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

hat full of water," Thure said, as he bent down to see if the bandage over the wound was still in its place. "Seems to me he ought to be getting his senses back by this time."

Bud at once started off on the run for the water and soon was back with his broad-brimmed felt hat full of the cooling fluid; and, kneeling down by the side of the wounded man, who now lay quiet, with eyes closed, although he was still muttering incoherently, he bathed the hot forehead and the swollen lumps on the back of his head.

Suddenly the miner's eyes opened and stared wonderingly around him and up into the faces of the two boys. For a minute he did not seem to be able to comprehend what had happened. Then the blank wondering look suddenly left his eyes.

"Did they get the gold?" and his hand went quickly to his waist. There was no belt there. "Gone! A good twenty pounds of as fine gold as was ever dug from the earth, gone!—Gods, if they had but given me any kind of a show, they would not have got it so easily!" and his eyes flamed and he attempted to sit up, but fell back with a groan and a whitening face.

For a minute or two he lay with eyes closed, breathing heavily. Evidently he was trying to collect his thoughts, to realize his situation. When he opened his eyes again there was a solemn, an awed look in them that had not been there before, and the anger had gone.

"I have been stabbed," he said slowly, "and I am dying."

"No, no. The knife did not go near your heart. It struck too low. You will soon be all right again. Wait until we get you home and mother will soon make a whole man of you. Mother is about the best nurse in all California," and Thure gripped one of the hard toil-worn hands and smiled encouragingly.

"No." As the man spoke his eyes never once left Thure's face. "No, I am dying. I know. I was once a surgeon, an army surgeon." For a moment his eyes darkened, as if with bitter recollections. "But, what matters the past now? Let it bury its dead," and he smiled grimly. "This is death. I know. I have seen many die just this way. Internal hemorrhage, we doctors called it. The blood from the wound is flowing into my body. I can feel it. I have half an hour, possibly an hour to live; and then—" The awed look in the eyes deepened, and, for a couple of minutes, he did not speak, but lay staring straight up into the blue skies. Suddenly his white lips tightened and he turned to Thure.

"How far is it to your home and to your mother?" he asked abruptly.

"About three miles; but I can carry you so easily that I am sure—"

"Too far," the wounded man broke in impatiently. "I might die before I got there. No, this shall be my deathbed—the soft green grass, canopied by the blue skies—a fitting end, a fitting end," he added gloomily.

"Come, come," and Thure tried to make his voice sound cheery and full of hope. "Never say die, until you are dead. Just wait until we get home and mother will put new life into you. Now, I'll get on my horse, and Bud will lift you up into my arms, and we'll be home before you know it," and Thure jumped to his feet and started toward his horse.

"No, come back," and the miner impatiently lifted himself up on one elbow. "Come back. I have no time to waste riding three miles for a deathbed. I—" Again the keen eyes searched the faces of the two boys. "I have much to say and little time in which to say it. Get that bearskin off your horse and make me as comfortable as possible on it. And be quick about it; for I am going fast, and, before I go, I want to make you two boys my heirs for saving me from those two villains. The cowardly curs! They hit me from behind!" and again the eyes flamed with anger. "They got the gold I had with me and they got me; but they did not get the secret of Crooked Arm Gulch, nor learn how to find its Golden Elbow. Curse them! If I could but live, I'd—But, what's the use?" and he sank back white-lipped on the grass. "That knife stab in the breast has done for me. And just when the golden key that unlocks all the doors of pleasure and power was tight-gripped in my very fingers! Just my luck! But," and the look of somber resignation came back into the pain-racked eyes, "I'll not die like a snarling, whining coyote. I'll meet death, as I have met life—face to face, with both eyes wide open. Now," and he turned to Bud, who had hurried to his horse and, unloosening the bear-skin, had hastened back with it and spread it out on the grass, soft hair up, by the side of the wounded man, "lay me on the skin and stuff something under my head and shoulders, so as to keep the blood from flooding my lungs and heart as long as possible; for I have that to tell that must not wait, even for death," and the white lips tightened firmly.

Thure and Bud, anxious to do everything possible to ease the last moments of the dying man, now carefully lifted him and laid him down on the skin of the grizzly bear as gently as possible. Then, taking off one of the saddles and their own coats, they placed the saddle, softened by the folded coats and the bearskin, under the head and the shoulders of the miner; and only the white tight-drawn lips and the burning eyes told of the intense pain that he must have suffered while the change was being made.

For a couple of minutes the wounded man lay silent on the bearskin, with closed eyes, breathing heavily. Then he suddenly opened his eyes and turned them resolutely on the two boys, who stood, one on each side, bending anxiously over him.

"There, that is better," he said. "That is all you can do for me. Now, sit down close to my head, so that you can hear every word that I say; for never did dying lips have a more important message to utter, never did mortal leave a richer inheritance to mortal than I am about to leave to you. Gold—a cave paved with gold! Gold—a cave walled with seams of gold! Gold—bushels, barrels of gold nuggets, to be picked up, as you pick up pebbles from the stony bed of a river! Gods, if I could but live!" Again the blood flushed back into the white cheeks and the eyes glowed with feverish excitement.

