The Cave of Gold

E >> Everett McNeil >> The Cave of Gold

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The skinning of a grizzly bear, especially when the bear is as huge and
as tough as was _El Feroz_, is no light undertaking; but Thure and Bud
were no novices at this kind of labor, and, after half an hour's hard
work, the great pelt was off and stretched out on the ground, skin side
up.

"There, I am glad that job is done!" Thure exclaimed, with satisfaction,
as he wiped his bloody knife on the grass. "Say, but he sure was a
whopper!" and his eyes glanced exultantly over the great hide, now
looking larger than ever as it lay spread out on the grass. "Great
Moses, look at all those old bullet marks!--Fifteen of them! No wonder
that Mexican Juan thought _El Feroz_ was protected by the devil!--Hello,
what is the matter now?" and Thure jumped up quickly from the hide, over
which he had been bending counting _El Feroz's_ old bullet wounds, at a
sudden exclamation of alarm from Bud.

"There! There! Look there!" Bud was pointing excitedly up the valley.

"Mother of men, they are murdering him!" "Come on!" and Thure, grabbing
up his rifle, made a jump for his horse, followed by Bud.

Three-quarters of a mile up the valley from where our young friends had
slain the big grizzly, a spur of rocks projected down into the valley,
reaching like a long finger almost to the fringe of trees along the
creek; and around this spur of rocks three men had slowly ridden, and,
just as they had come in sight from where the boys stood, Bud, whose
eyes had happened to be turned in that direction, had seen two of the
men suddenly and apparently without warning set upon the third man and,
after a short struggle, knock him off his horse. It was this sight that
had caused his sudden cry of alarm, followed by Thure's exclamation of
horror, "They are murdering him!" and the quick jump of both boys for
their horses.

It took Thure and Bud less than a minute to reach their horses and to
spring up into their saddles; but, in that brief time, the unequal
struggle up the valley was over, and the two men were bending over the
prostrate body of their victim, apparently searching for valuables, when
the two boys, with loud yells, spurred their horses at full speed toward
them.

At the sound of their voices, the two men looked suddenly up, saw them
coming, hastily grabbed up a few things from the ground, evidently taken
from the man they were robbing, jumped to their feet, sprang on the
backs of their horses, and, before either boy was near enough to shoot,
both had disappeared around the spur of rocks, lashing and spurring
their horses frantically.

Thure and Bud jerked up their horses by the side of the fallen man and,
jumping from their saddles, bent quickly over him.

"They've murdered him!" cried Bud, the moment his horrified eyes saw the
white face and the bloodstained breast of the stricken man. "They have
stabbed him! The cowardly curs!"

"No, he is not dead! I can feel his heart beat. The stab was too low to
reach his heart. Quick, we must do something to stop this flow of blood,
or he soon will be dead," and Thure tore open the bosom of the rough
flannel shirt, exposing the red mouth of a knife wound from which the
blood was flowing freely.

Thure and Bud were both familiar with the rough surgery of the plains
and the mountains; and soon their deft hands had swiftly untied the silk
scarfs from around their necks, plugged the wound with one of them and
used the other to tightly bind and hold it in place.

"There, I think that will stop the blood! Now, let's see what other
hurts he has," and Thure passed his hands gently over the man's head.
"Two bumps--whoppers! Either enough to knock the senses out of an ox;
but, I reckon, they've done no mortal damage. It's the stab wound that I
am most afraid of. What do you make out of it all anyway?" and Thure
turned to Bud.

"Plain robbery and attempted murder," Bud answered gravely. "The man is
evidently a miner," and his eyes rested on the long unkempt hair and
beard, the weather-bronzed skin, and the rough worn clothing of the
wounded man; "and was, probably, on his way from the mines to San
Francisco with his gold-dust, when those two cowardly curs met him and,
finding out that he was from the mines, attempted to murder him for his
gold."

