CHAPTER XIV

MOVING A SHACK

Less than a week had pa.s.sed since Bostwick's arrival in Goldite, but excitement was rife in the air. Despite the angered protests of half a thousand mining men, the Easterner, with four of the shrewdest prospectors in the State, had traversed the entire mineral region of the reservation in the utmost security and a.s.surance. Five hundred men had been forced to remain at the border, at the points of official guns. A few desperate adventurers had crept through the guard, but nearly all were presently captured and ejected from the place, while Bostwick--granted special privileges--was a.s.suming this inside track.

The day for the opening of the lands was less than two weeks off--and the news leaked out and spread like a wind that the "Laughing Water"

claim had suddenly promised amazing wealth as a placer where Van and his partners were taking out the gold by the simplest, most primitive of methods.

The rush for the region came like a stampede of cattle. An army of men went swarming over the ridges and overran the country like a plague of ants. They trooped across the border of the reservation, so close to the "Laughing Water" claim, they staked out all the visible world, above, below, and all about Van's property, they tore down each others'

monuments, including a number where Van had located new, protective claims, and they builded a tent town over night, not a mile from his first discovery.

At the claim in the cove the fortunate holders of a private treasury of gold had lost no time. In the absence of better lumber, for which they had no money, Van and his partners had torn down the shaft-house, made it into sluices, and turned in the water from the stream. That was all the plant required. They had then commenced to shovel the gravel into the trough-like boxes, and the gold had begun to lodge behind the riffles.

The cove became a theatre of curiosity, envy, and covetous longings.

Men came there by motor, on horses, mules, and on foot to take one delirious look and rush madly about to improve what chances still remained. The fame of it swept like prairie fire, far and wide. The new-made town began at once to spread and encroach upon all who were careless of their holdings. Lawlessness was rampant.

At the cabin on the "Laughing Water" claim Algy, the Chinese cook, was still disabled. Gettysburg was chief culinary artist. Napoleon hustled for grub, the only supplies of which were over at Goldite--and expensive. All were constantly exhausted with the labors of the day.

Despite their vigilance they awoke one morning to see a brand-new cabin standing on the claim, at the top of a hill. A man was on the rough pine roof, rapidly laying weather paper. Van beheld him, watched him for a moment, then quietly walked over to the site.

"Say, friend," he called to the man on the roof, "you've broken into Eden by mistake. This property is mine and I haven't any building lots to sell."

The visiting builder took out a huge revolver and laid it on a block.

He said nothing at all. Van felt his impatience rising.

"I'm talking to you, Mr. Carpenter," he added. "Come on, now, I don't want any trouble with neighbors, but this cabin will have to be removed."

"Go to h.e.l.l!" said the builder. He continued to pound in his nails.

"If I go," said Van calmly, "I'll bring a little back. Are you going to move or be moved?"

"Don't talk to me, I'm busy," answered the intruder. "I'm an irritable man, and everything I own is irritable, understand?" And taking up his gun he thumped with it briskly on the boards.

"If you're looking for trouble," Van replied, "you won't need a double-barreled gla.s.s."

He turned away and the man continued operations. When he came to the shack Van selected a hammer and a couple of drills from among a lot of tools in the corner.

To his partner's questions as to what the visitor intended he replied that only time could tell.

"Here, Nap," he added, fetching forth the tools, "I want you to take this junk and go up there where the neighbor is working. Just sit down quietly and drill three shallow holes and don't say a word to yonder busy bee. If he asks you what's doing, play possum--and don't make the holes too deep."

Napoleon went off as directed. His blows could presently be heard as he drilled in a porphyry dike.

His advent puzzled the man intent on building.

"Say, you," said he, "what's on your programme?"

Napoleon drilled and said nothing.

The carpenter watched him in some uneasiness.

"Say, you ain't starting a shaft?"

No answer.

"Ain't this a placer? Say, you, are you deef?"

Napoleon pounded on the steel.

"Go to h.e.l.l!" said the builder, as he had before, "--a man that can't answer civil questions!"

He resumed his labors, pausing now and then to stare at Napoleon, in a steadily increasing dubiety of mind.

In something less than twenty minutes he had done very little roofing, owing to a nervousness he found it hard to banish, while Napoleon had all but completed his holes. Then Van came leisurely strolling to the place, comfortably loaded with dynamite, of which a man may carry much.

With utter indifference to the man on the roof he proceeded to charge those shallow holes. As a matter of fact he overcharged them. He used an exceptional amount of the harmless looking stuff, and laid a short fuse to the cap. When he turned to the builder, who had watched proceedings with a sickening alarm at his vitals, that industrious person had taken on a heavy, leaden hue.

"You see I went where you told me," said Van, "and I've brought some back as I promised. This shot has got to go before breakfast--and breakfast is just about ready."

"For G.o.d's sake give a man a chance," implored the man who had trespa.s.sed in the night. "I'll move the shack to-morrow."

"You won't have to," Van informed him, "but you'd better move your meat to-day."

He took out a match, scratched it with quiet deliberation and lighted the end of the fuse.

"For G.o.d's sake--man!" cried the carpenter, and without even waiting to climb from the roof he rolled to the edge in a panic, fell off on his feet, and ran as if all the fiends of Hades were fairly at his heels.

Van and Napoleon also moved away with becoming alacrity. Three minutes later the charge went off. It sounded like the crack of doom. It seemed to split the earth and very firmament. A huge black toadstool of smoke rose up abruptly. Something like a blot of yellowish color spattered all over the landscape. It was the shack.

It had moved. The smoke cloud drifted rapidly away. On the hill was a great jagged hole, lined with rock, but there was nothing more. The cabin was hung in lumber shreds on the stunted trees for hundreds of feet in all directions. With it went hammers, saws and a barrel of nails whose usefulness was ended.

Gettysburg, ap.r.o.ned, and fresh from his labors at the stove, came hastening out of the cabin to where his partners stood, in great distress of mind.

"Holy toads, Van!" he said excitedly, "it must have been the shot!

I've dropped an egg--and what in the world shall I do?"

"Cackle, man, cackle," Van answered him gravely. "That's a mighty rare occurrence."

"And two-bits apiece!" almost wailed poor Gettysburg, diving back into the cabin, "and only them four in the shack!"

That was also the day that Bostwick came out upon the scene. He came with his prospectors, all the party somewhat disillusionized as to all that fabled gold upon the Indian reservation.

Some word of the wealth of the "Laughing Water" claim had come to Searle early in the week. He did not visit the cabin or the owners of the cove. For fifteen minutes, however, he sat upon his horse and scanned the place in silence. Then out of his newly-acquired knowledge of the boundaries of the reservation the hounds of his mind jumped up a half-mad plan. His cold eyes glittered as he looked across to where Van and his partners were toiling. His lips were compressed in a smile.

He rode to Goldite hurriedly and sought out his friend McCoppet. When the two were presently closeted together where their privacy was a.s.sured, a conspiracy, diabolically insidious, was about to have its birth.