For a moment we stood gazing spellbound at this natural phenomenon, hardly realizing what it meant, and then, with one impulse, we both threw our hats into the air with a shout, seized each other"s hands, and danced a wild and unconventional dance, with no witness but a solitary eagle, which, pa.s.sing high overhead, paused for an instant in his flight to wonder, probably, what those crazy, unaccountable human beings were up to now.
At length, out of breath, we stopped, when Joe, clapping his hands together to emphasize his words, cried:
"At last we"ve found it, Phil! This, _surely_, is the water-supply that keeps the "forty rods" wet!"
"It must be," I replied, no less excited than my partner. "It must be; it can"t be anything else. But how are we going to prove it, Joe?"
"The only way I see is to divert the flow here; then, if our underground stream stops, we shall know this is it."
"Yes, but how are we to divert it?"
"Why, look here," Joe answered. "The spring, I suppose, is a little extra-strong just now, causing that slight overflow up above here. Well, what we must do is to take the line marked out for us by the overflow, and following it from the channel down to the crack in the crater-wall, break up and throw aside all the rocks that get in the way; then cut a new channel and send the whole stream off through the crack, when it will pour into the canon, run across the ranch on the surface, and the "forty rods" will dry up!"
He gazed at me eagerly, with his fists shut tight, as though he were all ready to spring upon the impeding rocks and fling them out of the way at once.
"That"s all right, Joe," I replied. "It"s a good programme. But it"s a tremendous piece of work, all the same. There are scores of rocks to be broken up and moved; and when that is done, there is still the new channel to be cut in the solid stone bed of the crater. The present channel is about eighteen inches deep; we shall have to make the new one six inches deeper, and something like a hundred feet long: a big job by itself, Joe."
"I know that," Joe answered. "It"s a big job, sure enough, and will take time and lots of hard work. Still, we can do it----"
"And what"s more we will do it!" I cried. "What"s the best way of setting about it?"
"We shall have to blast out the channel and blow to pieces all the bigger rocks," Joe replied. "It would take forever to do it with pick and sledge--in fact, it couldn"t be done. We shall have to use powder and drill."
"Well, then," said I, "I"ll tell you what we"ll do. We"ll borrow the tools from Tom Connor. He left a number of drills, you know, stored in our blacksmith-shop, and he"ll lend "em to us I"m sure. One of us had better drive back to the Big Reuben to-morrow morning and ask him."
"All right, Phil, we"ll do so. My! I wish--it doesn"t sound very complimentary--but I wish your father would stay away another week. I believe we can do this work in a week, and wouldn"t it be grand if we could have the stream headed off before he got home! But how about the plowing, Phil? I was forgetting that."
"Why, the only plowing left," I replied, "is the potato land, and that, fortunately, is not urgent; whereas the turning of this stream is urgent--extremely urgent--and my opinion is that we ought to get at it.
Anyhow, we"ll begin on it, and if my father thinks proper to set us to plowing instead when he gets home--all right."
"Well, then, we"ll begin on this work as soon as we can. And now, Phil, let us get along home."
We had been seated on a big stone while this discussion was going on, and were just about to rise, when Joe, suddenly laying his hand on my arm, held up a warning finger. "Sh!" he whispered. "Don"t speak. Don"t stir. I hear some one moving about!"
Squatting behind the rocks, I held my breath and listened, and presently I heard distinctly, somewhere close by, the tinkle of two or three chips of stone as they rolled down into the crater. Some one was softly approaching the place where we sat.
Though to move was to risk detection, our anxiety to see who was there was too strong to resist, so Joe, taking off his hat, slowly arose until he was able to peep through a c.h.i.n.k between two of the big fragments which sheltered us. For a moment he stood there motionless, and then, tapping me on the shoulder, he signed to me to stand up too.
Peeping between the stones, I saw, not fifty yards away, a man coming carefully down the crater-wall on the side opposite from that by which we ourselves had entered. In spite of his care, however, he every now and then dislodged a little fragment of stone, which came clattering down the steep slope. It was one of these that had given us notice of his approach.
There was no mistaking the tall, gaunt figure, even though the light of the sunset sky behind him made him look a veritable giant. It was Long John b.u.t.terfield.
He was headed straight for our hiding-place, and it was with some uneasiness that I observed he had a revolver strapped about his waist.
In appearance he looked wilder and more unkempt than ever, while the sharp, suspicious manner in which he would every now and then stop short and glance quickly all around, showed him to be nervous and ill at ease.
While Joe and I stood there silent and rigid as statues, Long John came on down the slope, until presently he stopped scarce ten steps from us beside a big, flat stone. There, for a moment, he stood, his hand on his revolver, his body bent and his head thrust forward, his ears c.o.c.ked and his little eyes roving all about the crater--the picture of a watchful wild animal--when, satisfied apparently that he was alone and un.o.bserved, he went down upon his knees, threw aside several pieces of rock, and thrusting his arm under the flat stone, he pulled out--a sack!
So close to us was he, that even in that uncertain light we could distinguish the word, "Pelican," stenciled upon it in big black letters.
