Captain Bayley's Heir Part 22

No sooner were they fairly out of sight than the hunters rose, and, remounting their horses, continued their way.

"It's well-nigh dark," d.i.c.k said, "and I doubt if they will be able to make out our back-track when they get to the edge; at any rate they cannot follow it."

They rode on until they found that their horses could no longer carry them, then, dismounting, led them by the bridle. They had been steering by the stars, and presently found themselves at the upper end of the ravine.

"We won't enter this now," d.i.c.k said, "for some of them may take it into their heads to gallop back, although that ain't very likely. Anyhow the horses can't go any further, and if they could, we couldn't make our way over these stones; it'll be as dark as pitch down there. So we will move away two hundred yards, and let the horses feed while we get a few hours' sleep. That dog of yourn will give us notice if any of the varmint are coming this way."

The night pa.s.sed without alarm, and at the first dawn of light they were upon their feet again. The horses were given a mouthful of water from the skins, and then the hunters mounted and rode down the canon. There would be pursuit, they knew well; but the Indians would not be able to take up the trail until daylight, and would be an hour and a half following it to the top of the canon, so that they had fully two hours'

start. This being the case, they did not hurry their horses, but kept up a steady pace until they emerged at the lower end of the ravine; then they urged them forward, and two hours later arrived at the halting-place of the caravan. No move had been made, but the instant they were seen approaching, Abe and his two comrades rode up to meet them.

"What has happened?" he asked, as he reached them. "We have been terrible uneasy about you, and I was just going to start to try and pick up your track and follow you."

d.i.c.k related the adventure.

"It war well it war no worse," Abe said. "That critter's sense has saved your lives, for ef he hadn't given you warning you would have ridden slap into the hands of the Injins; you may consider you are quits with him now, Frank. But it war a nasty fix, and I congratulate you both on having brought your har safely back to camp; that coming straight back on your trail when you was stopped by the fall of the ground was a judgmatical business."

"It was Frank's idee," d.i.c.k said.

"Wall, he just hit the right thing; if it hadn't been for that you would have been rubbed out sure."

At the next halting-place they found that three or four of the caravans which had preceded them had halted, being afraid to move forward in small parties, as the Indians had made several attacks. With the accession of force given by the arrival of John Little's party, they considered themselves able to encounter any body of redskins they might meet, as there were now upwards of fifty waggons collected, with a fighting force of seventy or eighty men.

They therefore moved forward confidently. Several times parties of Indian hors.e.m.e.n were seen in the distance, but they never showed in force, the strength of the caravan being too great for any hope of a successful attack being made upon it.

It was nearly five months from the time of their leaving Omaha before the caravan approached the point where the great plateau of Nevada falls abruptly down to the low lands of California many thousand feet below.

Here the hunters bade farewell to the emigrants, whom they had so long escorted. All danger of Indians had been long since pa.s.sed, and they were now within a short distance of the gold regions.

Very deep and sincere were the thanks which were poured upon them by the emigrants, who felt that they owed their lives entirely to the vigilance and bravery of Abe and his companions. They expected to meet again ere long at the gold-fields, and many were the a.s.surances that should by any chance better luck attend their search than was met with by the hunters, the latter should share in their good fortune.

The change in the character of the scenery was sudden and surprising.

Hitherto the country had been bare and treeless, but the great slopes of the Nevada mountains were covered from top to bottom with a luxuriant growth of timber. Nowhere in the world are finer views to be obtained than on the slopes of the Nevada Mountains. The slopes are extremely precipitous, and sometimes, standing on a crag, one can look down into a valley five or six thousand feet below, clothed from top to bottom with luxuriant foliage, while far away in front, at the mouth of the valley, can be seen the low, rich flats of California.

On the lower slopes of these mountains lay the gold deposits. These were found in great beds of gravel and clay, which in countless generations had become so hardened that they almost approached the state of conglomerate. The gold from these beds had been carried, either by streams which ran through them, or by the action of rain and time, into the ravines and valleys, where it was found by the early explorers.

These great beds of gravel have been since worked by hydraulic machinery, water being brought by small ca.n.a.ls, or flumes, many miles along the face of the hills, to reservoirs situated one or two hundred feet above the gravel to be operated upon.