"Reckon you're right," agreed Thure. "Leastwise there's no use of
speculating over it longer now. The thing to do is to get him home as
soon as we can. Mother is powerful good doctoring hurts. Just see if you
can get him up on the saddle in front of me. I reckon that'll be the
safest way to carry him," and Thure mounted his horse, while Bud thrust
his sturdy young arms under the body of the insensible man and, as
gently as possible, lifted him to the saddle, where the strong arms of
Thure held him as comfortably as possible.

"Now, I'll strike out straight for home," Thure said, as he started Buck
off on a walk with his double burden; "and you can ride back and get the
hide of _El Feroz_, and soon catch up with me."

"All right. I'll be with you again as soon as I can," and Bud sprang on
the back of Gray Cloud and started off on a gallop for the scene of the
contest with the grizzly.

How wonderful it is that the tenor of our whole after lives may be, nay,
frequently is, completely changed by some seemingly unimportant
circumstance or unexpected happening. If Thure Conroyal and Bud Randolph
had not heard the death-cry of that horse and had not turned aside to
see what had caused those agonizing sounds, they would not have been
delayed, by their contest with the grizzly, until the coming of the
three men, nor have witnessed the attack on the miner; and, if they had
not seen this attack on the miner and hurried to his rescue, they never
would have heard the miner's marvelous tale, nor have secured the skin
map; and, if they had not heard the miner's tale and secured the skin
map--But, I must let the story itself tell you all that resulted from
these unexpected and seemingly unimportant happenings.

CHAPTER II

DEATH OF THE MINER

California and 1849! Magical combination of Place and Date! The Land of
Gold and the Time of Gold! The Date and the Place of the opening of
Nature's richest treasure-house! Gold--free for all who would stoop and
pick or dig it out of the rocks and the dirt! The beginning of the most
wonderful exodus of gold-mad men in the history of the world! "Gold!
Gold!! GOLD!!! CALIFORNIA GOLD!" The nations of the world heard the cry;
and the most enterprising and daring and venturesome--the wicked as well
as the good--of the nations of the world started straightway for
California. Towns and cities sprang up, like mushrooms, in a night,
where the day before the grizzly bear had hunted. In a year a wilderness
became a populous state. A marvelous work to accomplish, even for an
Anglo-Saxon-American nation; but, get down your histories of California,
boys, and you will learn that we did accomplish that very thing--built a
great state out of a wilderness in some twelve months of time!

Of course, Thure and Bud (Bud with the grizzly's hide had soon overtaken
Thure), as they rode along over the soft grass of the Sacramento Valley,
on this clear July afternoon of the eventful year of 1849, did not
realize that all these wonderful things were happening or were about to
happen in their loved California. They knew that a great gold discovery
had been made in the region of the American River some forty miles
northeast of Sutter's Fort. Indeed, for the last year, all California
had gone gold-mad over this same discovery; and now every able-bodied
man in the country, who could possibly get there, was at the mines.
Stores, ranches, ships, pulpits, all businesses and all professions had
been deserted for the alluring smiles of the yellow god, gold, until it
might be truthfully said, that in all California there was but one
business and that one business was gold-digging.

The devastating gold-fever had swept over the Conroyal and the Randolph
ranchos; and had left, of all the grown-up males, only Thure and Bud,
who, not yet being of age, had been compelled to stay, much against
their wills, to care for the women folks and the ranchos, while their
fathers and brothers and all the able-bodied help had rushed off, like
madmen, to the mines; and only their loyalty to their loved mothers and
fathers had kept them from following. Now, the one great hope of their
lives was to win permission to go to the mines, where men were winning
fortunes in a day, and try their luck at gold-digging.

The Conroyal rancho, the Randolph and the Conroyal families had united,
when the men went to the mines, and both families were now living at the
Conroyal rancho, was some five miles from the scene of the robbery and
attempted murder of the miner; and, for the first two miles of the
homeward ride, the wounded man lay unconscious and motionless in Thure's
arms. Then he began to move restlessly and to mutter unintelligible
things.

"He sure isn't dead," Thure declared, as the struggles of the man nearly
pitched both of them out of the saddle. "Just give me a hand, Bud; for,
I reckon, we'll have to lower him to the ground until he gets his right
senses back or quits this twitching and jerking. I am afraid he will
start the wound to bleeding again."

Bud quickly sprang off the back of his horse; and together and as gently
as possible the two boys lowered the wounded miner from the saddle and
laid him down on a little mound of grass. A few rods away a small stream
of water wound its way, half-hidden by tall grass and bushes and low
trees, through the little valley where they had stopped.

"Get your 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 is dead," answered Bud, not moving his awed eyes from the still
face.

"Dead!" and Thure bent and reverently straightened out the bent legs and
arms and smoothed back the matted hair from the forehead. "Dead, yes, as
dead as a stone; and yet a few minutes ago he was breathing and talking!
What a queer thing life is anyhow! Well, it won't do neither him nor us
any good to stand here thinking and talking about it. Now we must get
the body to the house and give it as decent a burial as possible. I'll
carry the body across the saddle in front of me. Come, let's hurry. I am
getting anxious to have it over."

For the moment, so great had been the shock of the miner's sudden death,
Thure and Bud had forgotten all about the dead man's marvelous tale of
the Cave of Gold; but now, as Bud stooped to help lift the body from the
bearskin, his eyes caught the yellow glow of the gold nugget, which lay
on the skin by the side of its unfortunate finder, and the sight
recalled the wondrous tale.

"What do you think of his story about finding that nugget in a cave
where the floor is covered with gold nuggets as thickly as pebbles on
the bed of a stony river? Do you suppose it is true or, just one of the
queer notions that sometimes come to the dying?" and Bud looked
wonderingly from the nugget to Thure's face.

"Great Moses, I forgot all about the gold!" and Thure's face flushed
with excitement. "Quick, let's get the body on the grass and then we'll
have another look at the nugget. That was a powerful queer story he
told; but it might be true. And if it is true," and his eyes sparkled,
"then we've just got to go to the mines and hunt up our dads and the
others and get them to help us find that cave."

In a moment more they had lifted the body off the bearskin and had laid
it down on the grass; and the gold nugget was in their hands.

"Glory! But isn't it heavy?" and Bud balanced the nugget in one hand.
"And it looks and feels and weighs like gold! It must be gold."

"It sure does look like gold," agreed Thure. "It looks and feels just
like the nuggets dad sent home, only larger. Oh, if we only could find
the cave where it came from! Let me see, he said that it was in the
Golden Elbow of Crooked Arm Gulch, in Lot's Canyon, near a white pillar
of rock and a big tree that we must climb to the third limb--a mighty
queer place I call that to find a cave! I reckon he must have been
lunaticy," and Thure turned a disappointed face to Bud.

"Well, he certainly found gold, and this proves it," and Bud tossed the
big nugget up in the air and caught it as it came down, "to say nothing
of the five thousand dollars' worth of gold nuggets that he claims his
murderers stole from him. But, didn't he say something about a map, a
skin map, that would tell us how to find the cave?" and his face
lighted.

"Yes, yes, that was the little roll of white skin I pulled first out of
the bag," and Thure's eyes searched eagerly the ground. "Here it is!"
and, stooping quickly, he picked up the little roll of white
parchment-like skin that he had pulled out of the little bag and dropped
on the ground, and began unrolling it with fingers that trembled with
excitement, while Bud crowded close to his side, his eyes on the
unrolling piece of tanned skin.

The skin was some ten inches long by seven inches wide, of a somewhat
stiff texture, and tanned so that it was nearly white. On the inner side
an unskilled hand had rudely drawn a map; and beneath the map was
written the words:

Map, showing the location of the Cave of Gold in the Golden Elbow
of Crooked Arm Gulch, which opens into Lot's Canyon near the white
pillar of rock and the big tree, made by John Stackpole, the
discoverer of the Cave of Gold.--1849.

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