The treasure of Mushroom Rock

WE were far from laughing now. The calm, everyday tone in which Squeaky had uttered the words, “I shall shoot the boys,” together with what we knew of his character, convinced us that no mercy was to be expected of him; and we trembled. Glancing at my companions to see how they took it, I observed that I was likely to get little comfort from them. Percy was sitting with his eyes unnaturally wide open, staring at Squeaky without a wink; while Jack’s lips were tight shut, and his face, I could see, was quite pale beneath the sunburn.

When I saw how much troubled Jack was I became more alarmed than ever; for Jack was far more likely than I to be able to appreciate correctly the seriousness of our position. Besides which, not having been threatened himself, his fear, of course, was all on our account; and when I thought of that I became cold all over.

I knew that the generous fellow would be taking all the blame to himself if any harm should befall us two, and at that thought another fear drove out the old one. I was afraid he might attempt something desperate for our release.

I can never be thankful enough that that idea occurred to me in time. Even as I thought of it I heard a rustle in the grass, and I saw that Jack, who had been sitting with his elbows on his knees, had drawn one foot beneath him and had placed one hand upon the ground, all ready for a spring at Squeaky. It would have been madness to make the attempt; and without a second’s hesitation I flung my arms around him, crying, “No, Jack, you sha’n’t!”

“Very well, old chap, I won’t,” he whispered in my ear, with a rather husky voice; and at this assurance I sat up again, still holding him by the arm, however.

Squeaky had sprung to his feet, and, covering Jack with his rifle, he said, quietly, “I wouldn’t if I was you.”

“I don’t intend to,” replied Jack; whereupon our captor sat down again, and Percy, who had half risen, sank back upon the grass.

It was a rather curious fact, and it showed the comparative estimate in which we held our two enemies, that, had the rush come, all three of us would have gone straight at Squeaky, entirely forgetful of Bates; though, had we known it, Bates was at that moment quite as dangerous as his leader, perhaps more so, for he was holding his rifle pointed in our direction, and he was trembling so that its unintended explosion was more than a possibility.

The temporary excitement of this incident having abated, our captain once more assumed his former position, and, addressing Squeaky, said:

“Look here, Mr.—Mr.——”

“Never mind names,” interrupted the other. “‘Mister’ is good enough.”

Jack nodded. “All right,” said he. “Then, Mister, I have one or two things to say. First: Ten thousand dollars is too much.”

“No, it isn’t,” Squeaky promptly contradicted. “Me and my pardner has means of knowing the financial standing of these boys’ fathers, and we have fixed upon that amount. We’re not going to ’bate as much as a ten-cent shinplaster, so you needn’t waste your breath on that point.”

Jack nodded again. “Well,” said he, “then there’s another point. Ten days is much too short a time.”

“No, it isn’t,” interposed Squeaky, firmly.

“Yes, it is,” Jack repeated, with equal firmness. “Just consider a minute. It will take me one long day to get to Bozeman; if my horse should fall lame—he has no shoes—it would take two. It might take me two to get back. There are four days out of my ten. Then the boys’ parents may not be at home; they may be travelling on the continent of Europe, and it may take them two or three days to get home; besides which, ten thousand dollars is a very considerable sum, and it may take them several days to raise it.”

I thought Squeaky seemed to be impressed; and I thought, too, how clever Jack was to think of all this when his thinking faculties had just received such a shaking-up. But Jack had not finished yet; he had reserved his most telling argument for the last.

“There’s one thing more,” he went on. “You want this money in cash, I suppose. Well, do you think the town of Bozeman could get together ten thousand dollars on the spur of the moment? Of course it can’t. The money will probably have to come up from Salt Lake City by stage, and that, as you know, will take four or five days itself. Your ten days’ limit is absurd; you’ll beat yourself if you stick to that. You ought to make it a month.”

I half expected that Squeaky would be offended at Jack’s emphatic manner of speech, but I was mistaken.

“You’re a smart chap,” said he, admiringly. “That sounds like a sensible argument. Shut up, now, and let me think about it.”

After sitting for some time with his chin in his hand, frowning at the landscape, the chief bandit straightened himself up upon his bucket and delivered his final decision.

“We’ll give you three weeks,” said he. “That will allow plenty of time for accidents and delays. Two days each way for you to ride to Bozeman and back. That’s four. Ten days for the people on the other side to raise the money and send it out. That’s two weeks. One whole week for the money to come up from Salt Lake. That’s three weeks. You’ll be back here with the money in three weeks. If you don’t get here by then—well, I needn’t go over all that again. You know what’ll happen if you don’t, that’s all. So, now we’ve got it all comfortably arranged, we’ll go to bed.”