From the reservoirs extremely strong iron pipes lead down to the gravel, and to the end of these pipes are fitted movable nozzles, like those of fire-engines, but far larger. The water pours out through these nozzles with tremendous force, breaking up the gravel, and washing it away down a long series of wooden troughs, in which the gold settles, and is caught by a variety of contrivances.

But in the early days of gold discovery the very existence of these beds of gravel was unknown, and gold was obtained only in the ravines and valleys by washing the soil in the bottom. It had already been discovered that the soil was richer the further the searchers went down, by far the greater finds being made when the diggers reached the solid rock at the bottom, in the irregularities of which, worn by water thousands of years before, large quant.i.ties of rough gold were often discovered.

There was no difficulty in following the track through the forest, and after two days' travelling the party arrived at the first mining village. They chose a piece of ground for their camp, fastened their horses to stumps, erected a tent of blankets, and placed in it the stores brought on their baggage-horses, which had remained untouched since they started. Then, leaving one of their number in charge, they started off to visit the diggings.

The whole of the bottom of the narrow valley was a scene of life and bustle. The existence of gold in the valley had been discovered but three weeks before, but a rush had taken place from other diggings. The ground had been allotted out, and a number of tents pitched, and rough huts erected. Men were working as if for bare life. The lots were small, and the ground was already perfectly honeycombed with holes. Generally the diggers worked in batches of four or five, each member of which took up a claim, so that the s.p.a.ce for operations was enlarged.

Two men laboured with pick and shovel, and the baskets, as they were filled with earth and sand, were first screened in a sieve to remove the larger portion of stones and rock, and were then poured into what was known as a cradle, which was a long trough on rockers; one man brought water in buckets from the stream, and poured it into this, while another kept the cradle in constant motion. The mud and lighter portions of stone flowed away over the edge, or were swept off by the hand of the men employed in working it, the particles of gold sinking to the bottom of the machine, where they were found at the clean-up at the end of the day's work.

The new-comers looked on with great interest at the work, asking questions as to the luck which attended the operators. The majority gave but a poor account of their luck, the value of the finds at the end of the day being barely sufficient to pay the enormous rate charged for provisions, which had to be carried up from the coast some hundreds of miles away. The stores were brought in waggons as far as Sacramento, and from that town were carried to the diggings on the backs of mules and horses. Consequently it was impossible for a man to live on the poorest necessities of life for less than three or four dollars a day, and in the out-of-the-way valleys the cost was often considerably more.

Some of the diggers owned that they were doing well, but there was a general disinclination to state even the approximate amount of their daily winnings. The hunters found, however, that the general belief was that some of those who had claims in the centre of the valley, where of course the gold would settle the thickest, were making from ten to twenty ounces per day.

"That's something like!" d.i.c.k said. "Just fancy making from forty to eighty pounds per day. I vote we set to work at once. As well here as anywhere else."

"Yes, I suppose we may as well begin here," Frank agreed; "at any rate until we hear what is being done in the other places. But you see we must be ready to move off as soon as a report comes of some fresh discovery, so as to get good places. Here, of course, we must be content to settle down outside the rest. We will mark out five claims at once, turn up the ground, and put our tools there; they say that's sufficient to take possession. Then we will go up into the forests and cut down a pine or two, and slit it up into planks for making one of those cradles.

That will take us all day to-morrow, I reckon."

As they sat round the fire that evening, talking over their prospects, Abe said--

"I tell you what it is, mates, I have been thinking this here matter over, and when I sees what tremendous prices are being charged for grub here, I concluded there must be a big thing to be made in the way of carrying. Now we have got our five riding-horses, and the three baggage-horses, that makes eight. Now what I proposes is this: three of us shall work the claims, and the other two shall work the horses; we can sell the riding-saddles down at Sacramento, and get pack-saddles instead. We can begin by carrying for one of the traders here.

"I hear that a horse can earn from five to ten dollars a day, so our eight horses will earn forty to eighty dollars a day. Now that's a good sartin living for us all, especially as we shall bring up the provisions for ourselves, instead of paying big rates here. Arterards we will see how things go, and if we like we can open a store here, and one of us mind it. Anyhow the horses will keep us well. If the claim turns out well, so much the better; if it don't, we can do very well without it. I proposes as we take it by turns to drive the horses and dig."

The counsel was good and prudent, but it was only adopted after some discussion, for the sums which the more fortunate diggers were earning were so large that all looked forward to making a rapid fortune, and were inclined to despise the small but steady gains offered by the plan Abe suggested. However, Frank sided with Abe, and offered to go with him on the first trip to Sacramento, and the others thereupon fell in with the plan.

