The burro and the horse had seen or smelled, for they were pulling back and snorting, ears p.r.i.c.ked, eyes Staring. Billy stepped on his lead rope, and leveled his gun like lightning.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Billy stepped on his lead rope and leveled his gun like lightning]
"Bang!" The big bear gave a jump aside and turning sharp lumbered faster, straight for the top. "Bang!" spoke Billy"s patent repeater, again. And just as the bear disappeared over the top, "Bang!" shot Billy, a third time. But the bear was gone.
"Did I hit him? Did I hit him?" panted Billy. "Whoa, there, you horse. Did I hit him?"
"Don"t think so," panted Charley, just as excited. "Maybe you did, though. I heard the bullets sing, anyway. One must have struck rock.
Come on; let"s go over. Tie your horse. How many shots you got left?
"Four."
In a jiffy they tied the horse and burro to the brush, and away they pelted, lunging and staggering up the slope, to the place where they had seen the bear.
He wasn"t there now, and he wasn"t anywhere in sight, either; and though they searched closely, they could not find even a drop of blood.
"I guess I missed him clean," confessed Billy, ruefully. "I was in too big a hurry."
"It"s hard shooting up hill; and he was running, too," sympathized Charley, "Let"s see where the bullets. .h.i.t."
That would be some satisfaction; so they searched more. Presently Billy yelped:
"Here"s where one hit. It knocked a big chunk out of the rock. Funny looking rock." And then he exclaimed: "Come over, Charley. Quick!
The rock"s got a lot of yellow in it!"
"What color rock?" demanded Charley.
"Whitish."
"Let"s see."
Billy pointed, and he also handed up the piece that the bullet had knocked loose. Yes, the fresh side of the piece was white and glistening--and the whiteness was mottled with dull yellow. The scar in the rocky ridge also was white and yellow mottled.
"Is it gold, Charley?" gasped Billy, anxiously.
"I don"t know, for sure," said Charley, trying not to be foolish. "But I think this is quartz, all right enough; and if that yellow"s soft enough to be sc.r.a.ped with a knife blade it"s liable to be gold." He drew out his knife from his belt and sc.r.a.ped at the yellow. Where the yellow was thickest it could--yes, it could be sc.r.a.ped in tiny shavings. Billy was peering close; and he was breathing so fast that, Charley afterward declared, he could be heard half a mile. But no matter now.
"It"s gold!" Charley"s voice came tense and stammery. "Anyway, it"s soft."
"Do you suppose the whole rock"s full of gold?"
"Maybe. Let"s knock off some more. Maybe the whole hill"s full of gold--all the rock! Hurrah!"
"Hurrah! Maybe it"ll get solider, deeper we go," cheered Billy, hopefully.
Charley hammered with his boot heel and pried with his knife; Billy hammered with his rifle-b.u.t.t; and when they knocked off even a chip, it showed traces of gold. Why, wherever the rock stuck up, making little humps and furrows, it seemed to be the one kind: quartz-blotched and yellow-spotted.
"Hurrah!" again cheered Charley. "We ought to stake off claims. Who found it? I saw the bear."
"And I shot the bullet," returned Billy.
"Well, there"s enough for all, anyway. It"ll belong to the whole party. What"ll we call it? Grizzly? Lucky Bullet?"
They were so busy searching and gloating that they had forgotten the pack animals below and even the whereabouts of the men of the party.
On a sudden, as if replying to Charley"s queries, Billy cried out excitedly:
"Somebody else has been up here! Here"s a little pile of loose rock, and a stake with a board sign on it, that says----shucks. Can"t quite make it out. Come on and help me."
Over scrambled Charley, to where Billy was crouching and peering at a weathered board set up in a shallow hollow. Billy"s voice rang triumphantly.
""Golden West," it says. "Golden West Mine." And----"I lay claim to as much of this lode running east and west as is allowed by miners"
law. Tom Jones. August 22, 1848.""
"Golden West!" exclaimed Charley, crashing and sliding to Billy"s side.
"Hurrah! That"s the mine we"ve been looking for, Billy! It"s our mine. It"s the one----"
"That"s where you"re mistaken, bub," interrupted a new voice, speaking cold and distinctly. "Now you pile out of there, and git! Don"t come back again, either."
Looking up, startled (as did Billy likewise), Charley faced the long-nosed man and his two companions gazing in upon them, over the brushy rim of the hollow and the muzzles of three guns.
XXI
MINERS" JUSTICE
"No talk, now," continued the long-nosed man, with a hard smile slightly curving his thin black moustache. "Drop that rifle, you other kid. Back up the side of that hollow, both of you, and scoot. You"re in the wrong pew. This happens to be _our_ claim. See?"
Billy was so surprised and bewildered at the sudden attack that he simply couldn"t say a word. He only looked, with mouth open, at Charley; and then at the men. He and Charley slowly backed away, up the other slope of the hollow. Charley saw that the three men were breathing hard, as if they had just arrived, in a hurry. He was so mad that he, too, scarcely could speak.
""T isn"t either your mine," he retorted hotly. "That"s a lie, and you know it. You"re only trying to steal it. It was given to me, and we"ve found it again, and we can prove it. You wait till we get our crowd."
The three behind the gun-muzzles laughed.
"The best thing for your crowd to do is to stay out of shooting distance," answered the long-nosed man. "We"ve got the mine, and the doc.u.ments to prove it"s ourn. Those are two p"ints hard to beat, bub."
"You haven"t any right, just the same," retorted Charley, furious.
"You stole those papers, but you needn"t think you can steal the mine.
You wait."
"We"ll wait," said the long-nosed man, grimly.
"Come on," bade Charley, choking with wrath and almost with tears, to the astonished Billy. "Let"s get our animals and find our partners.
Those fellows needn"t think they can bluff _us_."
"Who are they, anyhow?" gasped Billy, as he and Charley went plunging down the ridge. "Is that their mine? Did they put that sign up? I thought we found it. We were there first, weren"t we?"