Cat o' mountain

Hammerless Hampton stood very still.

Once more he was among the rocks. But these grotesque bulks around him were new; he never had penetrated into this group before. In fact, but for his careful observation of every opening he would not be here now. He had spied a hole in what seemed to be the solid precipice, beyond which showed light instead of the usual gloom. Crawling through, he had found himself in a big space whose existence was concealed by the false face of the cliff. It was one of the freaks of the long-vanished glaciers, perhaps, moving outward a long line of solid stone and leaving beyond it a big gouge in the real butte. At any rate, it was queer.

But this was not what held Douglas so quiet; he had long since ceased to marvel at the fantastic formations along his line of exploration. Now, after passing among a number of small bowlders—that is, no larger than a three-room house—he stood beside a hole opening downward. And beside that hole lay several charred matches.

In his mind those tiny stubs loomed larger than the long wall itself. Some man had been here quite recently: at some time since the latest rain, which would have pelted those cylindrical sticks down along the sloping stones on which they lay. And that man was no hunter, for no hunter would ever bother to enter this barren box. Indeed, no hunter would even find it, for he would be scanning ground and branches, not the naked rock-face.

Warily the discoverer glanced at the corners of the surrounding stones. No spying eye met his; no half-hidden head moved. He looked down again at the opening.

It was a hole made by the uptilting of a once horizontal slab. It was near the true face of the butte. At some time, perhaps not long distant, a mass of overhanging stone had crashed down from above, a jutting segment striking this slab at one end and angling the other end upward and aside by the force of impact. Before then, the horizontal block had been a sort of trap-door, concealing the cavity beneath. Now, plain to any eye which should reach this place, the opening revealed a few flat stones leading downward, markedly resembling crude stairs.

Across Hampton’s face shot a sudden startled look—the astounded incredulity of a skeptic beholding in solid actuality a thing which he had believed to be mere legend. For minutes he stood as if hypnotized by the gloom below. Then, recovering himself, he stepped very quietly into a position where he could obtain a more direct view of the descent.

He saw little more. The steps vanished into the blackness of a vault. What lay beyond could be determined only by exploration. Exploration meant light; and, barring the few matches he always carried, he had no means of illumination. Moreover, he felt issuing from the depths a draught which probably would kill the feeble match-flames before they could reveal anything worth seeing. He must return to the house and bring up his gas-lamp.

But then, moving again, he caught a glint from down the steps—a glint of metal. Logic told him that the other man who came here must have used those matches in lighting a lantern. If that faintly shining thing down there was it, then the man must be away at present. He stole closer, straining his eyes—then stepped boldly forward. There was little doubt now that he saw the circular top of a cheap oil lantern, and he believed he could also make out the dull-colored wire bail.

With some difficulty he folded himself up enough to crouch under the tilted lid and begin descent. After a couple of steps he could move more easily, and by the time he reached the lantern he was erect again. Lifting the lantern, he shook it and frowned. The light swash at the bottom told him that the oil was almost exhausted.

If a large cave lay beyond, he would have to be careful not to go too far from the entrance. Left lightless, he might find himself in a desperate plight. Even as the thought passed through his mind there came to his ears a faint gurgle of subterranean waters. Yes, he must watch his step, and his flame too. But he would see what he could.

Two matches were extinguished by the damp draught as he sought to light the blackened wick. The third, however, communicated its flame to the oily weave, and the snapping down of the sooty chimney preserved the dim shine within. Unlike the owner of the lantern, Douglas did not leave his match-stubs where they fell. He gathered them up and dropped them into a pocket.

Gun ready, he stole on downward. There were perhaps a dozen more of the steps, not one of which was truly horizontal; all sloped in one direction or another, and no two were of the same height. Some were so poorly balanced that they rocked under him, and all evidently had been piled in by unskilled human hands, long ago. But Douglas, cat-footed from his daily experience among the bowlders, passed down them as easily as if they had been a marble staircase constructed by expert workmen. They terminated on a downgrade of damp, hard earth.

The passage led on, narrow but fairly straight, for quite a distance. All at once it broadened out. At the same time the blackness became noticeably less dense. Faintly, here and there, showed grim rock walls—mere patches of stone, vague in the farther gloom, revealed by wan daylight filtering through some crevices high up and opening eastward. Simultaneously the hollow gurgle of the running water increased in volume. It sounded somewhere beyond.

A moment Douglas stood there, straining his eyes, seeing little. The dim lantern-light seemed to hinder rather than to help, preventing his pupils from dilating to the full width which might have brought more of the place into view. He felt an impulse to extinguish it. But it would go out of its own accord all too soon; perhaps if he did blow out the flame the wick would refuse to take a new light. He let it burn, and began moving about.

