The Cave of Gold<br />A Tale of California in '49, Everett McNeil [best books for students to read .txt] 📗

FOREWORD
ILLUSTRATIONS
CHAPTER I. El Feroz
CHAPTER II. Death of the Miner
CHAPTER III. The Skin Map
CHAPTER IV. At the Conroyal Rancho
CHAPTER V. Off for the Gold-Mines
CHAPTER VI. The Sign of the Two Red Thumbs
CHAPTER VII. Caught in the Flood
CHAPTER VIII. Accused of Murder
CHAPTER IX. The Testimony of Bill Ugger
CHAPTER X. The Missing Button
CHAPTER XI. An Unexpected Witness
CHAPTER XII. Hammer Jones
CHAPTER XIII. Explanations
CHAPTER XIV. The Luck of Dickson
CHAPTER XV. Around the Supper Table
CHAPTER XVI. Unexpected Company
CHAPTER XVII. Pockface Again
CHAPTER XVIII. Story of the Great Discovery
CHAPTER XIX. Some Exciting Moments
CHAPTER XX. Robbed
CHAPTER XXI. Pedro
CHAPTER XXII. The Mystery of the Tent
CHAPTER XXIII. On the Shore of Goose Neck Lake
CHAPTER XXIV. In Lot's Canyon
CHAPTER XXV. The Cave of Gold
CHAPTER XXVI. The Catastrophe
CHAPTER XXVII. Home

On a cold January morning of 1848, James Wilson Marshall picked up two yellow bits of metal, about the size and the shape of split peas, from the tail-race of the sawmill he was building on the South Fork of the American River, some forty-five miles northeast of Sutter's Fort, now Sacramento City. These two yellow pellets proved to be gold; and soon it was discovered that all the region thereabouts was thickly sown with shining particles of the same precious yellow metal. A few months later and all the world was pouring its most adventurous spirits into the wilderness of California.

This discovery of gold in California and the remarkable inpouring of men that followed, meant very much to the United States. In a few months it cleared a wilderness and built up a great state. In one step it advanced the interests and the importance of the United States half a century in the policies and the commerce of the Pacific. It threw wide open the great doors of the West and invited the world to enter. It poured into the pockets of the people and into the treasury of the United States a vast amount of gold—alas! soon to be sorely needed to defray the expenses of the most costly war of the ages. Indeed, when the length and the breadth of its influence is considered, this discovery of gold in California becomes one of the most important factors in the developing of our nation, the great corner-stone in the upbuilding of the West; and, as such, it deserves a much more important place in the history of the United States than any historian has yet given to it.

In the present story an attempt has been made, not only to tell an interesting tale, but to interest the younger generation in this remarkable and dramatic phase of our national development, possibly the most picturesque and dramatic period in the history of the nation: to picture to them how these knights of the pick and the shovel lived and worked, how they found and wrested the gold from the hard hand of nature, and to give to them something of an idea of the hardships and the perils they were obliged to endure while doing it.

The period was a dramatic period, crowded with unusual and startling happenings, as far removed as possible from the quiet commonplaceness and routine life of the average boy and girl of to-day; and the reader is cautioned to remember this—if disposed at any time to think the incidents narrated in the present tale too improbable or too startling to have ever happened—that they could not happen to-day, even in California; but they might have all happened then and there in California.

The author is one of those who believe that the boys and the girls of to-day should know something of the foundation stones on which the superstructure of our national greatness rests, and how and with what toils and perils they were laid; and, it is in the hope that the reading of this story will interest them in this, the laying of the great corner-stone in the upbuilding of the West, that this tale of the Discovery of Gold in California has been written.

No nation can afford to forget its builders.

"You lie!" and the hard fist landed squarely on the man's chin

The skin map

"You can turn your horses around and ride back the way you came"

"Is there any! just look there! and there! and there!"

Bud bent and stretched his free hand down to Marshall

"It is gold! it is gold! and enough of it to make us all rich beyond our fondest dreams"

"Whoa!"—"whoa!" With quick jerks on their bridle reins Thure Conroyal and Bud Randolph pulled up their horses and listened shiveringly.

Again that same shrill whistling scream of dreadful agony and fear, that had caused them to rein up their horses so suddenly a moment before, came from the valley beyond the brow of the little hill up which they had been slowly riding, and chilled the very marrow in their bones with the terrible intensity of its fear and anguish. Then all was still.