Squeaky here arose, and, taking up his old position behind us, said:

“Here, you,—no, not the cook, the other one,—get up and bring all your blankets.”

Seeing that I was the “other one” alluded to, I brought the blankets and threw them down in a heap.

“Make your bed,” was the next command.

I did so.

“Roll yourself up tight.”

I obeyed.

“Now then, next one, do the same; close to number one.”

Percy, and after him Jack, followed my example, and in ten minutes we were lying side by side, tightly encased in our wrappings, like three cocoons. It was an excellent arrangement from Squeaky’s point of view, for it was impossible to rise in a hurry.

“Now, Pardner,” he continued, “I’ll go to bed myself. You shall take the first watch. Wake me at midnight. If any of the prisoners tries to get up, you know what you’ve got to do: shoot first, and inquire into it afterwards.”

The head jailer then went to bed, taking his rifle with him, and Bates, having placed the upturned bucket about ten feet beyond our heads, sat down upon it and commenced his solitary vigil.

I was too much troubled to sleep, and I surmised that my companions were in the same condition, for I could feel that Percy, who lay in the middle, was fidgeting and squirming about, and now and then I could see Jack’s head move. The night wore on, the fire died down and ceased to pop and crackle, and presently a new sound began to make itself heard,—a mixed sound of snorting and choking. It was Squeaky, snoring.

Directly afterwards there was a rustle among the grass, followed by a sound of whispering, and turning my face in that direction I was surprised to see Bates on one knee whispering something in Jack’s ear. He had given up being deaf and dumb,—for the moment at any rate.

Jack listened without moving, and then, in low, eager tones, appeared to be making some request. Whatever it was, Bates replied in the negative, shaking his head emphatically, and rising to his feet again he returned to his bucket.

Jack, however, apparently made a motion as if to rise, for Bates, in a hasty, anxious manner, said, under his breath, “Lie down; or I shall have to shoot”; upon which Jack lay still again.

Presently I heard more whispering, and the next thing was that Percy turned toward me and said softly:

“Tom. Awake?”

“Yes.”

“Bates says he won’t let him shoot us.”

Oh, excellent Bates! If it had not been too dangerous an experiment to attempt I would have jumped up and shaken hands with him. Under the circumstances, however, I thought it better to refrain. Percy went on:

“Jack asked him to let us go; but he daren’t. Squeaky would shoot him.”

At this moment Squeaky gave such a snort that he woke himself up, and I heard him say, “All right, Pardner?” To which Bates, as it was no use to nod in the dark, replied aloud, “All right.”

“I guess you may as well turn in,” Squeaky continued. “It isn’t midnight yet, but I’ve had sleep enough, and you want more than I do, anyway.”

Needless to say, we three lay as still as mice while this change was being effected, pretending to be asleep, and my mind being greatly relieved by Bates’s assurance that we should not be shot, my simulated sleep soon turned into the real thing, and I did not move again until Squeaky’s unpleasant voice aroused me next morning to a sense of our situation.

In the same systematic manner in which he had directed affairs the previous evening, Squeaky superintended the cooking of the breakfast and the saddling and packing of the horses and mules. Before that operation was completed, however, Jack requested that his rifle be restored to him. “I might need it,” said he; “especially coming back with the money.”

“That’s a fact,” replied Squeaky. “Yes, you may take your rifle and cartridge-belt. You needn’t load just yet, though.”

“There’s another thing,” said Jack. “I want the correct addresses of these boys’ parents.”

“All right,” Squeaky assented. “Hurry up, though.”

Jack produced a pencil and a scrap of paper, wrote down the addresses, and handed the paper to Percy.

“Is that all correct?” he asked.

“All correct,” replied Percy, in a rather peculiar voice as I thought, passing the paper over to me.

If there was anything peculiar in the tone of Percy’s reply, the reason for it was in my hand; for, at the bottom of the paper, Jack had written, “I’ll put in two or three days tracking you, if you say so.”

“Perfectly correct,” said I, handing the paper back to him, and looking hard at him, meanwhile, that he might understand I referred particularly to the last line.

“Very well,” said Jack. “Then I’m ready to start. I’ll take something to eat with me, if you please, as I may not get in to-night.”

He pocketed some bread and meat, untied Ulysses, mounted Toby, and, turning to us, said cheerfully, “Good-bye, you fellows. Keep up your spirits. I’ll see you safely out of this; don’t you be afraid.” Then, turning to Squeaky, he said abruptly, “Say five thousand.”

“Ten,” replied Squeaky, with equal abruptness, “or you needn’t come at all. And no tricks, mind you. It’s dangerous for the boys.”