Laying this sack upon the flat stone, John reached into the hole again, and, one after another, brought out four others. Apparently there were no more in there, for, having done this, he rose to his feet again, looked all about him once more, and then walked off a short distance up-stream. At the point where the channel overflowed he stopped again, when, to our wonderment he pulled off his coat, rolled up one sleeve, and going down upon his knees, began scratching around in the water. In a few seconds he fished out one at a time five dripping sacks, all of which he carried over and set down beside the first five.
Evidently he was working with some set purpose; though to us watchers it was all a perfectly mysterious proceeding.
A few steps from where the sacks were piled was a little ledge of rock less than a foot high, above which was a steep slope covered with loose fragments of stone. Taking up the sacks, two at a time, John carried them over to this spot, laid them all, end to end, close under the little ledge, and then, climbing up above them, he sat down, and with his big, flat feet sent the loose shale running down until the row of sacks was completely buried.
This seemed to be all he wanted, for, having examined the result of his work and satisfied himself apparently that the sacks were perfectly concealed, he turned and went straight off up the crater-wall again, pausing at the crest for a minute to inspect the country ahead of him, and then, stepping over the rim, in another moment he had vanished.
"Come on, Phil!" whispered my companion, eagerly. "Let us see which direction he takes."
"Wait a bit," I replied. "Give him five minutes: he might come back."
We waited a short time, therefore, when, feeling pretty sure that John had gone for good, we scrambled to the summit of the ridge and looked out over the mesa. There we could see Long John striding away at a great pace, apparently making straight for Big Reuben"s gorge.
"Then Yetmore was right," said Joe. "Those fellows were the ore-thieves after all. I wonder if they haven"t taken up their quarters in Big Reuben"s old cave. It would be a pretty good place for their purpose."
"Quite likely," I a.s.sented. "But what do you suppose, Joe, can have been Long John"s object in coming down here and moving those ore-sacks?--for, of course, they are the Pelican ore-sacks. They were well enough concealed before."
"It does look mysterious at first sight," replied Joe, "but I expect the explanation is simple enough. I think it is probable that when they brought the ore up here the two men divided the spoils on the spot, each hiding his own share in a place of his own choosing; and our respected friend, John, thinking to get ahead of the other thief, has just come and stolen his partner"s share."
"That would be a pretty shabby trick, but I expect it is just what he has done. He"ll be a bit surprised when he finds that some one has played a similar trick on him. For, of course, we can"t leave the sacks there, to be moved again if Long John should take the notion that the hiding place is not safe enough. How shall we manage it, Joe? If we are going to do anything this evening we must do it quickly: there won"t be daylight much longer."
After a moment"s consideration, Joe replied: "Let us go down and carry those sacks outside the crater. Then get along home, and come back here with the wagon and team by daylight to-morrow and haul them off. It is too much of a load for the buckboard, even if we walked ourselves, so it won"t do to take them with us now."
"All right," said I. "Then we"ll do that; and afterwards you can ride up to see Tom Connor about those tools, while I drive to Sulphide with the ore. Won"t Yetmore be glad to see me!"
There was no time to lose, and even as it was, the waning light made it pretty difficult to pick our way across the rock-strewn bottom of the crater with a fifty-pound sack under each arm, but at length we had them all safely laid away in a crack in the rocks just outside the crater, whence it would be handy to remove them in the morning.
By the time we had finished it was dark, and we hurriedly drove off home, contemplating with some reluctance the ch.o.r.es which were still to be done. From this duty, however, we had a happy relief, for our good friend, Peter, anxious to make himself of some use, and taking his time about it, had managed to feed the horses and pigs, milk the cows, shut up the chickens and start the fire for supper--a service on his part which we very thoroughly appreciated.
We had just sat down to our evening meal, and were telling Peter all about our two great finds of the afternoon, when our guest, whose long and solitary life as a hunter had made his hearing preternaturally sharp, straightened himself in his chair, and holding up one finger, said:
"Hark! I hear a horse coming up the valley at a gallop!"
At first Joe and I could hear nothing, but presently we detected the rhythmical beat of the hoofs of a horse approaching at a smart canter.
Somebody was coming up from San Remo--for though a wheeled vehicle could not pa.s.s over the "forty rods," a horseman could pick his way--and knowing that n.o.body ever came that way in the "soft" season unless our house was his destination, I stepped to the door, wondering who our visitor could be. Great was my surprise when the horseman, riding into the streak of light thrown through the open doorway, proved to be Yetmore!
"Why, Mr. Yetmore!" I cried. "Is it you? Come in! You"re just in time for supper."
"Thank you, Phil," replied the storekeeper, "but I won"t stop. I was down at San Remo this afternoon, and it occurred to me to ride home this way and inquire of you if you"d seen or heard anything more of those ore-thieves. By the way, before I forget it: I brought your mail for you;" at the same time handing me one letter and two or three newspapers.
"Thank you," said I, thrusting the letter into my pocket. "And as to the ore-thieves, Mr. Yetmore, we"ve seen one of them; but we"ve done something a good deal better than that--we"ve found the ore."
"What!" shouted Yetmore, so loudly that Joe came running out, thinking there must be something the matter. "What! You"ve found the ore!"
So saying, he leaped from his horse and seizing me by the arm, cried: "You"re not joking, are you, Phil? For goodness" sake, don"t fool me, boys. It"s a matter of life and death to me, almost!"
His anxiety was plainly expressed in his eager eyes and trembling hand, and I was glad to note the look of relief which came over his face when I replied: