"Well then, it all happened some years back when I befriended an old fellow in the Greenhorn Mountains in Californy. He was a prospector an' had got himself chawed up by a bar. I came across him on the trail an' took him to my cabin and nursed him as well as I could. But I seen frum the first that the old fellow was too far gone to get over his injuries.

"To begin with, he was too old and feeble anyhow, an' then again that bar had clawed and chawed him till he was a ma.s.s of wounds. Well, I neglected my work on the claim I had located there, and spent the best part of my time smoothing out the last hours of that old chap's life.

I never knew where he came from or how he came to be a prospector, but before he crossed the Great Divide he gave me the astonisher of my life. By his directions I took a package wrapped in oiled paper from his old ragged coat and laid it on the bed afore him.

"Finally frum some old letters and such truck he produces that there plan I just showed you. He said I'd been so kind to him and cheered his last moments, so that having neither chick nor child he wanted to make me a legacy. He said he'd make me the richest man in the world for what I'd done for him.

"Well, he explained before he pa.s.sed away what all them marks and lines on the plan meant, and made it all as clear as print. Then he told me the story of Dead Man's Mine.

"About thirty years ago a band of trappers found a rich deposit of gold in these hills. But on their way to civilization with it, they were drowned on the Yukon and only one escaped to tell the tale. He was crazy from his sufferings in gettin' back to civilization, and when he stumbled across a camp of Aleuts they took care of him, having a sort of religious reverence for crazy people. He died among those natives."

"It's a gruesome story," remarked Tom, "but how, then, did the facts become known?"

"Hold on. I'm gettin' to that. Years later an Aleut told the story to a white hunter who had been good to him, and gave him the plan which the crazy man had drawn on a bit of whalebone in lucid intervals. As you may suppose, the white hunter was all worked up over it, as a scratched message on the whalebone said there was more gold left in Dead Man's Mine, that's what the crazy man called it, than had been taken out.

"Well, an expedition was made up by the white hunter to go after the gold, but the natives got wind of it and wiped 'em all out, only one escaping to civilization, and that was the old man who died in my hut back there in the Sierras. He tried twice to get back to the mine by the plan he had copied on to paper from the whalebone. But each time disaster overtook him. Once his men deserted him, declaring he was insane. Another time, winter caught him napping and he got out to the coast more dead than alive.

"He drifted down to the Pacific Coast and tried to get capital to back another expedition, or somebody to grubstake him, but he couldn't do it, and at last he gave up in disgust. He was all alone in the world anyhow, he said, and was too old to enjoy the money if he had got it.

Then he wandered off alone, and the bear got him, as I said afore.

Soon after he had told me this story and made me promise to try to find the gold, he pa.s.sed out, and I buried him back there on a hillside under a big pine above the Stanislaus."

"A remarkable story," commented Tom. "And you think that you have located the Dead Man's Mine at last?"

"Not a doubt of it. Seth and I have spent ten years looking for it, and _this is the spot_."

"How do you know?"

"It tallies with the plan in every particular. The gold is here."

Again came that strange gleam which every mention of the yellow metal evoked in Stapleton's wild eyes.

"But where's the lone pine that is pictured on the plan?" objected Tom.

"Oh, that. Probably some storm blew it down or it rotted away. You must remember thirty years have pa.s.sed since that crazy man drew the plan."

"Hasn't it occurred to you that relying on a plan drawn by a man whose sufferings had turned his brain is a rather uncertain business?"

"See here, partner,----" began Stapleton, but at this instant the silent, sullen-faced Seth entered the cavern, and Stapleton, who appeared to stand rather in awe of him, subsided into silence.

There was something on the mind of Tom Dacre which Stapleton's story had almost clinched into a certainty. Circ.u.mstances forbade his making his suspicions known to Jack, but he resolved to do so at the first opportunity. It was a communication that must be made when they were alone. It would never do for the two men to hear it.

Tom had noticed that when Seth left the cavern he had carried a rifle and supposed it was for game. Now, however, he began to suspect another reason when he saw for the first time that the man also had a spygla.s.s with him. The boy decided to put a leading question to Stapleton.