Before he moved far, however, he retraced his steps and spread on the uneven floor his handkerchief. Three corners of the cloth he folded in to the center, leaving the fourth protruding in a white angle toward the entrance. With this marker in place he advanced again, watching the dirt for any yawning crack, pausing to look around, then resuming his way. After a little while he reached the farther wall, having found nothing. There he halted.

The light-crevices were plain enough now—mere cracks in the stone, back whence he had come, from twenty to thirty feet up. Off to his left sounded the rumbling of the water: an eerie, gruesome noise unlike the gentle murmur of Coxing Kill; a gargling and choking, as if some inhuman monster were gulping at an unseen Styx. Before he could decide whether to go and look at it, something to the right caught and held his gaze—a shadowy, shapeless thing which gave the impression of solidity but not of stone. He worked toward it.

As he approached, it took on form and outline—a confusion of ancient timbers and rock-chunks which seemed to be a tumble-down furnace, or something of the kind. Just what it might have been he could not determine at once: but it certainly was a work-place, and very old.

His toes stubbed on something. The lantern proved the obstruction to be the remains of a heavy hammer, half eaten away by rust. As he moved again, his lantern-light glinted dully on metal not far from the ruined forge—if forge it was. His interest quickened. Metal not dimmed by rust—what was it?

Stepping toward it, he stumbled again. A heavy, dull-colored obstacle on the dirt had blocked his feet. It was not especially large, but it certainly was solid, as his tingling toes testified. It seemed to be a rudely shaped bar of metal. And it was not rusty.

“Great guns!” he breathed. “Is it true? Silver? Tarnished silver?”

As he stared at it, it began to grow dim. Was it about to vanish into the ground like a legendary treasure? No, it was not sinking; it was still there; but——

The light was going out.

The little flame had shrunk. It still was shrinking. Angrily he shook the lantern. A thin—very thin—slosh of oil answered him. There was still a little fuel—enough to last several minutes, at least. But the wick must be short.

The shaking gave a brief respite. The flame revived a trifle, feeding on the oil-dregs thrown on the wick. Swiftly he stepped toward the glimmering thing he had first seen. It was on the floor, and beside it rose a number of those solid bars, piled like wood. It was a tin can, recently emptied.

After one glance at it he pushed rapidly on toward the outer wall, determined to see as much as possible by the last light in the lantern. He found still more of those bars, and, beyond them, something made much more recently: a thick, comfortable bed of leaves, on which lay open a coarse, dirty quilt. Beside this, at what seemed to be the head of the primitive couch, and within easy reach of a man resting there, stood a big jug. Somehow it looked familiar. Its nozzle was plugged with a stout corn-cob, and—yes, on one side was an old smear of green paint!

“Thought so,” nodded Douglas.

Memory was depicting a bygone morning among the rocks to the south; a red-haired girl, a gaunt-faced youth, a jug which the girl declared to be the property of Snake Sanders—a jug bearing the same green splotch. Its presence here was conclusive evidence.

All was growing dusky again. The light was going for the last time. It was no longer a flame, but a mere sunken line, turning blue; and from the spent wick rose a warning reek. With a shake that made the foul globe chatter angrily within its wires, he turned and gripped one of the cold metal bars. For its size, it was astoundingly heavy. He had meant to carry it under one arm, but its sullen weight and clammy slipperiness forced him to hug it in both. With bar and gun both cradled across his body and lantern dangling crazily from one finger, he moved for the exit.

It seemed to be nearer than he had thought. The last flickers of the expiring light revealed a black gouge in the wall. Into it he turned, muttering to the lantern: “All right, quit! I don’t need you any more.”

The overworked wick did quit, leaving him in utter blackness. Half a dozen more steps he took, watching for the first vague dayshine from beyond. Then he halted as if petrified. He remembered his handkerchief. And he remembered that he had not seen it on turning in here.

Carefully he lowered his burden. With hands free, he struck a match.

“Wow! You can back-track, Mister Man!” he muttered.

Less than a yard ahead opened a wide rift in the floor. One more step in the dark would have trapped him in a pit where death, swift or slow, would inevitably have obliterated him; death from the fall, from starvation, or from Snake Sanders’ merciless hands.

“Yes, you can back-track,” he repeated. “Wouldn’t Snake have a lovely afternoon with you if he found you in there, all busted up? He’d drop in a few of his squirmy chums to keep you company, most likely, and have the time of his life watching the show. And if he didn’t find you, nobody else ever would. Now use your brains, Hamp, if you have any, and find the right way out.”

