"Then right there is where you ought to have stayed," said Mr. Parsons, throwing more energy into his tones than he usually did. "I hope you"re not going to be sick of your bargain, but I"m afraid you are. Here comes the bronco. Do you think you can manage that fellow?"
The bronco which came up at that moment, with Stanley"s lariat fastened about his neck, was like any other horse, only he seemed to be tired.
When they stopped him, he lowered his head and drew up one of his hind feet, and closed his eyes as if he were fast asleep. But Tom knew better than to fool with him. He had read enough to know that the word came from the Spanish and meant "wild," and he had got his name from his persistent efforts to keep wild cowboys off his back. He couldn"t be ridden, that was the matter with him; but he would carry a pack-saddle all day, and never had been known to leave a man he had accompanied to the mountains. Tom said he thought he could manage him, and patted him all over; but the horse never opened his eyes to look at him.
Preparations were made for getting Tom off as soon as it was light, and by the time darkness fell all was ready. A pack-saddle was brought out which looked as though it had been through two or three wars, and the cook, following the instructions of his master, began to fill it full of provisions, giving no heed to Tom to ask him whether the supplies he furnished suited him or not. He had provided so many men with provender that he thought anything that would do for one would do for another.
With darkness came three more cowboys, who listened to what Mr. Parsons had to say, and then greeted Tom very cordially, and wished him unbounded success in his efforts to find Elam Storm"s nugget. One man, especially, was particularly interested in Tom"s fortunes. He advised him to dig wherever he saw a landslide, and if he happened to hit upon the right place he would strike it sure. The spot where the man hid it was obliterated, but that wouldn"t hinder the proper person from unearthing the nugget if he only chanced to dig where it was.
"I have looked for that nugget a good many times, and that is the only thing that has kept me from finding it; I didn"t dig where it was," said the man, with something like a sigh of regret. "I know it is somewhere in the mountains, else why should so many persons be looking for it?"
Morning came at last, and after Tom had eaten a hasty breakfast he saw the pack strapped on his bronco; and the whole thing was done so easily, with two experienced cowboys at work, that he regarded it as the least difficult part of his undertaking. He had been told repeatedly to get the pack on right, and not to unhitch his horse until he did it, or the bronco would knock him and his burden into the middle of next week and come home, leaving him to follow after as best he could. But Tom was sure he had it "down fine," and with a cheerful good-by to the cowboys who had a.s.sembled to see him off, and a hasty slap on the bronco"s flank to help him along, he started gayly for the mountains. When he saw that camp again, he hoped to have the eight thousand dollar nugget stowed away in his pack-saddle.
The first day"s work Tom could not complain of. The bronco kept up a lively walk, swinging his head from side to side and turning first into one canyon and then into another, and did not think it necessary to stop for anything to eat until he made his way to a little grove of trees, drew a long breath as he stopped under the shade, and looked around at Tom as if asking him why he didn"t take his pack off. Tom leaned his rifle against a log and took his pack off very easily, and the horse immediately began taking his supper. Then Tom picked up his rifle and looked about him.
"I declare! I believe the whole canyon is full of landslides," said he, as he gazed at one pile of rubbish after another filled with logs, rocks, and brush which nature had thrown into the valley, some new and of recent origin, and others bearing the marks of age upon them. "Hold on. Isn"t that the mark of a spade over there?"
Tom walked over and looked at it. It was the mark of a spade, sure enough, where a man had commenced digging where the landslide ended, and had thrown out just earth enough to prove that he had been there, and that was all. There were other openings of like character, until Tom counted ten in number. Then he looked up at the huge ma.s.s above him, and made an estimate that it would take an army of men, each armed with a spade and pick, to work it all away. These were probably the marks of the elderly man among the cowboys, who told him that the reason he didn"t find the nugget was because he didn"t dig in the right place. Tom shouldered his rifle, walked back to his log, and sat down.
"I really believe I have been duped," said he disconsolately. "If the landslides are all like that, I am certainly not going to work to throw them all away just to make eight thousand dollars. Besides, what use will it be to me to work where he has been? I"ll go on a little further."
If Tom had any idea of a landslide, it was a little piece of ground which could be thrown away in half a day"s time; but the sight of a _real_ landslide was what took his breath away. He didn"t eat a very hearty supper after that, for the thought that was uppermost in his mind was that the men who had stood by him, and of whom he had a right to expect something better, had completely fooled him in regard to Elam Storm"s nugget. Instead of telling him that there wasn"t any show at all of his success, they had fitted him out and sent him away to put in a month of his time. There was one thing about it: he would not go back until every mouthful in the pack-saddle had been eaten. That much he was determined on.
"I had an idea that cowboys were above suspicion, but now I know they are not," said Tom spitefully. "I can waste a month of their grub as well as anybody, and I won"t put a spade in the ground until I see some prospects of success."
At the end of a week Tom was still of the same determination, although he saw much to discourage him. It was landslides everywhere, and the mark of a man"s spade was on every one; so it showed that the bronco had been over that same ground before. The way was getting lonely, they were getting deeper and deeper into the mountains, and somehow Tom felt very disconsolate. A deep silence brooded over everything--a silence so utterly mysterious that he was not accustomed to it. How gladly he would have welcomed Jerry Lamar and listened to news from home and from the uncle he had deserted. Another week and Tom found himself hopelessly in a pocket. Turn which way he would, there was no chance for him to get out. The man had been there before him--indeed, he seemed to have gone into all the places and thrown out just earth enough to prove that he had been there, but not enough to accomplish anything. It was just enough to let Tom see how useless it was to dig there.
Tom"s two weeks of tramping in the mountains had given him a ravenous appet.i.te; his bronco was. .h.i.tched so that he could not take to his heels and leave his master to find his own way home; and as he sat there on his blanket, dividing his attention between his cup of coffee, hard-tack, and bacon, he thought seriously of going back to headquarters. This was undoubtedly the remotest point reached by the man, and if one of his experience should be frightened out by a few shovelfuls of earth, or scared at finding himself in a pocket, Tom thought himself ent.i.tled to follow his lead. It had taken him two weeks to reach the pocket (he had managed to keep close run of the days); it would probably take him fully as long to return, and so he would fill Mr. Parsons" contract anyway. And so it was settled that he was to go home; but there"s many a slip between determining upon a thing and doing it. He finished his coffee and bacon, led the horse down to the spring, from which he had sc.r.a.ped the leaves, to give him a drink, and rolled himself up in his blanket to go to sleep with his ready rifle safe beside him.
How long he slept he did not know, but he was awakened about midnight by a sound he had never heard before. It came from his horse, but it wasn"t a neigh: it was the sound of fear, and made the cold chills creep all over him. He started up with his rifle in his hand, but did not have time to get off the blanket. Another shriek, which sounded like somebody in fearful bodily agony, came from the bushes, and the next minute the horse was on the ground and struggling in the grasp of some animal or thing which Tom could not remember to have seen or heard of before. It had a long neck, long legs, and a wonderfully high body which was increased materially by a hump on its back. The horse was as nothing in its grasp, and the struggle took place not over ten feet from the blanket on which Tom was sitting.
"Great Moses!" was Tom"s mental e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n.
He sat for an instant as if spellbound, and then his rifle arose to his face. He was sure he had a good shot at it and expected to see it drop; but instead of that it gave another shriek, tossed the horse away from it, breaking like thread the lariat with which he was confined, and with a single jump disappeared in the bushes. Tom listened, but could hear no sound coming from it to tell what sort of a beast it was. Then he got upon his feet and turned his attention to the wounded horse. He was past the doctor"s aid, for he was dead.
