Chapter Thirty Seven.
When sleep is Master.
“Hear that?” cried Abel excitedly. “The scoundrel! The ruffian! He’s firing at the dog.”
“Yes, my son,” said Tregelly quietly; “and I’m not surprised, for old Scruff can be pretty nasty when he likes.”
“But you don’t stir. Are we going to stand here and listen to that poor brute being murdered?”
“It would be about madness to go after him, my son,” said Tregelly, coolly; “and after all, he isn’t likely to hit the dog in the dark.”
A few minutes later they found the sledge, and as they were about to start, Dallas kicked against something hard, which went spinning along the ice-covered snow.
“What’s that?” he said. “Why, Tregelly, it must be your pipe.”
“Yes. It struck against me,” cried Abel. “Here it is,” he added in triumph.
“Hooroar!” cried Tregelly. “Now, I call that fine, my sons. Why, if old Scruff comes back and says he’s killed Master Redbeard, this’ll be about as pleasant a time as I ever spent. But how’s your arm, Master Dallas?”
“Smarts, and feels wretched and numb, that’s all. I can help pull the sledge.”
“All right, my son,” cried Tregelly, giving the line a jerk; but in vain, for the sledge was immovable, the runners being frozen to the surface of the snow. “I say; think o’ that.”
Dallas and Abel gave the sledge a wrench, set it at liberty, and it glided smoothly on, Tregelly insisting on dragging it all the way back to the hut, where they shut themselves in, and then prepared an early breakfast; but before it was ready there was a familiar thump on the rough door, and Scruff was admitted, apparently free from fresh injuries, for he gave all an intelligent look, and then seated himself by the fire to lick his wound, before curling up and going to sleep.
“I wish I could do that,” said Dallas.
“Do it without the curl,” said Tregelly, smiling. “It’s the best thing for a man who has had such a shake as you have.”
“No, no. The ruffian may come back.”
“He won’t come yet, my son,” said Tregelly; “but if he should think it best to give us another call, don’t you be uneasy; we’ll wake you up.”
A quarter of an hour later Dallas was fast asleep, and Abel looked up at Tregelly inquiringly.
“Is the sleep natural?” he whispered.
“Yes; why shouldn’t it be?” was the reply.
“It seems so strange, after the excitement we have been through during the last twenty-four hours.”
“Done up, my son; regular exhausted, and wants rest.”
“But I could not sleep, knowing as I do that the enemy might attack us at any time. Think of the danger.”
“I wonder you ever went to sea, then, my son,” said Tregelly, good-humouredly. “There’s always danger of the ship sinking; and yet you went to your berth, I suppose, every night, and slept soundly enough, didn’t you?”
“Of course.”
“And I’ll be bound to say you go to sleep this morning before long.”
“Not I. Impossible,” said Abel, with a touch of contempt in his tone.
But Tregelly was the better judge of human nature, and before an hour had passed away, weariness, the darkness, and the warmth of the fire had combined to conquer, and Abel sank sidewise on the rough packing-case which formed his easy chair, and slept soundly till the short daylight had passed, and they were well on towards the evening of another day.
Chapter Thirty Eight.
The red glow.
Weary month after month passed by, with the indefatigable adventurers leading the life of labourers working in a terrible climate to win just a bare existence from the soil.
“I would not care so much if we could feel safe,” said Dallas; “but big as the country is, that scoundrel seems to be always on our track.”
“He do, he do, my son,” said Tregelly. “He means paying us off.”
“Well, we are doing no more now than when we started, while others are making fortunes. Let’s strike right up into the mountains, make a bold stroke for fortune, and give that scoundrel the slip.”
The start was made, the little party striking right away into one or other of the lonely valleys running northward; but it was always the same—the gold was no more plentiful, and again and again they had ample proof that their enemy, who seemed to have a charmed life, was still following them.
