Buffalo Roost Part 15

Before leaving his office, a three years' lease was arranged for and everything looked lovely. What was more, the addition could be started at once.

"Well, by the Great Horn Spoon!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mr. Dean when they were well outside. "You are a wonder! That is what I call nerve. Now tell me all about it."

"Bah!" replied Willis, "I hated to do it, but I had to. I was going to ask the old boy what Mr. Williams would say to him, but I thought better of it. To-night is when I have my fun. I'll tell my uncle about our deal and watch him squirm. I wonder if he'll get mad. I can tell by the way he acts if this recording business was a put-up job. There still remains _the_ question, though--why does he want to keep me away from that cabin?

It has something to do with my father's old mine, I'm sure of that much; and I'll find out, you see if I don't."

The evening papers gave a glowing account of the interest of Mr. Beverly H. Pembroke in the new Y.M.C.A. cabin project, and gave the plan of work.

A circus was already being planned to raise funds for the building, and a stock company had been organized among the boys of the Boys' Department to furnish funds with which to begin work at once. Work would be started the next Sat.u.r.day. The stockholders and some others would go to the cabin on Friday evening, camp around a fire all night, and be ready to begin work in the morning. After supper that evening Willis had a long chat with his mother, and talked over with her all the things that had been disturbing him in regard to his uncle's recent actions.

"I think you must surely be mistaken," she said. "What object could he have in doing such things. You must remember that you have a very vivid imagination, and you must watch it."

"No, mother, it is not imagination, for this is how I know this time: Didn't you see how red and nervous he got when I told him what Mr.

Pembroke had agreed to do. Right after supper he left for down town without a word. I don't know what it is, but there is some fact relative to father's death that he has never told us. If we could only find Tad, I'm sure he could help us out. I'm going to find father's mine, though, and it's not so very far from that cabin, either. Mother, isn't it wonderful that we are going to have the very old house that father built so long ago? After I find the mine, I'll find out about its worth; but it can't be worth so very much or Tad would never have left it. If the tunnel is still locked up like you said Tad wrote it was, why, we can't get into it. It belongs to Tad. Perhaps it will never be opened. Mother, some day when you have a chance, talk with Uncle Joe and see what you can find out. Father might have left keys and information concerning the mine with him."

"No, son, he wouldn't have keys, because it was Tad that locked up the tunnel. It is Tad that has the keys. But listen, don't worry over it a bit or build any false hopes on it. School will open in a week, and I want you to take advantage of all it can give you. We'll be here until Christmas, anyway, I think, unless Aunt Lucy should slip away before that time."

"I wonder what uncle would say to me if I asked him about Tad when he comes home tonight. I think that's what I'll do."

About nine o'clock he heard the heavy footsteps of his uncle on the veranda, and in another moment heard him in the hall. After hanging up his hat and coat, he came into the library, picked up the _Evening Telegraph,_ and began to read, entirely ignoring Willis. After they had sat thus silently for some minutes, Willis spoke:

"Uncle, did you ever know a man named Tad Kieser, who was a great friend of my father's?" The man moved uneasily in his chair, but, without looking up from his paper, he inquired of the boy what he knew of Tad Kieser.

"Not much, to be sure," returned the boy, half sadly, "only what mother has told me about him; but I'd like to know more. I think he must have been a very interesting old character, wasn't he?"

"An old devil and a cut-throat," retorted Mr. Williams. "You couldn't count on him to be square even to his own mother. A sly old fox always on the hunt."

"That's very strange," replied Willis. "He surely was not that sort of a man or my father never would have chosen him for a partner. You surely must be mistaken." "Your father didn't have enough dealings with him to find him out; that was all. I know him."

"Tell me about some of the awful deeds he has committed if he is such a fox," questioned Willis. "I've always thought him absolutely square. I've heard he was the finest man in these mountains, years ago."

"Who told you any such rot? I have enough circ.u.mstantial evidence against him to put him behind the bars right now," growled the uncle.

"Evidence along what lines, Uncle?" persisted Willis.

"Blackmail!" snorted Williams. "What difference does it make to you, anyway? He would be a capital fellow to join in on such an absurdly foolish scheme as you are just about to pull off at the Y.M.C.A. now.

