Elam began to look wild when he began to talk about the nugget, and Tom was glad to change the subject of the conversation.
"Who is the other fellow?" said he. "You said there were two of them."
"The other fellow is a tender-foot; he don"t claim to be anything else.
I"ll bet you, now that I have got over my excitement, that I have been talking about his father. His father commands a post within forty miles of the place where he is now visiting, but I don"t know one soldier from another. They all look alike to me, and I didn"t think of the relationship they bore to each other. No matter; he treated me mighty shabby, and I shall always think hard of soldiers after that."
At the end of half an hour they came out of the scrub oaks and found themselves in front of a neat little cabin which reminded Tom of the negro quarters he had seen in Mississippi. There were two boys standing in front of the cabin, and Tom had no trouble in picking out Carlos Burton. There was an independent air about him that somehow did not belong to the tender-foot, and when Elam introduced him in his off-hand way, this boy was the first to welcome him.
"This fellow is Tom Mason, and I want you to know him and treat him right. He got into a little trouble down in Mississippi where he used to live, and came out here to get clear of it. Know him, boys."
The boys, surprised as they were, were glad to shake hands with Tom, because he was Elam"s friend; but they were still more anxious to know how Elam had come among them for the fourth time robbed of his furs, and what he had to say about it. There were some things about him that didn"t look exactly right. There was his hand, which was still done up the way the doctor left it, and the mark on his horse"s neck, both of which proclaimed that Elam had been in something of a fight; but they didn"t push him, for they knew they would hear the whole of his story when he got inside of the cabin.
What I have written here is the true history of what happened to Tom Mason after he gave Joe Coleman the valise, containing the five thousand dollars, and the double-barrel shotgun; and I have told the truth, too, in regard to Elam and his last attempt at grub-staking. It took him pretty near all day to finish the story, and now I can drop the third person and go on with my narrative just as it happened. Of course we were all amazed at what Elam had to tell, and especially were we hurt to hear him speak so of Ben"s father; for he it was who was in command of the post. It would have done no good to talk to Elam, for very likely he had worse things than that to say about the major. We let him go on and tell his story in any way he thought proper, calculating to make it all right with Ben afterward.
"Now, Tom [he always addressed everybody by his Christian name], tell us something more of your story," said Uncle Ezra, who had the map of the hiding-place of the nugget spread out on his knee. "You haven"t done anything to make you a fugitive from home, and I see that Elam has been letting you down kinder easy. What have you done?"
It did not take Tom more than fifteen minutes to narrate as much of his history as he was willing that strangers should know, and Elam never let on that he knew more; he was the closest-mouthed fellow I ever saw. Tom told all about the story of the five thousand dollars, and declared that he had sent it back to the uncle of whom he had stolen it, but said he could not bear the "jibes" that would be thrown at him every time his uncle got mad at him. There were men out there who had done worse than that.
"That"s very true," said Uncle Ezra, looking down at the map he held on his knee. "But you haven"t done anything so very bad, and I would advise you to go home and live it down."
"No, sir, I shan"t do it," said Tom emphatically. "I"ll stay here until he gets over his pet and then I"ll go back. Besides, I can"t go. I am under promise to stand by Elam until he finds his nugget."
"And do you imagine that this paper will tell you where it is?"
"That"s what we are depending on."
"You will go, Carlos?" said Elam, addressing me.
"Yes, sir," I answered. "When you dig up that nugget I shall be right within reach of you."
"Now, uncle," began Ben, who was in a high state of commotion, "I just know you will let me----"
"Now, now!" interrupted Uncle Ezra, waving his hands up and down in the air as the major had done when he refused to interfere with the stolen furs. "Now, just wait till I tell you. You shan"t go!"
"I just know, if my father was here----" began Ben.
