"What"s the use of that kind of talk?" growled Connor. "You know I haven"t a cent to my name. Besides, I haven"t any interest."
"You--what!--you haven"t any interest!" cried the other. "What do you mean?"
"I"ve sold it."
"Sold it! Who to?"
"To Mr. Crawford, two days ago."
"Well, you are a----" Yetmore began; but catching sight of Tom"s glowering face he stopped and subst.i.tuted, "Well, I"m sorry to hear it."
"Well, I ain"t," said Tom, shortly. "If Mr. Crawford makes a fortune out of it I"ll be mighty well pleased. He"s treated me "white," _he_ has."
From the tone and manner of this remark it was easy to guess that Tom did not love Mr. Yetmore: he had found him a difficult partner to get along with, probably.
"I certainly hope he will," said Yetmore, smiling, "for if he does I shall. Sold it to Mr. Crawford, eh? So that accounts for you two boys being up here. Got here just in time, didn"t you? You"ll stay over to-morrow, of course, and see Tom uncover the vein?"
"Are you proposing to uncover it, Tom?" I asked.
"Yes. It"s only four feet down; one shot will do it. You"ll stay too, I suppose, Mr. Yetmore?"
"Certainly," replied the other. But as he said it, I saw a change come over his face--it was a leathery face, with a large, long nose. Some idea had occurred to him I was sure, especially when, seeing that I was looking at him, he dropped his eyes, as though fearing they might betray him.
Whatever the idea might be, however, I ceased to think of it when Tom suggested that it was getting late and that we had better adjourn to the cabin for supper.
Taking our ponies over to the log stable, therefore, we gave them a good feed of oats, and soon afterwards were ourselves seated before a steaming hot meal of ham, bread and coffee; after which we spent an hour talking over the great strike, and then, crawling into the bunks, we very quickly fell asleep.
Early next morning we walked about half a mile up the mountain to the scene of the strike, when, having first shoveled away two or three feet of loose stuff, Tom and his helper set to work, one holding the drill and the other plying the hammer, drilling a hole a little to one side of the spot whence the core had come.
They were no more than well started when Yetmore, remarking that he had forgotten his tobacco, walked back to the cabin to get it--an action to which Joe and I, being interested in the drilling, paid little attention. It was only when Connor, turning to select a fresh drill, asked where he was, that we remembered how long he had been gone.
"Gone back to the cabin, has he?" remarked Tom. "Well, he"s welcome to stay there as far as I"m concerned."
The work went on, until presently Tom declared that they had gone deep enough, and while we others cleared away the tools, Connor himself loaded and tamped the hole.
"Now, get out of the way!" cried he; and while we ran off and hid behind convenient trees, Tom struck a match and lighted the fuse. The dull thud of an explosion shortly followed; but on walking back to the spot we were all greatly surprised to see that the rock had remained intact--it was as solid as ever.
"Well, that beats all!" exclaimed Tom. "The thing has shot downward; it must be hollow underneath. We"ll have to put in some short holes and crack it up."
It did not take long to put in three short holes, and these being charged and tamped, we once more took refuge behind the trees while Tom touched them off. This time there were three sharp explosions, a shower of fragments rattled through the branches above our heads, and on going to inspect the result we found that the rock had been so shattered that it was an easy matter to pry out the pieces with pick and crowbar--a task of which Joe and I did our share.
At length, the hole being now about three feet deep, Joe, who was working with a crowbar, gave a mighty prod at a loose piece of rock, when, to the astonishment of himself and everybody else, the bottom of the hole fell through, and rock, crowbar and all, disappeared into the cavity beneath.
"Well, what kind of a vein is it, anyhow?" cried Tom, going down upon his knees and peering into the darkness. "Blest if there isn"t a sort of cave down here. Knock out some more, boys, and let me get down. This is the queerest thing I"ve struck in a long time."
We soon had the hole sufficiently enlarged, when, by means of a rope attached to a tree, Tom slid down into it, and lighting a candle, peered about.
Poor old Tom! The change on his face would have been ludicrous had we not felt so sorry for him, when, looking up at us he said in lugubrious tones: "Done again, boys! Come down and see for yourselves."
We quickly slid down the rope, when, our eyes having become accustomed to the light, Tom pointed out to us the extraordinary accident that had caused him to believe he had struck a three-foot vein of galena.