Going into somebody else's property and absorbing its benefits to yourselves. That's his scheme exactly. He watches my mining claims like a hawk, and if my a.s.sessments should be a day late he'd jump my claims. He hates me."

"What did you ever do to make him hate you?" innocently inquired Willis.

Again Mr. Williams ignored the question and went on: "He'd just love to work on that old cabin again."

"I should think that cabin _would_ interest him," calmly replied Willis.

"I only wish he was here to join us, for I'd rather know him than any man I can think of just now. A man who builds a house ought to know how best to build onto it, hadn't he? Personally, I think he must have been a very clever old miner and as true as steel."

"Yes, true to his own interests."

"It takes two to make a fight, though, doesn't it? By the way, Uncle, why did you let that sapheaded Englishman jump your claim last week? I should think you'd hate him for such tricks as you do Tad?" Willis eyed his uncle closely, then in a half undertone he casually remarked, "Anyway, I think a whole lot of this mining business is mighty crooked business." Then again to his uncle, "Is Tad still around in the mountains somewhere, Uncle?"

Mr. Williams smiled in a preoccupied way and said, "Yes and no."

"I don't understand?" questioned Willis.

There was no reply. Soon the man laid down his paper and left the room.

"Well, I'll be jiggered," said Willis half-aloud. "What can he have against the man who was my father's partner? I don't know, but I'll find out." He closed his book with a slam and went off to bed.

The last Friday night of the summer vacation saw a large group of husky high school boys board the car en route to the cabin. All were equipped with blanket rolls, and several carried picks, shovels, and other tools, for "to-morrow" real work on the cabin was to begin. It seemed that the coloring of the leaves had given everything their delicate tint. The squirrels were already gathering stray acorns that Mother Nature had dropped for them. The little canyon lay in perfect quiet, except for the chattering of the line of boys stretched out along its leafy woodland trail. The whole physical body seemed to respond in a mysterious way to its every call, for "In the city we live, but in the mountains we live more abundantly."

By eleven o'clock the party sat around a half-dozen blazing campfires, munching at a midnight lunch and speculating on various phases of the work. Ham was keeping the fellows around one fire laughing over his remarks; Fat was giving expression to his views on camp grub and food in general. Mr. Dean entertained another group by his stories of army life, while Mr. Allen and a number of the boys' Cabinet were laying out a plan of work for the morrow. Shorty Wier advised work on the fireplace first, because, as he pointed out, "the fireplace would be the cabin's heart." It might have fine decorations and new rooms, a well-stocked pantry and new furniture, yet what would all these be to a dead thing? The fireplace would be the spot around which all the cabin life would congregate--around which every strange experience would be put into words. "Yes, I'll help cut the logs and pack in the lumber and build the furniture, but first of all let me see the rugged stone chimney with a fire quietly burning on a great, wide, friendly hearth to cheer me as I work."

"You are right, Shorty," cried Willis. "I'm with you, for when the old fireplace is built, and the wind is whistling down the canyon, bringing messages of snow, we'll forget everything outside and just be happy toasting before a great log fire."

And so the night slipped along. After a while they began to drowse, until one by one the little groups became quiet and fell asleep. Only the glowing, flickering pine knots stayed awake to watch the tired sleepers.

The first streak of dawn found the fellows up and eager for work; besides, there was so much to see and learn before the day's work was begun. The remains of the midnight lunches were drawn out of their hiding places and eagerly devoured. The fragrant smell of broiling bacon and the delicious aroma of campfire coffee filled the air. The pine-scented smoke from the campfire hung low in the valley, and every sound carried plainly in the morning air. The squirrels were out in great numbers and at their morning play, while every now and then the harsh, rasping cry of a bewildered bluejay would float up the canyon.

The stone crew were strung out in skirmish order across the front of the high ridge and were rolling down every loose stone. Some came with a merry hop, skip, and jump; others with a shower of gravel and a crash as they struck the bottom. One great stone leaped into the top of a spruce tree and stuck fast. Another jumped over the great boulder at the base of the hill and rattled into the open door of the cabin. Still another dashed in mad frenzy down the slope, through the alders and into the stream, throwing spray in every direction. So the pile steadily grew.