"Now, wait till I tell you. Your father would say, No! Here"s Indians all around you, and you want to go right into the midst of them. And going off with Elam Storm! That"s the worst yet. Why, your father has sent out a squad of cavalry to drive these fellows back where they came from, and what would I say to him if I should let you go philandering off there? No, sir, you can"t go. I shall send word to him in the morning and let him know you are all right. I suppose you will need a horse, Tom, seeing that the Red Ghost has spoilt your bronco for you."
"I should like to have one," replied Tom. "What do you think that Red Ghost is, anyway?"
"Now, wait till I tell you. I don"t know."
As it was almost supper time and we had not had anything to eat since Elam and Tom came to the cabin, and Uncle Ezra wanted to change the subject of the conversation into another channel, he gave me a nod which I understood, and I went about preparing the eatables. It was surprising how quickly everybody became acquainted with Tom. He and Elam had pa.s.sed through several scenes which were familiar enough to me, but which sounded like romance when recounted for Ben"s benefit, and it was no wonder that the latter looked upon Tom as a person well worth listening to. He carried on a lengthy conversation with him while I was getting supper, while Elam smoked and talked with Uncle Ezra. He was trying to make Uncle Ezra see that after waiting for so many years chance had thrown into his power the very thing for which he was looking, and sometimes he got so interesting that I was tempted to let the supper go and sit down and listen to him.
"There is something hidden there, and that"s all there is about it,"
said Elam emphatically. "You can"t make me believe that a man would carry around a map of that kind when there was nothing to it, and he would say he was ruined if he didn"t get it."
"But where did he get it in the first place?" asked Uncle Ezra.
"If I could see the man he shot I could answer that question."
"But how did he know that the man had it at all?"
"Ask me something hard," said Elam. "The man may have told him that he had it and refused to give it up; or he may have gone into partnership, just the same as Tom has gone into partnership with me. That is something I don"t know anything about, but I just know there is something hidden there, and I"ll dig the whole place over but I shall find it. If three months" supply of grub won"t do me, I"ll come back and get another. You will stake me, of course?"
"Sure. I"ll stake you if it takes the last thing I"ve got. But I"ll tell you one thing, Elam, and that aint two, that you won"t make anything by it. You had better stay at home and go to herding cattle."
Just as long as they talked the hard-headed old frontiersman always came to this advice, and Elam always dismissed it with a laugh. Finally he said, with more seriousness than I had ever seen him a.s.sume before:
"I will tell you what I"ll do, Uncle Ezra: I will follow this thing up, and if nothing comes of it, I will take your advice. But I will go to Texas. I can"t stay around where that nugget is without making an effort to find it. If you had had it dinged at you for years, you would feel the same way."
And I could swear that that was the truth, for Uncle Ezra had often said to me that if he had had the nugget preached at him from the time he was old enough to remember anything, he would have been as hot after it as Elam was. Nothing would have turned him away from it. Uncle Ezra knew that Elam was in earnest when he said this, and reached over and shook hands with him; and after that the subject was dropped. In the meantime Ben and Tom were getting acquainted, and especially was Ben deeply interested whenever the other spoke of the Red Ghost. Tom had seen it, had a fair shot at it, and could not imagine what had taken it off in such a hurry, if it had been a flesh-eating animal; but it was not, and so it uttered a scream and went into the bushes. It must have been a camel, because that was the only thing that Tom knew of that had a hump on its back.
"But camels don"t run wild in this country," said Ben.
"Now, wait till I tell you," put in Uncle Ezra, who had got through talking with Elam. "A good many years ago the government brought over some camels thinking that they could make them useful in carrying supplies across the desert; but, somehow or other, it turned out a failure, and, seeing that they couldn"t sell them, they turned them loose to shift for themselves. And that"s the way they come to be wild here."
"Well, that bangs me!" exclaimed Ben, who was profoundly astonished.
"But supposing they did turn them out to become wild, they wouldn"t pitch into horses, would they?"