Constant disappointment had been their portion, and a general feeling of being utterly worn out was dulling their efforts, when toward the close of a dreary day Tregelly exclaimed:
“Look here, my sons; I think we’ve seen the end of that red-headed ruffian at last.”
“I wish I could think so,” said Dallas.
“No,” said Abel; “we shall see him again. I feel that he’ll be the death of us all.”
“Bah! you’re in the dumps again,” said Tregelly. “I feel that we must have completely given the scoundrel the slip by our last move. I’m not one of your grumbling sort, am I?”
“No, Bob, no,” said Dallas sadly. “I envy you the calm patience and perseverance you possess.”
The Cornishman laughed.
“Did possess, my son. I did have a lot, but it’s all used up to the last scrap, and I’m regularly done.”
Abel looked at him in surprise, but Dallas seemed too dejected to notice anything, and sat forward, haggard and staring, with his eyes fixed upon their struggling fire.
“Well, don’t you believe me?” said Tregelly.
“I always believe what you say, Bob; but I don’t understand what you mean now.”
“You don’t? Well, then, I’ll soon make you, my son. It’s like this: I feel just like a squirrel in a cage, galloping on over miles of wire and never getting a bit farther, or like one of those chaps on the old-fashioned treadmill, who were always going upstairs, but never got to the top.”
“Look here,” said Dallas, springing up suddenly from his seat in the rough shelter made with pine-boughs, where they had been now for some days, while they tried the banks of a tiny creek, one of many which they had followed to their sources in their daring quest. “This is no time for idle talk; which is it to be? Shall we retreat at once, and try to get back to the main river, where we may find help, and perhaps save our lives, or go on?”
There was a dead silence, and then a gust of wind swept down the narrow valley, laden with fine, dusty snow, evidently a forerunner of a wintry storm.
“If we start back now,” said Abel at last, “we are not sure of reaching the settlement before the winter sets in.”
“And if we do we’ve nothing left to live upon, my sons. You see, those last supplies emptied the bag, and we’ve never settled down since. You both said, ‘Let it be a man or a mouse.’”
“And you said ‘All right,’” cried Dallas angrily.
“So I did, my son; but I hoped we should turn out men instead of mice.”
“Well,” said Dallas bitterly, “we must not find fault with one another. We did our best.”
“That’s true,” said Tregelly. “Hear, hear. Go on. What were you going to say?”
“That I have had it my own way for long enough, but now I’ll give up to you two. There’s no gold worth getting here, so if you both say, ‘Let’s make a dash back for life before we are shut in by the winter that seems to be coming on early,’ I’m ready, and we’ll make a brave fight for it.”
“And if we say, ‘No! Let’s go on and fight for the stuff to the last’—what then?”
“We will not look back,” cried Dallas, stepping outside, to stand gazing, with a far-off look in his eyes, straight along the narrow ravine running up into the savage-looking snow-covered mountains.
“Go on,” said Abel, who seemed to catch his cousin’s enthusiasm as he stood there, gradually growing whitened by the fine drifting snow.
“Go on?” said Dallas, without turning his head; “well, let’s go on. The gold must be up yonder, where it crumbles or is ground out of the rocky mountains, to be washed, in the course of ages, down the streams into the gravel and sand.”
“Ay, there must be plenty of it up yonder, my son,” said Tregelly, stepping out to shade his eyes and gaze upward towards the wilderness of mountains to the north, probably never yet trodden by the foot of man.
“Then I say, as we have come so far, let’s go on and find it,” cried Dallas; “and if we fail—well, it is only lying down at last to sleep! No one will know, for our bones will never be found. I feel as if I can’t go back—and you, Bel?”
For answer Abel laid his hand upon his cousin’s shoulder, and stood gazing with him into the dimly seen, mysterious land, just as, high up, one of the snowy summits suddenly grew bright and flashed in the feeble sunshine which played upon it for a few minutes before the snow-clouds closed in again.
And as if the one bright gleam had inspired him, Tregelly began to whistle softly.
“Look here!” he cried, “never say pitch a thing up when there’s a bit of hope left. ‘To win or to die’ is my motto!”
