"Now, I will give you something to chew on while Carlos is getting supper for us," said Elam; and as that was a gentle hint that he was hungry, I got up and went to work. "We three boys are going to Texas."
"Going to Texas?" asked Uncle Ezra. "Now, wait till I tell you----"
"And another thing," said Elam, paying no attention to the interruption; "we don"t want to stay here until this thing is panned out; so can"t you lend us a thousand dollars on that nugget?"
"I know what you want," replied Uncle Ezra. "You want me to lend you a thousand dollars apiece."
"Well, yes. That"s about the way the thing stands."
"Now, wait till I tell you. You will go away with all that money in your good clothes, and the first thing you know I will never see you again.
Somebody will say "Where"s them three fellows that used to hang around your place?" and I will say "Why, they went down to Texas to buy cattle, and those Texans found out that they had a lot of money about them and shot them." That"s what I"ll say. Now, wait till I tell you. You can"t go!"
That was just about what I expected to hear from Uncle Ezra at the start, but I knew it would turn out otherwise. I knew if he had the money we would get it, and so I kept still. Tom was very much disappointed, but I gave him a wink and nod which told him that our circ.u.mstances were not as bad as they appeared to be, and that everything would come out all right in the end. I didn"t blame Uncle Ezra for not wanting to let us go away with so much money in our pockets, but I did not see any other way out of it. If we wanted to get our cattle for about half what they would cost us right there, Texas was the place for us to go. The Indians were bad, and we would have to go right across the country inhabited by the Comanches, and they were about the worst cattle-thieves I ever heard of. Those lawless men--those who did not think that they were bound by any legal or moral restraint unless it was right there to punish them--were found everywhere, and it was going to be a matter of some difficulty to evade them. I had been there once, and I had seen just enough of it to want to go again. I wished now that I had not had quite so much to say in regard to those Regulators and Moderators who seemed to turn up when you least expected them.
I got supper ready after a while and we all sat down to it--all except Uncle Ezra, who sat on his camp-stool with his eyes fastened on the nugget. He turned it first on one side and then on the other so that he could view it from all sides, said, "By gum!" every time he looked at it, and told us many stories connected with it that we had never heard before. To Elam"s request that he would take charge of it he readily a.s.sented. He would keep it out until all the sheep-herders had seen it, and then he would hide it somewhere so that n.o.body would ever think of looking for it. It was in the hands of the rightful owner at last, and no one need think he was going to handle it again.
"But you have a long way to take it to Denver," said I. "What will you do if somebody demands it of you!"
"Now, wait until I tell you," said Uncle Ezra, while a look of determination came into his face. "Uncle Ezra has been there."
"Now while you are talking about that nugget you are forgetting about me," said Tom. "I"ve got to go back to Mr. Parsons" cabin, and make some amends for that bronco. I didn"t agree to let him be torn up. I have left money enough in his hands to settle for him."
"That horse won"t cost you a cent," said I.
"What makes you say that?"
"Because he was kept for the purpose of sending tender-feet into the mountains when Parsons didn"t have anything else for them to do. The next one that comes along he will have to set him to herding cattle.
Still I will go with you."
"Thank you. What"s the reason Elam can"t go with you?"
"Why, he"s got to stay here and watch the nugget!"
"By George! Have you got to watch it now that you have found it?"
"Yes, sir. There are ten men employed on this ranch and four on mine, and you may be sure that all of them are not first-cla.s.s."
"Well, let them come," said Elam, getting up and stretching himself. He stood more than six feet in his stockings, and when he brought his arms back to show his biceps he fairly made the cabin tremble.
"Yes, you, dog-gone you," said Uncle Ezra, getting up and shaking a fist in Elam"s face. "You want to go off and lose a thousand dollars of it and your life besides. Now, wait until I tell you. I"ll sleep on it.
I"ll see how it looks in the morning."
But in the morning there was not a word said about it. We ate breakfast by the firelight, and then Tom"s horse and mine were brought to the door and saddled, preparatory to our ride to Mr. Parsons" ranch. In a pair of saddle-bags which I carried I had cooked provisions enough to last four days. As we were ready to start, Uncle Ezra came to the door and took a look at the weather.
"How long do you think you will be gone, Carlos?" said he. "Two weeks?
Then you needn"t mind coming back here. We shall probably get the sheep out some time before that, and you had better come to our dugout on the plains. I"ll see to your cattle. Good-by."