Conning the situation, he realized that the most important feature was saving matches, of which he had very few. Therefore he groped until he had located bar, gun, and lantern; gathered them up, turned carefully, and felt his way back by keeping an elbow against the rough wall of the false passage. When the stone ended he halted again, laid down everything, lit another fire-stick, and, carefully shielding the flame from draught, advanced to the left. As he walked he counted his steps.

Three matches in turn burned out. The third, however, brought him within sight of a white splotch several feet to his left. The fourth proved it to be his pointer.

He now had only two matches left. But he knew the number of steps, including the turn he had made toward his handkerchief: he had the vague crevice-lights to aid his calculations for the return, and he had approximately the right direction in mind. Deducting from his total count the few steps taken on the last angle, and concentrating every sense into the task of traveling straight, he marched back through the darkness. So true was his course that with the last step his foot struck the invisible lantern.

Once more loaded, he sought the exit, saving both matches. But his steps were a trifle shorter now that he was burdened, and he also strayed a little from his line. It took both matches to set him right at the end; the second was almost out before he could even see the white, and before he could reach the marked spot the light was gone. However, he found the opening in the wall; and when he went groping along the passage he had retrieved his handkerchief. The only traces of his visit now were the last two match-butts, which he had had to drop.

The wan light of day had seldom been so welcome as when, after a scraping, stumbling journey, he emerged at length at the crude staircase. With a long breath of relief, he clambered up to the step whereon he had found the lantern. There he replaced the grimy light-giver on the exact spot where he had discovered it. On upward he continued, and out from under the tilted lid he crept.

No new sign of human presence was visible outside. He strode around the nearest bowlder. Behind its sheltering bulk he laid down his bar of loot and began close inspection of it.

With his clasp-knife he scraped away an accumulation of dark sediment, baring a narrow strip of the true metal. From the clean space shone a dull silvery gleam.

“By thunder!” he breathed. “Sure as shooting, it’s—— But wait, now. Let’s see.”

He dug the point of the strong blade into the metal. Turning it, he easily cut out a conical chunk. After scanning it an instant, he pressed his thumb-nail down on one circular edge. The nail bit out a clean gouge. For a couple of seconds more he stared at the little plug of metal, at his knife-blade, at his nail and the end of his thumb. Then he lifted his head and laughed—silently, but so heartily that tears came to his eyes.

He knew now what it was that the long-dead Ninety-Nine had dug from the bowels of that shadowy cavern; what it was that the Indian who sought the aid of old Elias Fox had borne away from the mine; what the old man’s sly glimpse had depicted as virgin silver, and what his son and grandsons since had sought until crushing doom annihilated one of them. His laughter ended as he eyed the great block whose fall from above had pried up the stone trap-door. That might be the very mass which had hurtled down on Will Fox. Under it even now might be lying his splintered bones.

Dubiously he eyed the cliff above, half dreading another such fall. But there was no overhang of stone now, no danger of another drop. He let his thoughts run back again.

Long ago he had perceived the flaw in the tradition that “where the sun first strikes the wall, there is the mine.” The sun, moving north or south with the changing seasons, would cast its first beams on different points of the wall at varying times of year. Even when he had climbed the Mohonk slope to see the sun rise he had been aware of this; and since then he had relegated the whole story to the realm of myths. Yet the mine was real enough, and he had found it at last; and, through his good-humored promise to Lou Brackett, part of it belonged to her.

But Snake, Lou’s own man, had found it before him. This was why he had been so elusive of late; this was where he had been most of the time, evading all eyes and perhaps working to get more mineral from the vein. Was it likely that he would share his secret with Lou? Hardly. Perhaps he intended soon to drive her from him, and hoped—the thinker’s face hardened—hoped with his new-found wealth to gain possession of Marion.

The thought brought him to his feet. Where was Snake now? What was he doing? Was all well down below? But then, as if in answer, arose the vision of glacial gray eyes and the echo of ominously quiet words: “Pop’s gun—I got it ready—if Snake comes a-pesterin’ round he won’t never walk outen our yard!”

The self-reliant girl was well able to defend herself. He need not worry. But he began moving away, leaving behind him the soft silvery bar. One last glance he threw at it, and a hard smile twitched his lips.

“It was a treasure in Indian days,” he thought, “and I haven’t a doubt that you, Snake, you ignorant reptile, think you’re a coming silver king. But you’ll never make much money out of those few bars of lead!”