“And mine,” cried Dallas, enthusiastically.
“And mine,” said Abel, in a soft, low, dreamy voice.
“Then look here,” said Tregelly; “we’ve got enough to give us all a small ration for seven days, so let’s load up one sledge and leave the others. Then we can take it in turns and push right on up into the mountains with nothing to hinder us. Snow don’t make a bad shelter when you’ve plenty of blankets, and there’s nothing to fear now. Old Redbeard never could have come up here; he must have gone off by one of the side gulches, and got round and back to where he can rob some one else.”
“Yes; we must have passed him days ago,” said Dallas.
“Very well, then, we can all sleep o’ nights without keeping watch.”
“And we can push on and on, just trying the rocks with the hammer here and there wherever we find a place clear of ice.”
“That’s the way, my son, and who knows but what we may shoot a bear or something else to keep us going for another week, eh?”
Abel nodded—he could not trust himself to speak; and then, with determination plainly marked in their haggard faces, they set to work in the shelter of the dwarfed pines around them, and packed one sledge with all they felt to be necessary to take on this forlorn hope expedition, and with it the last of their dwindling store of food.
“There,” cried Dallas, pointing up the narrow gully, as they finished their preparations, “how could we despair with such a sign as that before us?”
His companions stood and looked up in the direction indicated, where the transformation that had taken place was wonderful.
An hour before they had gazed through drifting, dusty snow at forbidding crags and wintry desolation. For a few minutes that one peak had flashed out hopefully, but only to fade away again, while now their eyes literally ached with the dazzling splendour of what seemed to be a grotto-like palace of precious stones, set in frosted silver and burnished gold; for the mountains blazed in the last rays of the setting sun with the hues of the iris magnified into one gorgeous sheen.
“Yes, that looks as if we’d got to the golden land at last, my sons,” said Tregelly. “It’s something like what one has dreamed of after reading the ‘Arabian Nights’; only you see they aren’t fast colours, and they won’t wash.”
“Never mind,” said Dallas; “we know that the gold must be there, and we’ll find it yet. Ready?”
For answer Tregelly picked up the trace, and was about to pass it over his head, but he paused and looked round.
“Here,” he cried; “where’s that there dog?”
Abel went into the rough shelter they had made, to find Scruff curled-up fast asleep beneath one of the skins they were going to leave behind; but he sprang up at a touch, and trotted out to take his place by Tregelly, who slipped his slight harness over the sturdy animal’s head.
“No shuffling now, my son,” he said merrily. “You’re stores, you know, and we shall want you to eat when the rest of the prog is done. Forward! we’re going to do it now.”
Chapter Thirty Nine.
The last bivouac.
Shortening days and shortening distances in and out of the wild ravine, where the water ran trickling merrily along in the brief sunny hours, but froze hard again at night. Every halting-place was more difficult to reach than the last, and climbing up the slippery sides of the stream bed was as often the means of progression as the simple tramp.
The sledge grew more difficult to draw, though its weight was really less and less: but in a mechanical way all joined hands in getting it over masses of rock, or through cracks where at times it became wedged in fast. For it could not be left behind, loaded as it was with the links which held them to life.
And at last the brief day came to an end, when the shortest journey of all had been made, little more than a mile along the narrow rift with its often perpendicular sides, where the greater part of the way had been one constant climb over the rock-burdened bed of the stream, whose sources were somewhere in the icy region, apparently as far away as when they started on their journey.
They had halted in a narrow amphitheatre of rocks, on one side of which lay a shelf dotted with dwarf pines, thick, sturdy, and old, many having shed their last needles years before, and displaying nothing now but thin bare trunks and a few jagged, weather-worn boughs. Snow had fallen heavily in the mountains during the previous night, and the side of the amphitheatre at the back of the shelf to which they had dragged the sledge was glazed with ice, where the snow above had melted in the warm mid-day rays, and frozen again and again.