In process of time we rode up to Mr. Parsons" cabin, and if I am any judge of the exclamations that arose from all sides they found it difficult to recognize Tom. It seemed that his two months in the mountains had changed him wonderfully. When he spoke of the bronco and repeated some words of advice that Mr. Parsons had given him, the latter remembered him at once.
"Why, Tom, I am glad to see you," said he. "Alight and hitch. The bronco didn"t get away from you, I suppose. And you found the nugget, too?"
"Yes, sir; I did," replied Tom quietly.
"Gold sticking out all over it, I suppose. Well, how much do I owe you?"
"I"ve come here to see how much I owe you," said Tom. "That bronco has gone up. The Red Ghost finished him."
Mr. Parsons began to get interested now. He looked at me and I nodded a.s.sent.
"Do you mean to say that the Red Ghost finished him? And did you find the nugget?" he exclaimed, hardly believing he had heard aright.
"It"s all true, every bit of it," I said. "He found Elam in a canyon where he got lost, and afterward found a map. He used that map, which started in at the springs, and afterward found the nugget."
"There now!" exclaimed the elderly man, the one who had been in the mountains just ahead of Tom, and whose camp the latter slept in every night. "I told you that I did not think there was gold hidden there, and you thought me crazy."
"Well--I--I--come in, come in," cried Mr. Parsons. "I must hear that story from beginning to end. And are you sure he found the nugget?
Wasn"t it something else that he found?"
There were five men standing around who had been ordered to go away on some work or another, but they all quit and came into the cabin to hear the story. I took the part of spokesman upon myself, for I did not think that Tom would care to dwell too minutely on his meeting with the Red Ghost or his getting lost in the mountains, and I do not think I left out anything. I never saw a lot of men so confounded as they were. To suppose that a lot of gold had been hidden there in the mountains, which had come from some place a hundred miles away from there, and that Mr.
Parsons had sent a dozen tender-feet into the hills to find it, was more than they could understand. When I got through they looked upon Tom with a trifle more of respect than they did before. They couldn"t find words with which to express their astonishment.
"Now, perhaps, you are willing to talk to me about that bronco," said Tom. "How much do I owe you for him?"
"Not a red cent," said Mr. Parsons. "Not a single, solitary copper. I kept him for the sake of such fellows as you are, and now that he has got through with his business, I say let him rest. I shall never have any more chances to send him into the mountains with tender-feet. But, Tom, I owe you more than I can pay you."
"You let up on one debt and I will let up on the other," said Tom, with a laugh. "If Elam wasn"t such a hot-headed fellow, I should be glad of it. He wants me to take half that nugget, and I don"t want to do it."
"Take it and say nothing to n.o.body," said Mr. Parsons. "You will find means to make it up. How much will it pan out?"
"Between $5000 and $8000," I answered. "But it is my opinion it will be nearer $5000. Elam has got that story in his head about the sum of money that Spaniard put upon it, and he kinder leans to that sum."
"That"s a larger amount of money than most of us can make. Now, I hope that n.o.body will knock him in the head for it."
That was just what I was afraid of, and I made all haste to get back to Elam. I went up to Denver with him and Uncle Ezra, and there we sold the nugget for $6500. The money was all placed in the bank, with the exception of $2000, $1000 of which he took back to give to Tom. I sold my stock for $5000, and also took $1000 with me to purchase cattle. We were gone a month, and when we got back there was nothing to hinder us from starting for Texas. We had a long and fearful journey before us, more trouble than it is in these times, and we were a long while in saying good-by to the friends we left behind. We had something, too, that we didn"t count on, and what it was and how we got around it shall be told in "THE MISSING POCKET-BOOK; OR, TOM MASON"S LUCK."
THE END.
FAMOUS STANDARD JUVENILE LIBRARIES.
HORATIO ALGER, JR.
The enormous sales of the books of Horatio Alger, Jr., show the greatness of his popularity among the boys, and prove that he is one of their most favored writers. I am told that more than half a million copies altogether have been sold, and that all the large circulating libraries in the country have several complete sets, of which only two or three volumes are ever on the shelves at one time. If this is true, what thousands and thousands of boys have read and are reading Mr.
Alger"s books! His peculiar style of stories, often imitated but never equaled, have taken a hold upon the young people, and, despite their similarity, are eagerly read as soon as they appear.