"Poor, Joses?"
"Yes; horrid poor. There wasn"t above half of that silver; all the rest was stone. I like to see it in great solid lumps that don"t want any melting. That"s what I call silver. Don"t think much of this."
"Well, it"s a grand view, at all events, Joses," said Bart.
"It"s a big view, and you can see far enough for anything," he growled.
"You can see so far that you can"t see any farther; but I don"t see no good in that. What"s the good of a view that goes so far you can"t see it? Just as well have no view at all."
"Why, you are never satisfied, Joses," laughed Bart.
"Never satisfied! Well, I don"t see nothing in this to satisfy a man.
You can"t eat and drink a view, and it won"t keep Injun off from you.
Pshaw! views are about no good at all."
"Bart!"
It was the Doctor calling, and on the lad running to him it was to find that he was standing by a great chasm running down far into the body of the mountain, with rough shelving slopes by which it was possible to descend, though the task looked risky except to any one of the firmest nerve.
"Look down there, Bart," said the Doctor, rather excitedly; "what do you make of it?"
Bart took a step nearer so as to get a clearer view of the rent, rugged pit, at one side of which was a narrow, jagged slit where the sunshine came through, illumining what would otherwise have been gloomy in the extreme.
How far the chasm descended it was impossible to see from its irregularity, the sides projecting in great b.u.t.tresses here and there, all of grey rock, while what had seemed to be the softer portions had probably crumbled away. Here and there, though, glimpses could be obtained of what looked like profound depths where all was black and still.
"What should you think this place must have been?" said the Doctor, as if eager to hear the lad"s opinion.
"Wait a minute, sir," replied Bart, loosening a great fragment of rock, which with some difficulty he pushed to the edge, and then, placing his foot to it, thrust it over, and then bent forward to hear it fall.
The distance before it struck was not great, for there was a huge ma.s.s of rock projecting some fifty feet below upon which the stone fell, glanced off, and struck against the opposite side, with the effect that it was again thrown back far down out of sight; but the noise it made was loud enough, and as Bart listened he heard it strike heavily six times, then there was a dead silence for quite a minute, and it seemed that the last stroke was when it reached the bottom.
Bart was just about turning to speak to the Doctor when there came hissing up a horrible echoing, weird sound, like a magnified splash, and they knew that far down at an immense depth the great stone had fallen into water.
"Ugh!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Bart, involuntarily imitating the Indians. "What a hole! Why, it must be ten times as deep as this place is high. I shouldn"t care about going down."
"Horrible indeed, Bart; but what should you think? Is this place natural or dug out?"
"Natural, I should say, sir," replied Bart. "n.o.body could dig down to such a depth as that."
"Yes, natural," said the Doctor, carefully scanning the sides of the place with a small gla.s.s. "Originally natural, but this place has been worked."
"Worked? What, dug out?" said Bart. "Why, what for--to get water?"
"No," said the Doctor, quietly; "to get silver. This has been a great mine."
"But who would have dug it?" said Bart, eagerly. "The Indians would not."
"The people who roughly made the zigzag way up to the top here, my boy."
"But what people would they be, sir? The Spaniards?"
"No, Bart. I should say this was dug by people who lived long before the Spaniards, perhaps thousands of years. It might have been done by the ancient peoples of Mexico or those who built the great temples of Central America and Yucatan--those places so old that there is no tradition of the time when they were made. One thing is evident, that we have come upon a silver region that was known to the ancients."
"Well, I am disappointed," cried Bart. "I thought, sir, that we had made quite a new find."
"So did I at first, Bart," replied the Doctor; "but at any rate, save to obtain a few sc.r.a.ps, the place has not been touched, I should say, for centuries; and even if this mine has been pretty nearly exhausted, there is ample down below there in the canyon, while this mount must be our fortress and our place for furnaces and stores."
They descended cautiously for about a couple of hundred feet, sufficiently far for the Doctor to chip a little at the walls, and find in one or two places veins that ran right into the solid mountain, and quite sufficient to give ample employment to all the men without touching the great lode in the crack of the canyon side; and this being so, they climbed back to meet Joses, who had been just about to descend after them.