It was bitter winter all around as the short day began to close in; but there was plenty of wood, and they felt if they climbed higher next day it would be into the region of wiry heaths and moss.
Quite instinctively, axe in hand, each of the weary three made for the dead wood and began to cut and break down the brittle boughs.
“Ay, that’s right, my sons,” said Tregelly, with the ghost of a smile; “let’s have a good fire if it is to be the last.”
The smile was reflected in Dallas’s face, and he nodded; but he did not speak—only went on hacking away in a mechanical fashion, and the small wood was heaped-up against the icy wall at the back of the broad shelf. Then a match was struck and sheltered till the smallest twigs caught; these communicated with the larger, and in a very short time there was a roaring fire, whose heat was reflected from the glazed surface of the rock, making the snow melt all around and run off till there was dry bare rock, on one piece of which, full in the warm glow, Scruff curled-up and went to sleep.
Outside the snow lay deep and high, as it had been drifted in the heavy fall, forming a good shelter from the wind; and by a liberal use of their axes the dwarf firs that they cut down proved a good shelter when laid in a curve on the other side, while when no longer wanted for that purpose they would be free from the clinging snow and more fit to burn.
Roof there was none save the frosty sky, spangled with myriads of stars; but the weary party paid no heed to that want. There was the fire, and in due time the tin of hot tea to pass round, and the roughly made bread. They seemed to want no more, only to lie down and rest in the warmth shed by the crackling wood—to take a long, long rest, and wake—where?
The question was silently asked by each of his inner self again and again, but never answered, for no answer seemed to be needed. The weary, weary day two years long was at an end. They had worked well and failed; they could do no more; all they wanted was rest and forgetfulness—peace, the true gold after all.
Sleep was long coming to Dallas, weary though he was; and he lay there with his head slightly raised, gazing at the weird scene, distorted and full of strange shadows, as the fire rose and fell.
There lay, big and heavy, the sturdy friend and companion in so many adventures, just as he had lain down; and close by, poor Abel, the most unfortunate of the party, so near that he could rest his hand upon the rough coat of the dog.
“Poor Bel!” mused Dallas; “how unfortunate he has been!”
But the next minute he was thinking of how trivial the troubles of the past seemed to be in comparison with this—the greatest trouble of them all. For though they had all lain down to sleep so calmly, and with the simple friendly good-night, they had all felt that it was for the last time, and that their weary labours were at an end.
“All a mistake—a vain empty dream of a golden fortune,” Dallas said to himself. “The idea was brave and strong, but it was the romance of a boy. Fortunes are not to be made by one stroke, but by patient, hard work, long thought as to how that work shall bring forth fruit, and then by constant application. Ah, well, we are not the first to make such mistakes—not the first to turn our backs upon the simple substance to grasp at the great shadow.”
He lay gazing sadly at the crackling fire, whose flames danced, and whose sparks eddied into spirals and flew upwards on the heated air; and then with eyes half-closed he watched the glowing embers as the great pieces of wood became incandescent. He was still gazing into the fire with a dull feeling of pitying contempt for himself, seeing imaginary caverns and ravines of burnished gold, when with a sigh upon his lip as he thought of the simple-hearted, loving mother watching and waiting at home for those who would never cross the threshold again, sleep came to press heavily upon the half-closed eyelids, and all was blank.
Chapter Forty.
The solid reality.
A strange feeling of stiffness and cold so painful that for some moments Dallas could not move, but lay gazing straight before him at the heap of ashes, which gave forth a dull glow, just sufficient at times to show the curled-up form of the great dog, and beyond him, rolled up like a mummy and perfectly still, Abel, just as he had last seen him before he closed his eyes. It was so dark that he could not see Tregelly, and he lay trying in vain to make him out.
His head was dull and confused, as if he had slept for a great length of time, and his thoughts would not run straight; but every train of thought he started darted off into some side track which he could not follow, and he always had to come back to where he had made his start.
