"If she comes into my possession again," said Squire Hudson, "I shall not be willing to grant you the privilege of redeeming her. It won't be many months before another payment becomes due."

"I hope to be ready to meet it, squire," said the farmer, not appearing at all anxious.

"He seems very independent," thought the squire, watching, moodily, the cow driven away by her former owner. "He may sing another tune on interest day. I wonder how much the boy sent home."

Had he known that Mr. Nelson had in his pocket enough money to pay the whole of the next accruing interest, he would have felt more doubtful about recovering the cow which he now coveted more than ever.

"Well, Abner, I've lost her," said the squire, hurrying to his a.s.sistant; "but she'll be back here some day, mark my words!"

"I thought you bought her, squire," said Abner, in surprise.

"Well, not exactly. I took her for a debt; but Nelson had the right of redeeming her, and he has done it. His boy sent him the money."

"That Tom Nelson is a smart boy," said Abner, who, though in the squire's employ, was friendly to our hero.

"Well, so-so," remarked the squire, indifferently. "I helped him to go to California; but I am not sure whether it was a wise step. I let my feelings get the better of my judgment."

"Then it is the first time," was Abner's unspoken comment.

"It may turn out for the best," he said aloud.

"I doubt if I shall ever see my money again," said the squire; but he did not seem to take it to heart, judging from his manner and tone.

"Didn't you have security for the loan?" asked Abner.

"Well, ye-es," answered the squire, slowly; "but not very good. The farm was already mortgaged for its full value."

"The squire is getting benevolent," thought Abner, "or he wants me to think so; but I'm inclined to think he has some object under it all.

What is it?"

A few weeks later Farmer Nelson's heart was gladdened by the receipt of another remittance this time sent by John Miles, out of the profit of the business in which Tom was his partner. The amount this time was seventy-five dollars. It made him feel quite rich.

"Mary," he said, "we all need some new clothes, and I propose to use this money for that purpose. Now I want you to consider how we can spend it to the best advantage. To begin with, you must buy a new dress. You have long needed one."

Mrs. Nelson demurred a little, but was forced to admit that the dress was needed. So the purchases were made at once. It is wonderful how far seventy-five dollars will go in an economical family of plain tastes. It was soon apparent to the neighbors that the Nelsons were exhibiting signs of prosperity.

"It must be Tom," they decided.

Efforts were made to ascertain just how much our hero had sent home; but on this point the Nelsons would not speak definitely. They reported in general terms that Tom was doing well.

Of course Squire Hudson was not ignorant of the apparent improvement in the fortunes of his debtor. Strange to say, he seemed rather annoyed. He was pleased, however, by the outlay for dress.

"They're getting extravagant, Abner," he said, cheerfully. "I thought Mark Nelson was a man of more sense. Because his son has sent home a little money, he must rig out the whole family in new clothes. 'A fool and his money are soon parted.'"

"Mark Nelson is no fool," said Abner, stoutly.

"He is in this instance," said the squire, sharply. "However, I don't object to it, if he likes to violate the rules of prudence. It strikes me, however, that it would be well for him to pay up the money I advanced for Tom's expenses, before buying new clothes wholesale."

Abner repeated this to Mr. Nelson.

The farmer answered quietly, "The squire is not wholly wrong. It is good doctrine to pay your debts before you spend money for what you don't need. In this case, however, we did need the clothes we bought. Now that we are provided, I hope, before very long, if Tom is prospered, to pay back the two hundred dollars the squire advanced for him."

"I hope you will, I'm sure," said Abner. "That's a smart boy of yours, and I always said so."

"He is a good boy, and I am sure he will do what is right."

"He's a blamed sight better than the squire's boy. Sinclair is a stuck-up jackanapes, and it would do me good to kick him."

"It might not do him any good."

"I am not sure about that; I think he needs it."

CHAPTER XXVII.

THE NEW DIGGINGS.