"I don"t know anything about that," returned Uncle Ezra. "I do know that there is a camel around here, that he is red in color, that he has frightened the lives out of half a dozen people, and that he has been shot at numberless times. He does pitch into every horse and mule that he gets a chance at, and I don"t know what makes him."
"Well, I never heard of a camel doing that before," said Ben, settling back on his blanket. "If you get another show at it, Tom, make a sure shot, so that you can tell us what it is."
You may be sure that I was glad to hear the old frontiersman talk in this way. He had not seen the camel, but he had seen some scientific men who had seen him, and he was glad to accept what they had to say in regard to the Red Ghost. I, for one, resolved that I would never let it get away, if I once got a shot at it.
The evening was pa.s.sed in much the same way, with talks on various subjects, and it was a late hour when we sought our blankets. We all slept soundly, all except Tom, who awoke about midnight, and, to save his life, could not go to sleep again. He rolled and tossed on his blankets, and then, for fear that he might awaken some of us, concluded that he would go out and look at the weather. He pulled on his moccasons, opened the door, and went out, but on the threshold he stopped, for every drop of blood in him seemed to rush back upon his heart, leaving his face as pale as death itself. He was not frightened, but there, within less than twenty-five yards of him, stood the Red Ghost. He stood with his head forward, as if he were listening to some sounds that came to him from the horses" quarters, which, you will remember, were in the scrub-oaks behind the cabin. It was no wonder that Tom was excited, for there it was as plain as daylight. It looked as big as three or four horses.
"By George! I wish it would stay there just a minute longer. If I make out to get my rifle----"
With a step that would not have awakened a cricket, Tom stepped back into the cabin and laid hold of the first rifle he came to. It was not his own; it was Uncle Ezra"s Henry--a rifle that would shoot sixteen times without being reloaded. With this in his hands he walked quietly back, and there stood the object just as he had left it. It did not seem to hear Tom at all. Fearful of being seen, Tom raised his gun with a very slow and steady aim, and covered the spot just where he thought the heart ought to be. One second he stood thus, but it was long enough for Tom, who pressed the trigger.
"There!" said Tom, drawing a long breath. "If I didn"t make a good shot that time I never did. Hold on! It is coming right for me!"
The animal was fatally hurt, and the long bounds it made, and the shrill screams it uttered, would have taxed Tom"s nerves, if he had had any. To throw out the empty sh.e.l.l and insert another one was slowly and deliberately done, and the second ball struck it in the breast, when Tom thought that another bound would land it squarely on the top of him.
That settled it. It stayed right there, and all he could see of the Red Ghost was the twigs and leaves which it threw up during its struggles.
In the meantime there was a terrific commotion in the cabin, and his three friends came rushing out to see what was the matter.
"Who"s got my rifle!" exclaimed Uncle Ezra. "Now, wait till I tell you,"
he shouted, while lost in astonishment. "He"s got the Red Ghost; by gum, if he aint!"
They drew as near the struggling animal as they could, while Uncle Ezra went in to bring out a brand from the fire to examine it, and Tom stood by, not a little elated. It was the first desperate adventure he had had, and he had stood up to the mark like a man. When the animal had ceased its contortions, and the firebrands were brought out so that we could examine it closely, it was curious to see what different views the hunters took of their prize. Elam could hardly be made to believe that it was not a ghost. He stood at a distance while the others were inspecting it, and when he saw they were handling it, he remarked that the bullet he had sent into its neck ought to have finished it when he got it. Ben examined its legs and Tom felt of its hump. He said that when an Arab had a long journey to make he always examined the hump to see if his camel was in good condition, while an American always looked to his horse"s hoofs. He did not think this animal was in a fit condition to travel, although it had come seventy-five miles since Tom had last seen it, picking up its living on the way.
"Tom, you will do to tie to," said Elam, when he became satisfied that the animal was dead. "Shake!"
"Thank you," said Tom, seeing that his hands were safely out of reach.
"If it"s all the same to you I"ll not shake hands with you. I did it once back there in the mountains, and I haven"t got over it."