washed down from the mountains by floods of hundreds of years ago perhaps. Why, so much of it lodged at this particular point I cannot say. Probably there was in those times some obstruction there, such as a curve in the bank.”

“Eet makes no deeference how eet got zere!” exclaimed Bonneau. “Eet ees zere, and zat ees ze good zing for us, and, what ees ze better zing for us, eet will not be zere much longaire, for we will dig eet all out—evaire lump—and zen Pierre Bonneau will be one grate Frenchman, worthy to be covered all over wiz ze gold braid like a Marshal of France and to be ze companion of ze grate Napoleon himself, eef only zat mightiest of men was alive.”

“Will you go back to Paris when you get your fortune, Bonneau?” asked Henry.

“For a while,” said Bonneau, “to walk up and down the Boulevard des Italiens and through the Place de la Concorde, but not forevaire. Pierre Bonneau will always be a Frenchman, but he ees a ceetizen of ze world also. After a leetle while he come back to find out what have become of ze long-legged hunter and ze big, lazy sailor, Starboard Sam, and all ze ozzers wiz whom he has travelled and shared ze dangaires of ze great wilderness.”

“Bully for you, Bonneau,” said Henry. “I knew you wouldn’t forget us.”

“Nevaire!” said the Frenchman, emphatically, and we knew he meant it.

The next morning we left Bonneau on guard at the hut and the remainder of us did a very hard day’s work at the mine. We found that the gold was in scales and flakes as well as in lumps, and required washing out. So in the course of the next few days we built a flume and carried the water from the creek to the mine. It was a rude structure, but as we had a fine fall for the water it sufficed for our purpose.

When our flume was completed we made rapid progress. Nobody ever worked more industriously than did we. As fast as we cleared out our gold we put it in stout little canvas bags. These bags, when filled, weighed about ten pounds apiece, and with much exultation we watched their number grow. The gold in many cases was mixed with stone, but we calculated that when the final process of separation took place at least half of what these little canvas bags contained would be pure gold. And we soon saw from the way our treasure in the hut grew that there was enough to make us all rich for life.

“How long do you reckon it will take us to clean out the mine?” asked Starboard Sam one day.

This was a question that none of us could answer, but we agreed that as soon as we had a load for our mules we would leave what remained to whomsoever might find it, and start with our treasure to San Francisco. A mule load of gold apiece ought to be enough, Mr. Sheldon said, and we did not dispute his assertion.

Those were happy days for us all. The accumulation of money may be a sordid thing, but nevertheless one has a very comfortable feeling when he knows that his bank account, or what is equivalent to it, is growing. Our hut was now filling up so fast with the little canvas bags that Pike said one evening, after we had surveyed our treasure:

“Boys, I think we kin take our time about our work after this. We’ve got purty nigh as much now as our mules kin conveniently carry.”

“Won’t some o’ them lads in ’Frisco open their eyes when they see us comin’ jest loaded down with gold,” said Starboard Sam. “Why, we’ve got a reg’lar shipload o’ prize-money here.”

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