There it was—some time ago, when they had piled up the fire to a great height so that it might burn long and well while they all sank painlessly and without more trouble into the sleep of death.
And now by slow degrees he began to grasp what seemed to be the fact, that while his companions, even the dog, had passed away, he was once more unfortunate, and had come back, as it were, to life, to go alone through more misery, weariness, and despair.
He shivered, and strangely inconsistent worldly thoughts began to crawl in upon him. He felt he must thrust the unburned pieces of pine-wood closer together, so that they might catch fire and burn and radiate some more heat. It was so dark, too, that he shuddered, and then lay staring at the perpendicular wall beyond the fire—the wall that looked so icy and cruel over-night, but now dim, black, and heavy, as if about to lean over and crush them all out of sight.
Yes, he ought, he knew, to thrust the unburned embers together and put on more wood, so as to make a cheerful blaze; but he had not the energy to stir. He wanted another rug over him; but to get it he would have had to crawl to the sledge, and he was too much numbed to move. Besides, he shuddered at the idea of casting a bright light upon his surroundings, for he felt that it would only reveal the features of his poor comrades hardened into death.
And so it was that he lay for long enough in the darkness, till the numb sensation began to give way to acute pain, which made him moan with anguish and mentally ask what he had done that he should have been chosen to remain there and go through all that horror and despair again.
The natural self is stronger than the educated man in times of crisis. A despairing wretch tells himself that all is over, and plunges into a river or pool to end his weary life; but the next moment the nature within him begins to struggle hard to preserve the life the trained being has tried to throw away.
It was so here. Dallas made a quick movement at last, turned over, and picked up a half-burned, still smouldering piece of pine, painfully raked others together with it, and threw it on the top, glad to cower over the warm embers, for the heat thrown out was pleasant.
As he sat there after raking the ashes more together, and getting closer, it was to feel the warmth strike up into his chilled limbs, and fill the rug he had drawn round his shoulders with a gentle glow.
Soon after, the collected embers began to burn, and a faint tongue of flame flickered, danced, went out, and flickered up again, illuminating the darkness sufficiently to let him make out that the banked up snow had largely melted, and that Tregelly had crawled away from where he had lain, and come over to his, Dallas’s, side, apparently to place his heavy bulk as a shelter to keep off the bitter wind from his young companion.
There was something else, too, which he did not recognise as having seen before he lay down—something dark where the bank of snow had been, which had wonderfully melted away in the fierce glow of the fire; for that sheltering bank had been so big before.
What did it matter to one who was suffering now the agonising pangs of hunger to augment those of cold?
But the sight of the big motionless figure dimly seen by the bluish flickering light appealed strongly to the sufferer, and something like a sob rose to his throat as he thought of Tregelly’s brave, patient ways, and the honest truth of his nature.
These feelings were sufficient to urge him forward from where he crouched, to go and lean over the recumbent figure and lay a hand upon the big clenched fist drawn across the breast of the dead.
It was a hand of ice, and with a piteous sigh Dallas drew back and crept to where Abel lay rolled in his rugs. Just then the dancing flame died out, and it was in the pitchy darkness that Dallas felt for his cousin’s face.
The next moment he uttered a cry, and there was a quick rustling sound as of something leaping to its feet. Then the dog’s cold nose touched his cheek, and there was a low whine of satisfaction, followed by a panting and scuffling as the dog transferred his attentions to Abel.
“And we’re both left alive,” half groaned Dallas; but the dog uttered a joyous bark, and he sprang painfully to his feet, for a familiar gruff voice growled:
“Now, then, what’s the matter with you, my son?” And then: “Fire out? How gashly dark!”
“Bob!” faltered Dallas.
“You, Master Dallas? Wait a bit, my son, and I’ll get the fire going. How’s Mr Wray?”
There was a weary groan, and Abel said dreamily: “Don’t—don’t wake me. How cold! How cold!”