"Are you not afraid of anyone else coming to know your secret and following you here?"

Stapleton's eyes flashed. Then he spoke in low, impressive tones.

"If we caught anyone doing that, we'd shoot him down like a mad dog!"

Tom's heart sank. The inference was only too plain. He was glad that Jack, who had gone to the mouth of the cave, had not heard Stapleton's emphatic remark. If the men felt like that, it was unlikely that the boys would be allowed to go, and this, with the other suspicion mentioned, had been gnawing at Tom's mind ever since they had entered the cavern. So sure was he that they were virtually prisoners, that he did not ask any more questions. He dared not confirm his suspicions in so many words.

He joined Jack at the door of the cavern. It afforded an extensive view. Below it, and to the left at the foot of a high conical peak, were plain traces of the miners' labors. Much of the work looked fresh, and they noticed that numerous workings had been started and apparently abandoned. The work must have been going on for quite a considerable period, judging from the look of things, which indicated, also, that so far the searchers had not been successful in their quest.

Tom glanced back into the cave over his shoulder. Rufus was busy stirring the big stew pot. The two men were conversing with occasional glances at the boys. Tom drew Jack a little aside and gave a swift whisper in his ear.

"Do you know that we are prisoners?"

"What!"

"Hush, not so loud. Those men are both as crazy as loons. I suspected it some time ago. Now I am sure of it. It's a thousand chances to one that this isn't the location of Dead Man's Mine, even if there is such a place."

"Good gracious!"

"Even going by the plan, they are way off. But it would be likely to throw them into a terrible rage even to hint such a thing."

"It looks as if we are in a mighty bad fix!"

"We are. You can be sure from what was said that they don't mean to let us leave here till gold is found, which will never occur."

"You are sure of what you say?"

Jack looked sick and pale. Tom's face was grave and sober-looking.

"I'm not an alarmist. We are in the hands of a pair of maniacs. We and that negro are the only sane persons in this camp. We must be very careful or we may arouse them to violence."

"Then we are virtually _prisoners_?"

"I'm afraid there is no other way of putting it, old fellow. We must be careful and keep our eyes open night and day, for we are in just about as bad a dilemma as we ever have experienced."

CHAPTER XXVII.

IN NEED OF A FRIEND.

Tom's guess had hit the nail on the head. It was all true. Jim Stapleton and Seth Ingalls were not the first men to have their brains turned by an insatiable l.u.s.t for gold. On every other subject perfectly normal, they were insane on this one topic.

It was the peculiar light that shone in Stapleton's eyes when he spoke of the yellow metal that had first excited Tom's doubts. Seth Ingalls'

sullen, taciturn manner had shown that he was afflicted with a different form of the same mania. In Jim Stapleton's case it took the twist of a desire to confide in the boys his glorious prospects. In Seth Ingalls the same malady induced a dark, secretive manner and a suspicion that everybody was in search of their secret.

The alarming situation of our two young friends may be thus summed up.

They were in the hands of two desperate and powerful lunatics, who almost a.s.suredly would not let them depart until the fabulous deposit of gold was discovered. The boys did not dare even to mention the subject of leaving the cavern or the camp, for fear of arousing the men's suspicions, in which case it appeared almost certain that the two crazed miners would unhesitatingly forcibly restrain them or kill them.

Both of the lads recalled reading of such cases, but Jim Stapleton and Seth Ingalls were the first living examples of the gold seeking form of insanity with which they had come in contact. There had not been a word of fiction in Jim Stapleton's account of how he came by the chart, by means of which he and his friend Ingalls had joined forces and started on their insane quest. It was all as true as gospel.

The ten years of search in the wild solitudes of the north, their hopes, their disappointments, their privations had turned their brains. Lured on by their dazzling vision of wealth beyond the dreams of avarice, they had kept up, with an insane persistence, their search, till at last they had stumbled across this spot back of the Frying Pan Range which did, in very fact, look like the site of the new Golconda as described on the old, time-yellowed map.