"Well, that beats me," said he, going back to the fire and starting it up, so that he could see what sort of wounds the beast had made. "I never heard of an animal like that before."
A good many boys would have been startled pretty near to death by the sudden appearance of an apparition like that. It must be possessed of tremendous power to toss the broncho about as it did, and break the lariat with which he was fastened. No ghost could do that, and neither could a ghost have made that wide and fearful rent that Tom found when he had punched up the fire. Tom thought it best to build up a bright blaze, for he did not know how long it would be before the animal would come back to finish its work. He loaded the rifle carefully and placed the revolver where he could get his hands upon it at a moment"s warning.
He thought of grizzly bears, but had never heard of them taking to the bushes on account of a single bullet.
"It couldn"t have been a panther or a bear, unless my eyes were deceiving me, for it was at least four times as big as the horse," said Tom, picking up a brand from the fire and once more approaching the specimen of the apparition"s handiwork. He hadn"t been in sight more than a minute, and yet the horse was as dead as a door-nail. "He must have been a flesh-eater, for nothing else that I know of could have made such wounds. I am beat. Now, how am I going to find my way home?"
If Tom had been frightened at first, he was doubly so now. He was so confused he couldn"t think. From that hour he sat there on his blanket, and by the time that daylight fell so that he could distinguish objects near him he had made up his mind what he was going to do. He would take everything out of the pack-saddle that he could carry on his back, and make his way out of the pocket the same way he came in. He had remembered enough of his skill in woodcraft to turn and take a survey of his back track, so that it would not appear odd to him when he came to go that way again, and he had no doubt that he would be able to find it.
More than that, the bronco had left the prints of his hoofs and had continually browsed on the way, and, taking all these things together, Tom was certain that he could strike the trail.
"It is going to be a tight squawk," he soliloquized, "but I am not lost yet. I only wish I knew what that animal was. It would take a big load off my shoulders if I did."
Tom did not waste any time in forming his bundle, for there were some things about the pocket that he did not care to see. He wanted to get out of sight of every thing that reminded him of his terrible fright. He put all his bacon, hard-tack, and coffee into his blanket, strapped his pot to his belt behind, set his pick, spade, and pack-saddle up where they could be easily found, shouldered his rifle, and, with a farewell glance at the bronco, which had carried his pack so faithfully for him so many miles, he plunged into the bushes and left the pocket behind.
For that one single day everything went well. He found the bronco"s hoof prints in the sand, and easily discovered the places where he had been browsing on the way, and as long as these signs remained he couldn"t get lost. He even found, too, the place where they had stopped the night before, but going into camp without the presence of the horse was lonesome to him. He saw the place where he had sc.r.a.ped away the leaves from the side of the stream to give him a spot to drink, and found the sapling to which he had hitched him, and the place where he had spread his blanket--but there was little sleep for him that night.
"I wish I knew what that animal was," thought Tom, as he sat on his blanket with his rifle in readiness on his knees. "The more I think of him the more frightened I become. I wish I was safe at headquarters."
Remember that the signs Tom had been following were only one day old, and on the morning of the second day he could not find the place where he had entered the camp. Turn which way he would he could not discover any footprints. He finally concluded that the middle canyon looked more familiar to him than the rest, and, with his heart in his mouth, he struck into it. At the spot where the canyon branched into another he found a little stream which ran in the direction he thought he ought to go, and close beside the stream was a footprint which he took to be his own. He was all right now, and with every mile he travelled the faster he went, in the hope of finding something else that was encouraging, but that solitary footprint was the only thing he saw. There was one thing about it that kept up his spirits, and that was he was following a stream that ran toward the prairie, and he would continue to follow it until the stream or his provisions gave out, and then----Well, that hadn"t happened yet, and wouldn"t happen till he was where he could get more provisions. He must reach the house or he would lose his horse and $150 in money. He went into camp at a solitary place that night, and, for a wonder, slept soundly.