Tregelly sighed, but said nothing for the moment, exerting himself the while in trying to fan the flickering flame into a stronger glow, and with such success that the horrible feeling of unreality began to pass away, with its accompanying confusion, and Dallas began to realise the truth.
“I—I thought you were lying there dead,” he said at last.
“Oh, no, my son; I’m ’live enough,” said Tregelly, who still bent over the fire; “but I never thought to open my eyes again. Shall I melt some snow over the fire? There is a scrap or two more to eat, and when it’s light we might p’r’aps shoot something. But I say, we must have slept for an awful long time, for we made a tremendous fire, and the snow’s melted all about wonderful.”
“Yes, wonderfully,” said Dallas, who crouched there gazing at the figure where the bank of snow had been.
“It’s my belief that we’ve slept a good four-and-twenty hours, and that it’s night again.”
“Think so?”
“I do, my son, and it’s to-morrow night, I believe. I say, how the snow has melted away. Why, hullo!” he shouted, as the flames leapt up merrily now, “who’s that?”
“I don’t know,” faltered Dallas; “I thought at first it was you.”
“Not a dead ’un?” whispered Tregelly in an awestruck tone.
“Yes; and whoever it was must have been buried in that bank of snow, so that we did not see him last night.”
Tregelly drew a burning brand from the fire, gave it a wave in the air to make it blaze fiercely, and stepped towards the recumbent figure lying there.
“Hi! Look here, my son,” he cried. “No wonder we didn’t see him come back.”
Dallas grasped the fact now, and the next moment he too was gazing down at the fierce face, icily sealed in death, the light playing upon the huge red beard, while the eyes were fixed in a wild stare.
“Hah!” ejaculated Tregelly. “He’ll do no more mischief now, my son. But what was he doing here? Rather a chilly place for a man to choose for his lair. Thought he was safe, I suppose. Only look.”
For a few moments Dallas could not drag his eyes from the horrible features of their enemy, about which the dog was sniffing in a puzzled way. But at last he turned to where Tregelly was waving the great firebrand, which shed a bright light around.
“It was his den, Master Dallas,” growled Tregelly. “Look here, this was all covered with snow last night when we lit the fire, and it’s all melted away. Why, only look, my son; he spent all his time trying to do for us, and what’s he done?—he’s saved all our lives. Flour, bacon, coffee. What’s in that bag? Sugar. Why, this is all his plunder as he’s robbed from fellows’ huts. There’s his gun, too, and his pistol. But what a place to choose to live in all alone! You’d ha’ thought he’d have had a shelter. Here, I’m not going to die just yet.”
A wave of energy seemed to inspire the great fellow, who picked up the rug that had sheltered him during the night, and gave Dallas a nod.
“When a man dies,” he said solemnly, “he wipes out all his debts. We don’t owe him nothing neither now.”
As Tregelly spoke he drew the rug carefully over the figure lying there, and the next minute set to work to make the fire blaze higher, while Dallas, with half-numbed hands, tried to help him by filling the billy with pieces of ice, setting it in the glowing embers, and refilling it as the solid pieces rapidly melted down.
They were both too busy and eager to prepare a meal from the life-saving provender they had so strangely found, to pay any heed to Abel.
“Let him rest, my son, till breakfast’s ready; he’s terribly weak, poor lad. Mind, too, when we do rouse him up, not to say a word about what’s lying under that rug. I’ll pitch some wood across it so as he shan’t notice before we wake him up.”
Dallas nodded, and with a strange feeling of renewed hope for which he could not account, he worked away; for it seemed the while that the store of provisions they had found would do no more for them than prolong their weary existence in the wild for two or three weeks.
Tregelly brought forward more wood from the shelter they had formed; the fire burned more brightly; bacon was frying, and the fragrance of coffee and hot cake was being diffused, when, just as Dallas was thinking of awakening his cousin to the change in their state of affairs, a hoarse cry aroused him and made him look sharply at where, unnoticed, Abel had risen to his knees; and there, in the full light of the fire, he could be seen pointing.
