Van started off, but returned.

"Say, Frank," he said, "don't hawk this around. It's bad enough for me to laugh at myself. I don't want the chorus joining in."

"I'm your clam," said Frank. "So long, and better luck!"

CHAPTER X

THE LAUGHING WATER CLAIM

A man who lives by uncertainties has a singular habit of mind. He is ever lured forward by hopes and dreams that overlap each other as he goes. While the scheme in hand is proving hopeless, day by day, he grasps at another, just ahead, and draws himself onward towards the gilded goal, forgetful of the trickery of all those other schemes behind, that were equally bright in their day.

Van had relinquished all hold on the golden dream once dangled before him by the Monte Cristo mine, to lay strong hands on the promise vouchsafed by the "See Saw" claim which he had purchased. As he walked away from the a.s.sayer's shop he felt his hands absolutely empty. For the very first time in at least four years he had no blinding glitter before his vision to entice him to feverish endeavor. He was a dreamer with no dreams, a miner without a mine.

He felt chagrined, humiliated. After all his time spent here in the world's most prodigious laboratory of minerals, he had purchased a salted mine! A sharper man, that sad-faced, half-sick Selwyn Briggs, had actually trimmed him like this!

Salted! And he was broke. Well, what was the next thing to do? He thought of the fine large bill of goods, engaged for himself and partners to take to the "See Saw" claim. It made him smile. But he would not rescind the order--for a while. His partners, with his worldly goods, the Chinese cook and all the household, save Cayuse, would doubtless arrive by noon. He and they had to eat; they had to live. Also they had to mine, for they knew nothing else by way of occupation. They must somehow get hold of some sort of claim, and go on with their round of hopes and toil. They had never been so utterly bereft--so outcast by the G.o.ddess of fortune--since they had thrown their lots together.

He dreaded the thought of meeting various acquaintances here in camp--the friends to whom he had said he was going that day to the "See Saw" property, far over the Mahogany range, near the Indian reservation. He determined to go. Perhaps the shack and the shaft-house on the claim, with the windla.s.s and tools included by Briggs in the bill of sale, might fetch a few odd dollars.

Slowly down the street he went to the hay-yard where his pony was stabled. He met a water man, halting on his rounds at the front of a neat canvas dwelling. The man had three large barrels on a wagon, each full of muddy, brackish water. A long piece of hose was thrust into one, its other end dangled out behind.

From the tent emerged a woman with her buckets. The water man placed the hose-end to his mouth, applied a l.u.s.ty suction, and the water came gushing forth. He filled both receptacles, collected the price, and then drove on to the next.

Sardonically Van reflected that even the fine little stream of water on his claim, in a land where water was so terribly scarce, was absolutely worthless as an a.s.set. It was over a mountain ridge of such tremendous height that it might as well have been in the forests of Maine.

Despite the utter hopelessness of his present situation, his spirits were not depressed. Gettysburg, he reflected, was a genius for b.u.mping into queer old prospectors--relics of the days of forty-nine, still eagerly pursuing their _ignis fatuous_ of gold--and from some such desert wanderer he would doubtless soon pick up a claim. There was nothing like putting Gettysburg upon the scent.

Van wrote a note to his partners.

"Dear Fellow Mourners:

"Have just discovered a joke. I was salted on the 'See Saw' property.

Our pipe dream is defunct. Have gone over to lay out remains. If you find any oldtimers who have just discovered some lost bonanza, take them into camp. Don't get drunk, get busy. Be back a little after noon."

This he left with the hay-yard man where his partners would stop when they arrived. Mounted on Suvy, his outlaw of the day before, he rode from Goldite joyously. After all, what was the odds? He had been no better off than now at least a hundred times. At the worst he still had his partners and his horse, a breakfast aboard, and a mountain ahead to climb.

Indeed, at the light of friendship in his broncho's eyes, as well as at the pony's neigh of welcome, back there at the yard, he had felt a boundless pleasure in his veins. He patted the chestnut's neck, in his rough, brusque way of companionship, and the horse fairly quivered with pleasure.

For nearly two hours the willing animal went zig-zagging up the rocky slopes. The day was warming; the sun was a naked disk of fire. It was hard climbing. Van had chosen the shorter, steeper way across the range. From time to time, where the barren ascent was exceptionally severe, he swung from the saddle and led the broncho on, to mount further up as before.

Thus they came in time to a zone of change, over one of the ridges, a region where rocks and ugliness gave way to a growth of brush and stunted trees. These were the outposts, ragged, dwarfed, and warped, of a finer growth beyond.

Fifteen miles away, down between the hills, flowed a tortuous stream, by courtesy called a river. It sometimes rose in a turgid flood, but more often it sank and delivered up its ghost to such an extent that a man could have held it in his hat. Nevertheless some greenery flourished on its banks.

When Van at last could oversee the vast, unpeopled lands of the Piute Indian reservation, near the boundary of which his salted claim had been staked, he had only a mile or so to ride, and all the way down hill.