The next morning he was up bright and early, but he did not seem to have much appet.i.te for breakfast. And it was so every day until a week had pa.s.sed, and still no change for the better. He was so impatient that he could scarcely go into camp. He was impatient to be journeying along that little stream that seemed to lead him toward the prairie, but every time he looked up and tried to wonder where he was, there were the same gloomy mountains stretched away before him that he had at first seen in the pocket where he had lost his horse. Tom took no note of the fact that his wearing apparel was getting the worse for wear, or that he had left his blanket back at his last camping-place, but he did take notice that his mind was filled with gloomy forebodings. Why could he not climb that mountain on his left and see what was ahead of him? The thought no sooner came into his mind than he banished it, took a drink of fresh water, and started out at a more moderate pace.
"I"m lost," said he, with a sinking at his heart to which he was an entire stranger; "and if I give way to those thoughts, I shall be lost utterly. Why did I not think of my gun?"
Tom dropped his pack by his side and fired and loaded three times as fast as he could make his fingers move. Then he waited again and fired three more; and scarcely had the echoes of the last report died away among the mountains when he heard a faint reply, though it came from so many directions that he couldn"t tell from which way it sounded. But he took it to come from down the stream, and, leaving his bundle behind, he started in that direction, raising a shout which, to save his life, he could not utter above a whisper. He ran until he thought he ought to be about where the sound came from, then stopped and fired his gun again, and this time met with an immediate response. It was down the stream, and there was no doubt about it.
"Who-whoop! Where are you?" shouted Tom, so impatient he could scarcely stand still. "I am lost!"
"Follow the stream and you"ll strike me," said a voice, and Tom noticed that for a backwoods fellow he talked remarkably plain.
It was three weeks since Tom had seen anybody or heard anyone speak, and his eagerness to see where the voice came from was desperate. Throwing his gun upon the rocks, he broke into another run, and there, just as he turned around an abrupt bend in the canyon, he saw the person to whom it belonged. The speaker stood with his hat and coat off; his pick lay against a stone near by, and the shovel which he had been in the act of using when Tom"s rifle shots fell upon his ears was standing upright in the ground; but he had taken precautions for any emergency, for he held his rifle in the hollow of his arm. Beyond a doubt somebody had been grub-staking him for gold, or for something else which he was equally anxious to find. Tom had just wind enough to take note of these things, and then he staggered to a rock near by and seated himself upon it.
"You won"t find any gold here," said Tom, resting his elbows on his knees and looking down at the ground.
[Ill.u.s.tration: TOM"S NEW ACQUAINTANCE.]
The stranger unc.o.c.ked his gun, and, bringing the piece to an order arms, leaned upon it. He looked hard at Tom, but had nothing to say.
"I have been all over this country, but not a cent"s worth of gold could I find in it," continued Tom, taking off his hat and drawing his hand across his forehead. "Somebody has duped you just the same as they duped me."
"Where"s your gun?" asked the stranger.
"I left it in the bend up there," said Tom, anxious to hear the sound of the voice again. "I was so impatient to get to you that I left it up there. I haven"t heard a stranger speak for three weeks."
"Where did you come from?"
"Wait till I get my breath and I will answer all your questions. I came from a pocket back here in the mountains, where I lost my horse. I wish you could have seen that animal, for I don"t know what it was: long neck, long head, and a body that looked twice as big as my horse. And then how strong it was! It broke my lariat----"
"What color was it?" said the stranger, beginning to take a deep interest in what his guest had to say.
"I didn"t see that it was any other color when compared with my horse.
It looked just the same--a dark brown. It had a hump on its back----"
"The Red Ghost, by George!"
Tom started and looked at him in amazement.
CHAPTER X.
THE CAMP OF ELAM, THE WOLFER.
"I aint got any business to be digging around here," said the stranger, laying down his rifle and picking up his coat. "We"ll go back and get your gun, Tender-foot. How far is that pocket from here?"