“We’re too late, my son,” growled Tregelly; “he has seen it. Meant to have covered it before he woke.”
“No, no; he is not pointing there.”
“Look! Look!” cried Abel.
“Poor lad, he’s off his head,” whispered Tregelly.
“Do you hear me, you two?” cried Abel hoarsely. “Look! Can’t you see?”
“What is it, Bel?” said Dallas soothingly, as he stepped round to the other side of the fire; and then, following the direction of his cousin’s pointing finger, he too uttered a wild cry, which brought Tregelly to their side, to gaze in speechless astonishment at the sight before them.
For the thick glazing of ice had been melted from the perpendicular wall of rock at the back of their fire, and there, glistening and sparkling in the face of the cliff, were veins, nuggets, and time-worn fragments of rich red gold in such profusion, that, far up as they could see, the cliff seemed to be one mass of gold-bearing rock, richer than their wildest imagination had ever painted.
The effect upon the adventurers was as strange as it was marked.
Abel bowed down his face in his hands to hide its spasmodic contractions; while Dallas rose, stepped slowly towards it, and reached over the glowing flame to touch a projecting nugget—bright, glowing in hue, and quite warm from the reflection of the fire.
“Ah!” he sighed softly, as if convinced at last; “it is real, and not a dream.”
Tregelly turned his back, began to whistle softly an old tune in a minor key, and drew the coffee, the bacon pan, and the bread a little farther away.
“Ahoy there, my sons!” he cried cheerily; “breakfast! Fellows must eat even if they are millionaires.”
It was too much for Dallas, before whose eyes was rising, not the gold, for he seemed to be looking right through that, but the wistful, deeply-lined face of a grey-haired woman at a window, watching ever for the lost ones’ return.
At Tregelly’s words he burst into a strangely harsh, hysterical laugh, and then, too, he sank upon his knees and buried his face in his hands, remaining there motionless till a hand was laid upon his shoulder, and he started to find it was Abel who was gazing in his eyes.
“Dal,” he cried, in a voice that did not sound like his own, “we shall pay the old uncle now.”
At that moment the dismal tune Tregelly was whistling came to an end, and they saw that he was sitting with his back to them, looking straight away.
They stepped quickly to his side, and he started up to hold a hand to each.
“To win or to die, didn’t you say, my sons?” he cried cheerily.
“Yes, something like that,” replied Dallas huskily.
“Well, it means winning, my sons,” cried Tregelly, “for we won’t die now.”
Chapter Forty One.
Showing how good came out of evil.
The store of provisions proved on examination to be far greater than had been anticipated, and it seemed plain enough that their enemy had, while seeking a place of refuge from which he might carry on his nefarious career, hit accidentally upon the greatest discovery of gold that had been made; and after decently disposing of his remains, the three adventurers began to examine with something approaching breathless awe the vast treasure that they could claim as theirs.
The first thing to be done, though, was to make use of their axes and contrive a shelter right in the centre of the patch of dwarf pine, their plan being to hack out the size of the hut they intended to make in the dense scrub, saving everything approaching to a straight pole to use for roofing.
They worked well, for the discovery of the gold and a fair supply of provisions seemed to send new life into them; and before many hours had passed they were provided with shelter for themselves and their stores.
Their next step was to mark out and peg what was legally allowed to each man as discoverer of a new field’s claim. And now, in spite of the lateness of the season and their height up in the mountains, it seemed as if fate had ceased to persecute them and was ready to help them make the treasure they had found safely their own.
It was too late to expect to do much before the winter closed in with its inclement darkness, so the energies of all were devoted to making the most of the glorious spell of fine weather which now ensued, and preparing for the winter.
“We’ve found it; and after it has been lying here ever since the world began,” said Tregelly, “it isn’t likely to fly away now, and nobody’s going to take it away from us. First thing is, have we got as much on our claim as ever we’re likely to want?”
“More,” said Dallas; “and I propose that one of us goes down to the old spot to give the news to Norton and our old friends, that they may come and be the first to take up claims.”