He came to the property by eleven o'clock of the morning. He looked about reflectively. The rough board cabin and the rougher shaft-house were scarcely worth knocking down for lumber. There, on the big, barren dike, were several tunnels and prospects, in addition to the shaft, all "workings" that Briggs had opened up in his labors on the ledge. They were mere yawning mockeries of mining, but at least had served a charlatan's requirements. A few tools lay about, abominably neglected.

The location was rather attractive, on the whole. The clear stream of water had coaxed a few quaking aspens and alders into being, among the stunted evergreens. Gra.s.s lay greenly along the bank, a charming relief to the eye. The sandy soil was almost level in the narrow cove, which was snugly surrounded by hills, except at the lower extremity, where the brook tumbled down a wide ravine.

Van, on his horse, gazed over towards the Indian reservation idly. How vain, in all likelihood, were the wonderful tales of gold ledges lying within its prohibited borders. What a madness was brewing in the camps all around as the day for the reservation opening rapidly approached!

How they would swarm across its hills and valleys--those gold-seeking men! What a scramble it would be, and all for--what?

There were tales in plenty of men who had secretly prospected here on this forbidden land, and marked down wonderful treasures. Van looked at his salted possessions. What a chance for an orgie of salting the reservation claims would afford!

With his pony finally secured to a tree near at hand, the horseman walked slowly about. A gold pan lay rusting, half filled with rock and dirt, by a bench before the cabin. It was well worth cleaning and taking away, together with some of the picks, drills, and hammers.

He carried it over to the brook. There he knelt and washed it out, only to find it far more rusted than it had at first appeared. He scooped it full of the nearest gravel and scoured it roughly with his hands. Three times he repeated this process, washing it out in the creek.

Ready to rise with it, cleaned at last, he caught up a shallow film of water, flirted it about with a rotary motion, to sluice out the last bit of stubborn dross, then paused to stare in unbelief at a few bright particles down at the edge, washed free of all the gravel.

Incredulous and not in the least excited, he drew a small gla.s.s from has pocket and held it on the specks. There could be no doubt of their nature. They were gold.

Interested, but doubting the importance of his find, Van pawed up half a pan full of gravel and dipped the receptacle full of water. Then stirring the sand and stuff with his hand, he panned it carefully.

The result at the end was such a string of colors as he had never washed in all his wide experience. To make a superficial prospect of the claim he proceeded to pan from a dozen different places in the cove, and in every instance got an exceptional showing of coa.r.s.e, yellow gold, with which the gravel abounded.

He knelt motionless at last, beside the stream, singularly unperturbed, despite the importance of his find. Briggs had slipped up, absolutely, on the biggest thing in many miles around, by salting and selling a quartz claim here to a man with a modest sum of money.

The cove was a placer claim, rich as mud in gold, and with everything needed at hand.

Then and there the name of the property was changed from the "See Saw"

to the "Laughing Water" claim.

CHAPTER XI

ALGY STIRS UP TROUBLE

Bostwick arrived in Goldite at three in the afternoon, dressed in prison clothes. He came on a freight wagon, the deliberate locomotion of which had provided ample time for his wrath to acc.u.mulate and simmer. His car was forty miles away, empty of gasolene, stripped of all useful accessories, and abandoned where the convicts had compelled him to drive them in their flight.

A blacker face than his appeared, with anger and a stubble of beard upon it, could not have been readily discovered. His story had easily outstripped him, and duly amused the camp, so that now, as he rode along the busy street, in a stream of lesser vehicles, autos, and dusty hors.e.m.e.n, arriving by two confluent roads, he was angered more and more by the grins and ribald pleasantries bestowed by the throngs in the road.

To complicate matters already sufficiently aggravating, Gettysburg, Napoleon C. Blink, and Algy, the Chinese cook, from the Monte Cristo mine, now swung into line from the northwest road, riding on horses and burros. They were leading three small pack animals, loaded with all their earthly plunder.

The freight team halted and a crowd began to congregate. Bostwick was descending just as the pack-train was pa.s.sing through the narrow way left by the crowd. His foot struck one of the loaded burros in the eye. The animal staggered over against the wall of men, trampling on somebody's feet. Somebody yelled and cursed vehemently, stepping on somebody else. A small-sized panic and melee ensued forthwith. More of the animals took alarm, and Algy was frightened half to death. His pony, a wall-eyed, half-witted brute, stampeded in the crowd. Then Algy was presently in trouble.

There had been no Chinese in Goldite camp, largely on account of race prejudice engendered and fostered by the working men, who still maintained the old Californian hatred against the industrious Celestials. In the mob, unfortunately near the center of confusion, was a half-drunken miner, rancorous as poison. He was somewhat roughly jostled by the press escaping Algy's pony.

"Ye blank, blank c.h.i.n.k--I'll fix ye fer that!" he bawled at the top of his voice, and heaving his fellow white men right and left he laid vicious hands on the helpless cook and, dragging him down, went at him in savage brutality.