"There! There!" and Thure laid a cool hand on the hot forehead. "Never mind the gold now. When you have rested a bit and have recovered some of your strength, Bud and I will rig up a stretcher out of the bearskin and carry you home between us; and then, when you are comfortably fixed in a soft bed, you can tell us all about this wonderful cave of gold."

No wonder Thure thought all this wild talk about the marvelous cave of gold but the delirium of a dying man and tried to quiet the sufferer; but the miner would not be quieted, and, roughly brushing the hand from his forehead, he turned his glowing eyes full on Thure's face.

"You think I am raving," he said, "that this cave of gold exists only in the disordered fancy of a dying man. Well, I will show you. Thrust your hand under my shirt, beneath my right shoulder, and pull out the small bag you will find there. Quick!" he cried impatiently, as Thure hesitated. "You forget that I am a dying man and have not a minute of time to waste."

Thus admonished, Thure hastily thrust his right hand under the miner's shirt, as directed, and pulled out a small buckskin bag, fastened by a buckskin thong about the miner's shoulder. The weight of the bag, for it was only some seven inches long by three inches wide, surprised him.

"Cut the strings and open the bag," commanded the miner.

Thure quickly did as bidden.

"Now, see what is inside of the bag."

Thure thrust his hand into the bag and drew out a long, tightly rolled piece of white parchment-like skin.

"That is the skin map. Never mind that now. Turn the bag bottom side up and shake it."

Thure caught hold of the bottom of the bag with his fingers, turned it over and gave it a vigorous shake; and then sat staring wildly at the object that had fallen, with a thud, on the bearskin by his side. He was looking at a solid nugget of gold nearly as large as, and shaped very much like his fist!

"Pick it up! Lift it!" urged the miner, his eyes shining with excitement. "It is gold, pure, virgin gold, just as God made it! I picked it up off the bottom of the cave, where there are thousands of other smaller nuggets. In the light of my torch they sparkled and shone until the floor of the cave seemed flooded with golden light. In the two hours I was there I gathered up the Five Thousand Dollars' worth of gold nuggets the robbers stole from me and that nugget, all that I dared take with me; for the way out of Crooked Arm Gulch is not a road over which a man more heavily burdened would care to venture. I had no food with me, no horses; and I must hurry back, where food, on which to live, and horses, on which to carry my supplies to the cave and the gold away from it, could be bought. I—"

"And you found this hunk of gold on the floor of that cave?" Thure who had been lifting and examining the nugget with widening eyes, could control his excitement no longer. "And you say that there are thousands of other nuggets where this came from?"

"Yes, yes! I have been telling you God's truth," and the face grew white and drawn with pain again. "But, don't interrupt me. I—I have only a few minutes left. The nugget, the gold, all is yours. I—I bequeath it to you with my dying breath. The map—the skin map—will tell you where to find it—North—northeast from Hangtown—a good five days' tramp—No miners there yet—Deep—steep canyon—Lot's Canyon—Tall white pillar of rock standing near Crooked Arm Gulch—Must look—sharp—to find gulch opening—Blocked by great—rocks—Big tree—Climb to third limb. Remember—climb to third limb—third limb—third—My God!—My God!" and both hands clutched madly at his throat.

His breath was now coming in quick heaving gasps; and only by a supreme effort of will was he able longer to command his wavering reason.

"Quick—quick," he gasped, his voice coming in a hoarse whisper. "Bend your heads close. Beware of the two men who robbed and murdered me—I—I told—them of the cave of gold; but I did—did not tell them where it is; and—and they—can—cannot find it without the skin map—They—they murdered me for—for that map; but they did not get it—It—it was not in—in my money-belt, as they thought. Guard that map—They—they would kill—kill you to get it. One is a huge red-haired man with a broken nose—The other is—is small, with pock-marked face—Beware—beware pock—pock-marked face and—and broken nose—I—God—I—"

Again he clutched violently at his throat; and then a great wondering look of awe came into his eyes, now staring straight up into the blue skies, and his form stiffened suddenly.

Thure and Bud could endure the dreadful sight no longer and turned their horrified eyes away; and, when, a couple of minutes later, they again looked on the face of the miner, he was dead, with a smile on his grim lips and a look of peace on his face, as if the coming of Death, at the very last, had been a most pleasant and joyous event.

CHAPTER III THE SKIN MAP

No mortal can look on death unmoved. Savage or civilized, Christian or pagan, a great awe, a questioning wonder thrills the spirits of all who stand in the presence of the dread, unsolvable mystery, death. The soul asks questions that cannot be answered, that the ages have left unanswered. And, as Thure and Bud now stood, with uncovered heads, looking down on the quiet, peaceful face and the motionless, rigid form of the dead miner, the world-old awe and wondering concerning death thrilled their hearts. For a couple of minutes neither spoke, neither moved. Then Thure's eyes sought the face of Bud.

"He is dead," he said solemnly.

"He