Jack nodded. “Twenty-one days from to-day, then. Good-bye.”

Waving his hand, away he rode; Ulysses, who could not understand why he should have been tied up all night, running and leaping joyously before him.

For half an hour we stood watching our captain, until we saw him, against the sky-line of a distant hill, turn and wave his hand as he disappeared over the brow. Then, and not till then, Squeaky gave the order to mount.

It was not a very hilarious procession that set out that morning from our late camping-place. First rode the speechless Bates, then came the two mules, who were, after their fashion, as uneasy at the departure of Toby as we were at the departure of Toby’s master, and lastly came Squeaky, who, that we might not from ignorance run any needless risks, had significantly informed us that any attempt on our part to swerve to the right or left would result in a bullet in the back.

For half a day we rode slowly but steadily upwards, until, having passed through the pine-woods, we came out upon a long, bare ridge, connecting two mountain peaks. Ascending to the crest of this stony, wind-swept “hog-back,” upon whose hard surface the hoofs of our animals left no trace whatever, we presently found our further progress barred by a little precipice some thirty or forty feet high which ran the whole length of the ridge from one peak to the other. It was plain we could not jump down there, but unless we had come to the end of our journey we could not see what else we were expected to do.

At this point, whence we could see a long stretch of the Yellowstone Valley behind us, Squeaky ordered us to stop, and taking Jack’s field-glass, which he had appropriated to his own use, he examined the trail by which we had come up and all the country about with the greatest minuteness. Evidently he had a suspicion that Jack might be following. Our hearts were in our mouths while this examination was going on, and great was our relief when at length Squeaky put up the glass, and turning to Bates gruffly ordered him to go on.

Bates swerved to the left, and continued along the ridge until he had come near the foot of one of the peaks,—an unscaleable mass of rocks. In spite of our anxiety, Percy and I could not help feeling interested in the problem as to where we were to go now. With a precipice on the right and an impassable mountain in front of us it seemed as though the only course remaining would be to turn still more to the left and descend again into the valley.

But Bates knew what he was about; he had been here before. He turned down-hill for a short distance, and, threading his way between numbers of great rocks which had rolled down from the mountain, he presently entered a narrow chasm—so narrow that the mules with their loads had barely room to pass—and began to go steeply down-hill.

For ten minutes we scrambled down this dry watercourse, the walls on either side becoming higher and higher as we descended, until presently we heard the splashing of water, and looking ahead we saw a shallow stream rushing madly past the mouth of our gully. Arrived at the edge of this stream we found that immediately on our left it fell foaming in a miniature cascade into a pool a hundred feet below, while from the right it came tearing down its smooth stone bed like a mill-race. Straight before us towered a blank wall of rock.

“Which way now?” I said softly to Percy; for the gully had here widened out, and I had resumed my place beside him.

“Up the bed of the stream, I suppose,” he replied. “There’s no other way.”

Percy was right; for Bates without hesitation entered the water, which, fortunately, was no more than a mere sheet an inch deep, and began slowly to clamber up the slope.

Happening at this moment to glance upward, I noticed, on the edge of the cliff exactly above my head, a great wedge-shaped rock which looked so very much as though it were on the point of falling down that instinctively I pressed forward to get past the danger-point. As I did so, Percy, who was slightly in the rear of me, whispered hastily:

“Tom; hold back. Let me get in front of you. I have a shotgun cartridge in my pocket, and I want to drop it near the water as a guide to Jack, in case he should be able to trail us this far.”

“All right,” said I, without looking round; and forging ahead he succeeded in dropping the cartridge without exciting the suspicions of our watchful guard; with great circumspection making it appear that he was intent only upon urging the reluctant mules to follow Bates’s horse.

After a short upward climb between overhanging walls, we turned a corner and saw before us the low, arching mouth of a cave, whose floor, as far as we could see, was entirely covered by a pool of water, the source, undoubtedly, of the stream in which we stood.

Into this gloomy den rode Bates, the mules following, and Percy and I, side by side again, behind them. The depth of the water appeared to be about three feet, and as the darkness of the cave increased it was by the splashing of the mules alone that we were able to tell which way to go.

“Tom,” whispered Percy, when it had become so dark that we could no longer see each other, “Tom, here’s our chance. Let us slip off and sit down in the water until Squeaky has passed us.”

“All right,” said I. “Now?”

“Yes, now.”

But Squeaky frustrated our design. As if he had been suspecting some such move on our part, the wily rascal, at the very moment when I had freed my feet from the stirrups, struck a match, and holding it aloft, said:

“No tricks, now, boys.”

He was a sharp fellow, if he was a bad one.