“That is what I meant to propose,” said Abel.
“Good nails driven in, and I clinch them,” said Tregelly. “Only look here: I always like to do a good turn to a man who means well.”
“Of course,” said Dallas; “but what do you mean?”
“There’s that judge. I think he ought to have a pull out of this, too. He nearly hung us up on a tree, but he meant well, and it was all for law and order. What I propose is this. We’ll make our own claims sure, and get our friends up to secure theirs; and then let’s tell the judge, and he’ll come up with a picked lot to keep all right.”
“Excellent,” said Dallas. “But who goes down first to see about stores?”
“I will, my sons. I’m strongest, and as to bringing up plenty, I shall have plenty ready to help. But I say, play fair; you won’t run away with my third while I’m gone?”
Tregelly started down the ravine in company with Scruff the very next day, and many more had not elapsed before he was back with the whole party from their old workings, eager to congratulate the fortunate discoverers and place ample stores at their service.
They had just time to get up another supply, enough for the coming winter, before it seemed to sweep down like a black veil from the northern mountains.
But building does not take long under such circumstances. Wood had been brought up from out of a valley a few miles lower down, and in the shelter of a dense patch of scrub pine in a side gully, where the new-comers found the gold promising to their hearts’ content, they were ready to defy the keenest weather that might come.
Two years had elapsed, and winter was once more expected, for the days were shortening fast, when three men sat together in their humble hut, discussing the question of going home; and the thought of once more meeting one whose last letter had told of her longings to see her boys again, brought a flush to the young men’s cheeks and a bright light to their eyes.
They had been talking long and loudly, those two, while Tregelly had sat smoking his pipe and saying nothing, till Dallas turned to him sharply.
“Say something, my son?” the big fellow cried. “Of course I will. Here it is. I’ve been thinking of all that gold we’ve sent safely home through the banks, and I’ve been thinking of what our claim’s worth, and what that there company’s willing to give.”
“Well,” said Abel, “go on.”
“Give a man time, my son. I warn’t brought up to the law. What I was thinking is this: we three working chaps in our shabby clothes are rich men as we stand now.”
“Very,” said Dallas.
“And if we were to sell our claim now we should be very, very rich.”
“Very—very—very rich,” said Abel, laughing as a man laughs who is in high spirits produced by vigorous health.
“Well, go on,” said Dallas.
“Here it is, then: what’s the good of our going grubbing on just to be able to say we’re richer still? ‘Enough’s as good as a feast,’ so what’s the good of being greedy? Why not let some one else have a turn, and let’s all go home?”
“What do you say, Bel?”
“Ay! And you, Dal?”
“Ay!”
“The ‘Ays’ have it, then,” cried Tregelly.
“Well done, my sons. Hooroar! We’re homeward bou-wou-wound!” he roared in his big bass voice. “Hooroar! We’re homeward bound!”
Business matters are settled quickly in a goldfield, and the next day it was known in the now crowded ravine, where every inch of ground was taken up, that the big company of which the judge was the head had bought the three adventurers’ claim, known far and near as Redbeard’s, for a tremendous sum. But all the same, heads were shaken by the wise ones of the settlement, who one and all agreed that the company had got it cheap, and they wished that they had had the chance.
“You’re one of the buyers, aren’t you, Norton, and your lot who came up first are the rest?”
“That’s right,” said Norton, smiling. “Hah!” said the man. “Kissing goes by favour.”
“Of course,” said Norton. “But then, you see, we were all old friends.”
“We said it was to win or to die, Bel,” said Dallas one day, when all business was satisfactorily settled and they were really, as Tregelly had sung, homeward bound.
“Yes,” said Abel quietly, “and it all seems like a dream.”
“But it’s a mighty, weighty, solid, golden sort o’ dream, my son,” said the big Cornishman, “and there’s no mistake about it, you’ve won. I say, though, I’m glad we’re taking the dog.”