The next day the cradle was made by Abe and Frank, the others setting to to dig and wash out in a bucket. At the end of a day of hard work they had got about a quarter of an ounce of glittering yellow dust. This was not paying work, but they were not disappointed; they had not expected to strike upon good ground at the first attempt, and were quite satisfied by the fact that they really had met with the gold which they had come so far to seek.

That evening Abe made a bargain to bring up goods from Sacramento for one of the store-keepers, having previously found the rate which was current. At daybreak next morning he and Frank started off on horseback, each with three horses tied, head and tail, behind the one he was riding, Turk marching gravely by their side.

The distance to Sacramento was upwards of seventy miles. On their road they met numerous parties making their way up the mountains. All carried a pick and shovel, a bucket and blanket, and a small sack with flour and bacon. Many of them were sailors, who had deserted from their ships at San Francisco, where scores of vessels were lying unable to leave for want of hands.

All, as they pa.s.sed, asked the last news from the diggings, where the last rush was, and what was the average take at the camp, and then hurried on, eager to reach the spot where, as every man believed, fortune awaited him.

Two days of travel down the mountains took them to Sacramento. Here their saddles were disposed of, and pack-saddles bought. The horses were laden with sacks of sugar and flour, sides of bacon, and mining tools, and after a day's stay in town, they started back for the camp.

Sacramento, but a few months before a sleepy, quiet city, mostly inhabited by Spaniards, or rather people of Spanish descent, was now a scene of animation and bustle. Long teams of waggons, laden with stores, rolled in almost hourly across the plains from San Francisco, while the wharves at the river-side were surrounded by laden barges. Bands of newly-arrived emigrants wandered through the streets, asking eager questions of any one who had time enough to talk as to the best way of getting to the diggings, and as to the camp which they had better select for their first attempt. Dark-looking men, half Spaniard and half Indian, went along on their little ponies, or rode at the head of a string of laden animals, with an air of perfect indifference to the bustle around them.

Sounds of shouting and singing came through the doors of some saloons, in which many of the fortunate diggers were busily engaged in dissipating their hard-earned gains. Men sunburnt almost to blackness, in red shirts and canvas trousers, walked along the streets as if the town and all in it belonged to them in virtue of the store of gold-dust tied up in their waist-belts. In these, revolvers and bowie-knives were stuck conspicuously, and the newly-arrived emigrants looked with awe and envy at these men who had already reaped a harvest at the mines.

Shooting affrays were of frequent occurrence in the drinking saloons, where at night gambling was invariably carried on, the diggers being as reckless of their lives as of their money.

"About ten days of that place would be enough to ruin any man," Abe said, as they walked at the head of their cavalcade from the town. "I reckon as Sacramento is a sort of h.e.l.l on arth, and guess there's more wickedness goes on in that ere little town than in any other place its own size on the face of creation. They tells me as San Francisco is worse, but at any rate Sacramento is bad enough for me."

On the evening of the third day after leaving Sacramento they arrived at the mining camp, and having delivered the stores they had brought up to the trader, and received the amount agreed upon, they took their way to the spot where they had pitched their camp.

"Well, lads, what luck?" Abe asked, as at the sound of their feet their comrades came out to greet them.

"We have got about four ounces of dust," d.i.c.k said, "and our backs are pretty nigh broken, and our hands that blistered we can hardly hold the shovel. However, we have been better the last two days. I expect there have been two or three hundred people arrived here since you left, and they are all at work now."

"Well, that's pretty well for a beginning," Abe said, "though you wouldn't have much of your four ounces left if you had had to pay for grub. However, we've brought up another half-sack of flour, twenty pounds of sugar, and five pounds of tea, and a half-side of bacon, so we have got quite enough to go on for a long time yet. I have brought up, too, a good stout tent, which will hold us comfortable, and, after paying for all that, here's thirty pounds in money. I got five pounds a horse-load, so with your earnings and ours we haven't made a bad week's work; that's pretty nigh ten pounds a man. I don't say that's anything wonderful, as times goes here; but when we hit on a good spot for our digging, we shall pick it up quick. Now let's pitch the new tent, and then we will have supper, for I can tell you walking twenty-five miles in this mountain air gives one something like an appet.i.te."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER XIV.

CAPTAIN BAYLEY.