In the afternoon the cabin was cleaned out and a part of the back porch demolished, ready for the new addition. It had been decided to build a room eight by twenty-eight feet, and in it lay one great balsam-bough mattress. Under Ham's direction the aerial bunk was begun, and it very soon showed signs of being built by a master builder. It was what might be termed "rustic," as Ham said. Logs from the woodpile were subst.i.tuted for the rotting ones in the floor of the bridge. A great pile of brush, twigs, and trash were set afire and destroyed. So the day slipped away--all too quickly. Four o'clock found a group of royal good fellows again on the trail--that trail that was soon to become so dear to every one of them. Their muscles were tired with unselfish work, and their minds and hearts were full of the joy of living. There was already something of the great social bond that was later to tie their lives together for all time with a cord of pleasant memories.

Ham had fastened his blanket to a nail away up in the topmost rafter of the cabin, and here he left it for another time.

"Where your blanket is, there will your heart be also, sometimes," he quoted as they took the trail that led down out of the wilderness.

CHAPTER XII

The Discovery of the Mine

Two weeks later another crowd was organized to do a day's work on the cabin, and it seemed every boy in the Department wanted to go. "Unless you feel as husky as a steam elevator, you better stay home," was Ham's advice to one small boy, for Ham had been chairman of the committee that had been so busy since the last trip, purchasing all manner of supplies, equipment, and building material for the cabin, all of which would have to be packed over from Fairview on donkeys, and there was nearly a carload of it. Ham was under the impression that the donkeys would fall dead when they saw the "pile of junk," and that every single fellow in the crowd would have to "wiggle his ears, bray once or twice, and get busy," if the cabin ever became the possessor of the new equipment.

Twenty fellows besides the "Chief" and Mr. Dean were on hand at the appointed time. At the mouth of the canyon two very faithful old donkeys, that had years before belonged to a prospector, were rented for the trip.

Under their former master they had been trained to carry heavy loads of ore from the little mine far back in the mountains out to the city, and to return again heavily laden with the provisions for another winter in camp. They had learned their lessons well, so were perfectly trustworthy.

Peanuts was the oldest, and therefore came in for the most consideration and the lightest load. As he raised his tired, patient old head, his long gray ears pointed forward at the sight of the pack saddles. One glance and he was satisfied. He perfectly understood what was coming, and visions of the long, zigzag paths through shaded valleys all fresh from the summer showers flashed through his brain. Peanuts loved the trail, the deep, long, gra.s.sy trail, that crept along close to the little stream, then up and up into the great Silent Places. Tradition told that Peanuts had been the first donkey to carry a pack up Pike's Peak, as well as the first to bring real "high grade" out of the Cripple Creek; but of course tradition might have been mistaken. At any rate, Peanuts was a gentle, slow, patient toiler of the trail, and it was largely due to his good judgment that the cabin was ever equipped.

Many were the trips he made after that first journey. There were summer trips in the hot sun of July days; autumn trips in the cool, sweet-scented evenings when the mountain twilight lingers on the treetops and the rocky crests. There were trips in the winter when the trail was hidden underneath heavy blankets of snow or lost in the deep white drifts. Once he had gone in beyond his depth and had settled down and down into the fluffy snow until just his head and big ears were visible above the s...o...b..nk.

His companion, Tuberculosis, was a little different type of beast. His legs were long and his spirits high. He was in the prime of life and was not as trustworthy as his partner. Certainly Tuberculosis had his idiosyncrasies, and that fact often spelled trouble for both himself and his masters. Now, Peanuts had learned that his driver was always boss, and acted accordingly; but not so with Tuberculosis. He believed that his own judgment in certain matters of conduct was best. For instance, it was absolutely against his principles to ever cross a stream, no matter how well it was bridged or how insignificant its size.

Yet, after many experiences, seasoned with a little strenuous persuasion from the end of an alder limb, he began slowly to change his views.

However, he positively had no use for burned stumps, and when it came to pa.s.sing a campfire, Tuberculosis absolutely declined. There was just one thing that both donkeys very firmly believed, and that was that each was to lead and the other follow when on the trail. This was the only point upon which they really ever quarreled, and most every time Peanuts, because of his mature judgment and statesmanship, won out.

When the pack saddles were on, and the pack bags of food adjusted on either side, the blanket rolls piled high on top, they were ready to begin the journey, "Donkeys are a good deal like some men," observed Ham as the little column came to the base of the hogsback, "they always have to travel by freight."