They moved on cautiously until they came to the spot where the Baxters and Roebuck had been seen last. Here the landslide had been at its worst, and rocks and trees had been torn up and cast down as by a giant"s hand. Not a trace of the enemy was to be discovered, until Jack Wumble at last made out a part of a man"s coat lying a hundred feet away. They ran to the spot, and soon uncovered the lifeless form of Roebuck. The man had been literally mauled to death by the fury of the elements.
"Poor fellow!" murmured Tom, as he gazed at the remains. "It was a dreadful death to die!"
"Yes, and he probably wasn"t prepared for it," said d.i.c.k soberly.
"I wonder if the Baxters were caught, too?"
"More"n likely," put in Wumble. "Look, here is a man"s hat."
"Arnold Baxter"s hat," cried Tom. "I noted it particularly when I was their prisoner. Where can the man be?"
"There are tons an" tons o" loose dirt just be low here," said Slim Jim. "Ye see the ground turned over and over as it rolled.
Probably both o" the Baxters are under that dirt, mebbe twenty or thirty foot down."
At this all of the Rover boys shuddered. Very likely the old hunter spoke the truth. What a terrible fate for their old enemies!
"Let us go away," whispered Sam. "I can"t stand this any longer!"
And he rushed off with the tears standing in his eyes. The others were also affected, and glad enough to leave the place, once and forever. Wumble and Slim Jim threw Roebuck"s body into a hollow and placed some dirt over it, and then built up a little mound of stones to mark the spot.
It was not until the next day that the party returned to the creek and began to look up the Eclipse Mine once more. The landslide had cut across this, and it was not long before both Wumble and Slim Jim declared the ground to be full of good paying "dirt," to use their own term. The claim was staked out to the boys" satisfaction, and then Wumble staked out a claim just above Discovery, as it is called in mining laws, while Slim Jim staked out one for himself just below Discovery. All three claims ran to both sides of the creek, so that no one would suffer for water when mining operations should begin.
"And those claims will yield us thousands of dollars!" said Jack Wumble. "Boys, we will all be rich."
"Hurrah!" shouted Tom. "I"m glad I came West, after all."
"And so am I," said Sam. "d.i.c.k, what do you say?"
"I say hurrah for the Eclipse Mine, and all the gold it will bring us," answered d.i.c.k. "Won"t father be pleased when he learns the news?"
Here let us bring to a close the story of the Rover boys" trip out West. They had faced many grave perils, but one after another these perils had been surmounted, and now, when success had finally crowned their efforts, all the hardships were forgotten.
In due course of time the t.i.tle to the Eclipse Mine was established in law, and later on Anderson Rover sent out a body of skilled miners to work the claim for all it was worth. It proved to be as valuable as antic.i.p.ated, and the Rovers were, of course, correspondingly happy.
The claims staked out by Jack Wumble and by Slim Jim proved also to be good payers from the start.
When the boys got home they found that the story of the Baxters"
fate had preceded them. Many folks were inclined to think that the wrongdoers deserved the catastrophe which had overtaken them. As nothing was heard of either father or son for a long while, it was presumed that both were dead beyond a doubt.
But they were not dead, although terribly bruised and unable to do much for themselves for a long while. The landslide threw both into the creek, and when they came to their senses they were fully a mile from the scene of the disaster. Here they fell in with a body of miners from Canada, and these men took them to a settlement still further West, where Arnold Baxter hovered between life and death for many weeks. Dan recovered more quickly.
"It"s the Rovers" fault," growled Dan Baxter, when he was able to sit up. "I"ll fix them yet."
He had still many plans for the future, and what some of them were will be told in the next volume of the series, to be ent.i.tled "The Rover Boys on the Great Lakes; or, The Secret of the Island Cave."
In this volume we will meet all of our old friends again, and also learn what was done by the Rover boys to outwit their old enemy.
Yet all went well for the present. Randolph Rover had quite recovered, so the boys" Aunt Martha was happy. Anderson Rover could now walk around again as well as ever.
"Never saw such boys in my life!" declared Martha Rover. "No matter what sc.r.a.pe they get into, they always come out with colors flying. G.o.d bless "em every one!"
And to this, kind reader, let us say Amen, and bid each other good-by.
THE END