"You"ll both be killing of yourselves before you"re done, master," he said, roughly. "No man ought to go down a place like that without a rope round his waist well held at the end."
"Well, it would have been safer," said the Doctor, smiling.
"Safer? Yes," growled Joses; "send down a greaser next time. There"s plenty of them, and they aren"t much consequence. We could spare a few."
The Doctor smiled, and after continuing their journey round the edge of the old mine, they made their way to the zigzag descent, whose great regularity of contrivance plainly enough indicated that human hands had had something to do with it; while probably, when it was in use in the ancient ages, when some powerful nation had rule in the land, it might have been made easy of access by means of logs and balks of wood laid over the rifts from side to side.
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.
PREPARATIONS FOR SAFETY.
The descent was almost more arduous than the ascent, but there was no danger save such as might result from a slip or wrench through placing a foot in one of the awkward cracks, and once more down in the plain, where the camp was as busy as an ant hill, the Doctor called the princ.i.p.al Englishmen about his waggon, and formed a sort of council, as he proceeded to lay his plans before them.
The first was--as they were ready to defy the Indians, and to fight for their position there, to make the mountain their fortress, and in spite of the laborious nature of the ascent, it was determined that the tents should be set up on the top, while further steps were taken to enlarge the interior of the opening as soon as the narrow entrance was pa.s.sed, so as to allow of a party of men standing ready to defend the way against Indians who might force themselves in.
This was decided on at once, and men told off to do the work.
Then it was proposed to build three or four stout walls across the sloping path, all but just room enough for a man to glide by. These would be admirable means of defence to fight behind, if the enemy forced their way in past the first entry, and with these and a larger and stronger barrier at the top of the slope by the first turn, it was considered by the Doctor that with ordinary bravery the place would be impregnable.
So far so good; but then there were the horses and cattle, the former in the cavern-like stable, the latter in their stonewalled corral or enclosure.
Here was a difficulty, for now, however strong their defence might be, they were isolated, and it would be awkward in case of attack to have two small parties of men detailed for the guarding of these places, which the Indians would be sure to attack in force, in place of throwing their lives away against the well-defended mountain path.
"Couldn"t we contrive a gallery along the face of the mountain, right along above the ravine and the stables, sir?" said Bart. "I think some stones might be loosened out, and a broad ledge made, too high for the Indians to climb up, and with a good wall of stones along the edge we could easily defend the horses."
"A good idea, Bart, if it can be carried out," said the Doctor. "Let"s go and see!"
Inspection proved that this could easily be done so as to protect the horses, but not the corral, unless its position were altered and it were placed close alongside of the cavern stable.
After so much trouble had been taken in rearing this wall it seemed a great pity, but the men willingly set to work, while some loosened stones from above, and levered them down with bars, these fallen stones coming in handy for building up the wall.
Fineness of finish was not counted; nothing but a strong barrier which the cattle could not leap or throw down, if an attempt was made to scare them into a stampede, was all that was required, and so in a few days not only was this new corral strongly constructed, and the ledge projected fifty feet above it in the side of the mountain had been excavated, and edged with a strong wall of rock.
There was but little room, only advantage was taken of holes in the rock, which were enlarged here and there so as to form a kind of rifle-pit, in which there was plenty of s.p.a.ce for a man to creep and kneel down to load and fire at any enemy who should have determined to carry off the cattle. In fine, they had at last a strong place of defence, only to be reached from a spot about a hundred feet up the sloping way to the summit of the mountain; and the road to and from the bastion, as the Doctor called it, was quite free from observation in the plain, if the defenders crept along on hands and knees.
Beneath the entrance to this narrow gallery a very strong wall was built nearly across the slope; and at Bart"s suggestion a couple of huge stones were loosened in the wall just above, and a couple of crowbars were left there ready to lower these still further, so that they would slip down into the narrow opening left in case of emergency, and thus completely keep the Indians out.
All these matters took a great deal of time, but the knowledge of the danger from the prowling bands of Indians always on the war-path on the plains, and also that of the large treasure in silver that was within their reach, made the men work like slaves.