As soon as that match burned out he struck another and another, until the appearance of daylight before us—for the cave turned out to be merely a natural tunnel—rendered such precautions no longer necessary.

Emerging again from beneath the arched roof, we found ourselves in a second dry watercourse, enclosed like the other by high perpendicular walls. Evidently the springs which fed the pool were strong enough to send the water down this way also when the snow-banks were melting on the mountains in the early summer. Along this deep cleft we made our way for half an hour, going sharply down-hill all the time, until, at a point where the rocks came more than usually close together, we were stopped by an unexpected barrier,—a set of bars such as form the entrance of a corral. As soon as Percy saw these bars he whispered to me, “The horse-thieves’ hiding-place.”

I had no doubt that Percy was right, especially as we saw beyond the barrier, on a natural shelf some six feet from the ground, a stone-built fortification large enough to hold a dozen men, loopholed for rifles, and so placed as to command the steep slope we had just descended.

Passing the bars, which Bates let down and Squeaky set up again, we turned a corner to find that the passage suddenly terminated, and that we had come into the upper end of a very remarkable little valley, in the bottom of which several horses were feeding,—the stolen horses, we had no doubt.

But it was the valley rather than the horses which claimed our attention. It must have been, I believe, the crater of an ancient volcano,—there are many of them in that country,—which in the course of thousands of years had been nearly filled up by the débris falling from the surrounding peaks. The bottom of the valley consisted of a beautiful smooth meadow, some two miles long by a mile in width. Around this meadow were high banks composed of earth and fragments of stone, thickly covered with pine-trees, while behind the trees, encircling the whole valley, was a wall of rock from fifty to a hundred feet high. As far as we could see, the wall was without a break, excepting only that at its northern, or right-hand, end it was split from top to bottom; the split forming a narrow gap through which a voluminous stream went boiling and foaming over the stones. The stream was much larger than one would expect from the limited size of the valley, but we observed that at least six little waterfalls—and how many more we did not know—came pouring over the edge of the valley-wall, having their sources in the mountains which on every side rose high above the rim of the wall itself.

To all appearance there was no way in or out of the horse-thieves’ hiding-place save through the passage by which we had come down, unless, possibly, one might pass down the gorge where the stream ran out.

That the elevation of the old crater was pretty considerable was evident from the fact that, though the slopes below the wall were well wooded, the mountains above were bare, or nearly so, a few stunted, twisted trees growing here and there among the rocks showing plainly enough that we were but a short distance below timber-line.

As soon as we had descended through the fringe of trees which bordered the grass-land, we descried upon the opposite side of the valley a little, roughly built cabin, standing with its back to the wall and its face toward us; a wretched little hovel, with a stumpy stone chimney and a doorway without any door. Behind the cabin rose a fine peak from whose sides there had fallen so large a heap of loose rocks as to make it appear that at that one point perhaps it might be possible to climb out of the valley. Percy quietly called my attention to the fact as we rode across the meadow.

Beside a stream which came down from this peak, and not very far removed from the cabin, there stood an object which at once attracted our attention,—a rock of very peculiar shape. It was like a gigantic mushroom, forty feet high; the stalk, which must have been thirty feet thick, constituting about half of the total height, while the cap, projecting on all sides far beyond the stalk, must have been more than twice as wide as the latter. Indeed, considering how much the cap overhung, and considering, moreover, that it was split in two across the middle, it was a wonder to us that it did not fall off; one would think that a good stiff breeze might blow it down.

Having traversed the little valley at its upper end, we drew up before the cabin, and there dismounted. By command of Squeaky, Percy and I unsaddled the horses and unpacked the mules,—which at once wandered off to fraternise with the strange horses, they, with equal curiosity having galloped up to see who we were,—during which operation Bates busied himself by cutting a supply of fire-wood, while the vigilant Squeaky kept watch and ward over us.

After a hearty supper, which Percy and I cooked, and of which, in spite of our unpleasant situation, we ate a very fair share, we were ordered into the cabin for the night. Our blankets were thrown upon the floor, and a fire of big logs was started in the fireplace.

“That’ll help to keep you warm,” remarked our captor, “and it’ll keep you from trying to climb out by the chimney,”—an idea which had occurred to both of us the moment we entered the hovel.

Squeaky next took an elk-hide, and, extracting the nails from several old horseshoes which lay about, he pegged the hide over the doorway, thus shutting us in completely.

“Now, boys,” said he, from the other side of the hide, “you can go to bed whenever you like. Don’t try to get out. One of us will be on guard all the time and if we hear you trying to scratch out we shall just fire through the doorway or through the chinks, and you’ll have to take your chance of being hit. So take my advice, and go to bed like good boys. Good-night.”