In the Heart of the Rockies: A Story of Adventure in Colorado, G. A. Henty [best e book reader android TXT] 📗

This time Ben held the wedge until it was half buried, having perfect confidence in Jerry's skill. It was not until the fourth wedge had been driven in that a fragment of rock weighing four or five hundredweight suddenly broke out from the face. All bent eagerly over it, and the miners gave a shout of joy. The inner surface, which was white, but slightly stained with yellow, with blurs of slate colour here and there, was thickly studded with gold. It stuck out above the surface in thin, leafy plates with ragged edges, with here and there larger spongy masses.

"I reckon that is good enough," Jerry said, wiping the sweat from his forehead. "Ef there is but enough of it, it is the biggest thing that ever was struck. There ain't no saying how rich it is, but I will bet my boots it's over five hundred ounces to the ton. It ain't in nature that it is going to run far like that, but it is good enough for anything. Well, what is the next thing, Harry?"

"We will break it up," Harry said, "and carry it down with us to the camp. If the Utes came down on us tomorrow, and we could get off with it, that would be plenty to show if we want to make a sale."

It took them a long time to break up the rock, for the quartz was hard, and was so bound together by the leafy gold running through it that each of the four men had several spells with the hammer before it was broken up into fragments weighing some twenty pounds apiece. As soon as this was done the men collected earth, filled up the hole in the face of the rock, and planted several large tufts of grass in it, and poured four or five tins of water over them; then they smeared with mud the patches where Harry had before broken pieces off.

"What is all that for, Jerry?" Tom asked.

"It is to hide up the traces, lad. We may have to bolt away from here to-morrow morning for anything we know, and before we come back again someone else may come along, and though we shall locate our claims at the mining register, there would be a lot of trouble if anyone else had taken possession, and was working the vein when we got back."

"It is not likely that anyone else would come along here, Jerry."

"Waal, I reckon that is so, but one ain't going to trust to chance when one has struck on such a place as this."

The Seneca had been the only unmoved person in the party.

"What do you think of that, chief?" Harry asked him.

"If my white brother is pleased Leaping Horse is glad," he replied. "But the Indian does not care for gold. What can he do with it? He has a good gun, he does not want twenty. He does not want many hunting suits. If he were to buy as many horses as would fill the valley he could not ride them all, and he would soon tire of sitting in his lodge and being waited upon by many wives. He has enough for his needs now. When he is old it will be time to rest."

"Well, that is philosophy, chief, and I don't say you are wrong from your way of looking at it. But that gold means a lot to us. It means going home to our people. It means living in comfort for the rest of our lives. It means making our friends happy."

"Leaping Horse is glad," the chief said gravely. "But he cannot forget that to him it means that the white brother, with whom he has so long hunted and camped and fought bad Indians, will go away across the great salt water, and Leaping Horse will see him no more."

"That is so, chief," Harry said, grasping the Indian's hand warmly, "and I was a selfish brute not to think of it before. There is one thing I will promise you. Every year or so I will come out here and do a couple of months' hunting with you. The journey is long, but it is quickly made now, and I know that after knocking about for twenty years I shall never be content if I don't take a run out on the plains for a bit every summer. I will give you my word, Leaping Horse, that as long as I have health and strength I will come out regularly, and that you shall see your white brother's friendship is as strong as your own."

The Seneca's grave face lit up with pleasure. "My white brother is very good," he said. "He has taken away the thorn out of the heart of Leaping Horse. His Indian brother is all glad now."

The quartz was placed in sacks they had brought with them to carry down samples, and they at once returned to the camp, where, after smoking a pipe, they lay down to sleep; but it was some time before all went off, so excited were they at the thought of the fortune that seemed before them.

In the afternoon they took one of the pieces of stone, weighing, by a spring balance, twenty pounds, and with the flat plate and the crushing-hammer went to the stream. The rock was first broken with the sledge into pieces the size of a walnut. These were pulverized on the iron plate and the result carefully washed, and when the work was finished the gold was weighed in the miner's scales, and turned the four-ounce weight.

"That is nearly five hundred ounces to the ton," Harry said, "but of course it is not going to run like that. I reckon it is a rich pocket; there may be a ton of the stuff, and there may be fifty. Now let's go up and have a quiet look for the lode, and see if we can trace it. We ought to see it on the rock the other side."

A careful search showed them the quartz vein on the face of the rock some fifty feet higher up the valley, and this showed them the direction of the run of the lode. It was here, however, only six inches wide instead of being two feet, as at the spot where it was first found. Some pieces were broken off: there was gold embedded in it, but it was evident that it was nothing like so rich as on the other side. A piece of ten pounds was pounded up, it returned only a little over a pennyweight of gold.

"About twelve ounces to the ton," Harry said. "Not bad, but a mighty falling off from the other. To-morrow morning we will follow the lode on the other side and see if we can strike an outcrop."

The next day they found the lode cropping up through the rock some thirty yards from their great find. It was about nine inches wide. They dug it out with their picks to a depth of two feet so as to get a fair sample. This when crushed gave a return at the rate of twenty ounces.

"That is rich enough again, and would pay splendidly if worked by machinery. Of course the question is, how far it holds on as rich as we found it at the face, and how it keeps on in depth? But that is just what we can't find. We want drills and powder, as picks are no sort of good on this hard quartz. Supposing it goes off gradually from the face to this point, there would be millions of dollars in it, even supposing it pinched in below, which there is no reason in the world to suppose. We may as well take a few of these chunks of rock, they will show that the gold holds