Though there was no sign of such a thing on the surface, it was evident that the place in which we stood had at one time been a narrow, water-worn gully in the mountain-side. Ages ago there had been a landslide, filling the little gully with enormous boulders. That these rocks came from the vein of the Samson higher up the mountain was also pretty certain, for among them was one pear-shaped boulder of galena ore, standing upright, upon the apex of which rested the immense four-foot slab of stone through which Tom had bored his drill-hole. By a chance that was truly marvelous, the drill, after piercing the great slab, had struck the very point of the galena boulder and had gone through it from end to end, so that when the core came up it was no wonder that even Tom, experienced miner though he was, should have been deceived into the belief that he had discovered a three-foot vein of lead-ore.
As a matter of fact, there was no vein at all--just one single chunk of galena, not worth the trouble of getting it out. Connor"s lead-mine after all had turned out to be only a "pocket edition."
Tom"s disappointment was naturally extreme, but, as usual, his low spirits were only momentary. We had hardly climbed up out of the hole again when he suddenly burst out laughing.
"Ho, ho, ho!" he went, slapping his leg. "What will Yetmore say? I"m sorry, Phil, that I couldn"t keep my promise to your father, but I"ll own up that as far as Yetmore is concerned I"m rather glad. I don"t like the Honorable Simon, and that"s a fact. What"s he doing down at the cabin all this time, I wonder. Come! Let"s gather up the tools and go down there: there"s nothing more to be done here."
On arriving at the cabin, Yetmore"s non-appearance was at once explained. Fastened to the table with a fork was a piece of paper, upon which was written in pencil, "Gone to look for the horses."
Of course, Joe and I at once ran over to the stable. It was empty; all three of the horses were gone.
"Queer," remarked Joe. "I feel sure I tied mine securely, but you see halters and all are gone."
"Yes," I replied. "And I should have relied upon our ponies" staying even if they had not been tied up; you know what good camp horses they are. Let"s go out and see which way they went."
We made a cast all round the stable, and presently Joe called out, "Here they are, all three of them." I thought he had found the horses, but it was only their tracks he had discovered, which with much difficulty we followed over the stony ground, until, after half an hour of careful trailing, they led us to the dusty road some distance below camp, where they were plainly visible.
"Our ponies have followed Yetmore"s horse," said Joe, after a brief inspection. "Do you see, Phil, they tread in his tracks all the time?"
For the tracks left by our own ponies were easily distinguishable from those of Yetmore"s big horse, our animals being unshod.
"What puzzles me though, Joe," said I, "is that there are no marks of the halter-ropes trailing in the dust; and yet they went off with their halters."
"That"s true. I don"t understand it. And there"s another thing, Phil: Yetmore hasn"t got on their trail yet, apparently; see, the marks of his boots don"t show anywhere. He must be wandering in the woods still."
"I suppose so. Well, let us go on and see if they haven"t stopped to feed somewhere."
We went on for half a mile when we came to a spot where the tracks puzzled us still more. For the first time a man"s footmarks appeared.
That they were Yetmore"s I knew, for I had noticed the pattern of the nails in the soles of his boots as he had sat with his feet resting on a chair the night before. But where had he dropped from so suddenly? We could find no tracks on either side of the road--though certainly the ground was stony and would not take an impression easily--yet here they were all at once right on top of the horses" hoof-prints.
Moreover, his appearance seemed to have been the signal for a new arrangement in the position of the horses, for our ponies had here taken the lead, while Yetmore"s horse came treading in their tracks.
Moreover, again, twenty yards farther on, the horses had all broken into a gallop. What did it mean?
"Well, this is a puzzler!" exclaimed Joe, taking off his hat and rumpling his hair, as his habit was in such circ.u.mstances. "How do you figure it out, Phil?"
"Why," said I. "I"ll tell you what I think. Yetmore has caught sight of the horses strolling down the road and has followed them, keeping away from the road himself for fear they should see him and take alarm.
Dodging through the scrub-oak and cutting across corners, he has come near enough to them to speak to his own horse; the horse has stopped and Yetmore has caught him. That was where his tracks first showed in the road. Then he has jumped upon his horse and galloped after our ponies, which appear to have bolted."
"That sounds reasonable," Joe a.s.sented; "and in that case he"ll head them and drive them back; so we may as well walk up to the cabin again and wait for him."
To this I agreed, and we therefore turned round and retraced our steps.
"There"s only one thing about this that I can"t understand," remarked Joe, as we trudged up the hill, "and that is about the halters--why they leave no trail. That does beat me."
"Yes, that is certainly a queer thing; unless they managed to sc.r.a.pe them off against the trees before they took to the road. In that case, though, we ought to have found them; and anyhow it is hard to believe that all three horses should have done the same thing."
We found Tom very busy packing up when we reached the cabin, and on our telling him the result of our horse-hunt he merely nodded, saying, "Well, they"ll be back soon, I suppose, and then I"ll ride down with you."