"What—what was it?" and Thure turned a startled face to Bud. "It didn't sound human and I never heard an animal scream like that before. What can it be?"

"I don't know," Bud answered, his face whitening a little; "but I am going to find out. Come on," and, swinging his rifle into position where it would be ready for instant use, he started up the hill, his eyes fixed in the direction whence had come those fearful screams.

"We'd better go a little slow, until we find out what it is," cautioned Thure, as he quickly fell in by the side of Bud, his own rifle held ready for instant use. "It might be Indian devilment of some kind. You know dad's last letter from the mines said that the Indians were getting ugly; and if it is hostile Indians, we want to see them first."

"You bet we do," was Bud's emphatic rejoinder, as he again pulled up his horse. "Now, just hold Gray Cloud and I'll scout on ahead and see what's going on down there in the valley before we show ourselves," and, sliding swiftly from Gray Cloud's back, he tossed his bridle rein to Thure, and, rifle in hand, started swiftly and as silently as an Indian toward a thick clump of bushes that grew directly on the top of the little hill.

Thure deftly caught the bridle rein; and then sat silent and motionless on the back of his horse, his eyes on his comrade, waiting in tense expectancy for the moment when he would reach the clump of bushes and look down into the valley beyond and see the cause of those strange and terrible cries that had so suddenly and so fearfully startled them.

Bud, carrying his cocked rifle at trail, his form bent so that the least possible part of his body showed above the grass of the hillside, ran swiftly until he had almost reached the brow of the hill and the clump of bushes. Then, crouching closer to the ground, he crept cautiously and slowly to the bushes and, gently working himself into their midst, carefully parted the branches in front of his face until he had a clear view of the little valley below. At the first sight he uttered an exclamation of surprise and wrath and threw his rifle to his shoulder; but, with a regretful shake of his head, he almost instantly lowered the gun, and, turning quickly about, motioned excitedly for Thure to advance with the horses and started on the run to meet him.

"Indians! Is it Indians?" Thure cried anxiously, the moment Bud was at his side.

"No," panted the boy, as he leaped into his saddle. "It's El Feroz; and if I've got anything to say about it, he has made his last kill. Come on," and his eyes glinted with wrath and excitement, as he dug his spurs into the flanks of Gray Cloud and galloped furiously up the hill.

"El Feroz! Bully!" and Thure, with an exultant yell, struck the spurs into his horse and galloped along by his side.

At the top of the hill both boys pulled up their horses and looked down into the valley. The valley was small, not more than half a mile across, and through its center ran a little stream of water, fringed with bushes and small trees. On the near side of this fringe of trees and bushes and only a short distance from where our two young friends sat on the backs of their horses, crouched a huge grizzly bear over the body of a horse that was still quivering in the death agony.

"The brute!" exclaimed Thure angrily, the moment his eyes had taken in this scene of violence. "So that was the death scream of a horse we heard! Well, I never want to hear another! But, we've got you now, you old villain!" and his eyes swept over the little valley, free, except for the fringe of trees and bushes, of all obstructions, exultingly. "If we let you get away from this, we'll both deserve to be shot. Now," and he turned to Bud, "you ride to the right and I'll go to the left and we will have the brute between us, so that if he charges either of us, the other can take after him and shoot or rope him."

"Good!" agreed Bud. "But, say, let's rope him first. Just shooting is too good for El Feroz. Remember Manuel and Old Pedro, whom he killed, and Jim Bevins, whom he tore nearly to pieces and crippled for life, to say nothing of the cattle and the horses he has killed. And now that we have him where he can't get away, I am for showing him that man is his master, strong and ferocious as he is, before killing him. We could not have picked out a better place for roping him, if we had been doing the picking," and his eyes glanced over the smooth level of the little valley. "We'll let him chase us until we get him away from the trees and bushes along the creek, and then we'll have some fun with the big brute with our ropes, before sending him to Kingdom Come with our bullets. What do you say, Thure?"

"Well," grinned Thure reminiscently, "if it don't turn out better than did our attempt to rope a grizzly when I was with Fremont, I say shoot the grizzly first and rope him afterward. Now, it won't be no joke roping El Feroz, even if everything is in our favor," and his face sobered. "Still, I reckon, our horses can keep us at a safe distance from his ugly claws and teeth; and it will be all right to