Meanwhile Tom and his party, pursuing their journey by easy stages, for they sensibly determined not to overtask their strength, reached at last the spot of which Russell had spoken. Ferguson and Tom soon found that he had not exaggerated. The new diggings were certainly far richer than those at River Bend. It was, in fact, the bed of a dead river upon which Russell had stumbled without knowing it. My readers are probably aware that in the beds of rivers or creeks the early miners found their first harvest of gold, and, that, where practicable, these were mined by turning the stream in the dry season, when the water was low. As it may not be so well understood what is meant by a dead river, I quote a pa.s.sage from an article in the "Overland Monthly," as found in the pages of the "Pacific Coast Mining Review," for the year 1878-79:--

"A dead river is one which formerly existed, but exists no longer. In volcanic regions it sometimes happens that the liquid lava, seeking the lowest ground, fills up the beds of the rivers which die and are replaced by water-courses running in other channels and in different directions. These dead streams are so few, and of so little importance elsewhere, that, as yet, I believe, no cla.s.s name has been given to them; but in California they are among the chief source of its mineral wealth, and among the most remarkable features of its geological formation. They take us back to a remote era, before the time of Rome, of Greece, or of Egypt; far back beyond the origin of history or tradition, before our coast had taken its present shapes; before Shasta, and La.s.sen, and Castle Peaks had poured out their lava floods; before the Sacramento river had its birth; and while, if not before, the mastodon, the elephant, the rhinoceros, the horse, the mammoth bull, the tapir, and the bison lived in the land. They are indeed among the most remarkable discoveries of the age, and among the greatest wonders of geology. They deserve some common name, and we have to choose between 'extinct' and 'dead.' We speak of 'extinct volcanoes,' and of 'dead languages,' and, as the latter is Saxon and short, we prefer it. They have been called 'old channels;' but this name does not convey the proper idea, since a channel is not necessarily a river, and an old channel is not necessarily a dead one. A dead river is a channel formerly occupied by a running stream, but now filled up with earthy or rocky matter, and is not to be confounded with a channel that is open and remains dry during the greater part of the year because of a lack of water, or that has been abandoned by the stream for a deeper channel elsewhere. A dry river-bed is not a dead river.

"The dead rivers of California, so far as are known, are on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada, from five hundred to seven thousand feet above the level of the sea. They are all gold-yielding, and therefore they have been sought and examined. They have yielded probably _three hundred millions_ in all; they now produce perhaps eight million dollars annually. They are not less interesting to the miner than to the geologist, not less important to the statesman than to the antiquarian."

At the risk of being considered tedious by some of my boy-readers, I will transcribe the writer's explanation of the existence of these dead rivers. For the reason we must go back to a remote geological epoch: "The main cause must have been the subsequent rise of the Sierra Nevada.

Suppose that a range of mountains, seven thousand feet high, were upheaved thirty miles east of the Mississippi; that the bed of that stream were on the mountain side, three thousand feet above the sea, and that thirty miles west the country maintained its present level; the result would be that the present Mississippi would soon be a dead river; it would be cut across by streams running down the mountain side, and flowing into a new Mississippi, thirty miles or more west of the present one. We know that the Sierra Nevada has been upheaved; that a large stream ran on what is now the mountain side, and that it has been succeeded by a new river farther west, and we must infer that the death of the old and the birth of the new river were caused by the upheaval."

Reference is here made to the Big Blue Lead, the largest dead river known in California, which has been traced for a distance of sixty-five miles, from Little Grizzly, in Sierra County, to Forest Hill, in Placer County. The original river, however, is thought to have run for many hundreds of miles. Eventually traces of its existence may be found elsewhere.

It is not to be supposed that Tom and his friends knew anything about dead rivers, or troubled themselves as to how the rich deposits had been made, or how long they had been waiting discovery. They were chiefly engaged with more practical considerations. They found a rich harvest in the ravines, and they went to work energetically.

The work was monotonous, and a detailed account of their progress would be tiresome. What we chiefly care about is results, and these may be gathered from a conversation which took place some five months later.

Under a tent, at night-fall, reclined the three friends. They looked contented, and on good terms with the world; but, though prosperous, they certainly did not look it. In fact, they were all three exceedingly, almost disreputably, shabby. They looked more like tramps than respectable gold-miners.

"Tom, you are looking very ragged," said d.i.c.k Russell, surveying our hero critically.

"I know it, d.i.c.k. I feel as though I had just come out of a rag-bag. I can't say that you look much better, nor Ferguson either."

"This rough work is hard on clothing," said Russell. "I wish there were a ready-made clothing store near by."

"So do I. I would pay a high price for a good suit."

"If our friends at home could see us, what would they think, eh, Tom?"

"That we were candidates for the poor-house."