Down the Ravine Part 13

Birt, although bewildered and still tremulous from the shock to his nerves, was not so superst.i.tious as Rufe, and he shouldered his gun, and, pushing out from the tangled underbrush, joined the old man in the path.

"I want," said the gentleman, "to hire a boy for a few days--weeks, perhaps."

He smiled with two whole rows of teeth that never grew where they stood. Birt wished he could see the expression of the stranger's eyes, indistinguishable behind the spectacles that glimmered in the light.

"What do you say to fifty cents a day?" he continued briskly.

Birt's heart sank suddenly. He had heard that Satan traded in souls by working on the avarice of the victim. The price suggested seemed a great deal to Birt, for in this region there is little cash in circulation, barter serving all the ordinary purposes of commerce.

As he hesitated, the old man eyed him quizzically. "Afraid of work, eh?"

"Naw, sir!" said Birt, st.u.r.dily.

Ah, if the bark-mill, and the old mule, and the tan-pit, and the wood-pile, and the cornfield might testify!

"Fifty cents a day--eh?" said the stranger.

At the repet.i.tion of the sum, it occurred to Birt, growing more familiar with the eccentricity of his companion, that he ought not in sheer silliness to throw away a chance for employment.

"Kin I ask my mother?" he said dubiously.

"By all means ask your mother," replied the stranger heartily.

Birt's last fantastic doubt vanished. Oh no! this was not Satan in disguise. When did the enemy ever counsel a boy to ask his mother!

Birt still stared gravely at him. All the details of his garb, manner, speech, even the hammer in his hand, were foreign to the boy's experience.

Presently he ventured a question. "Do you-uns hail from hyar- abouts?"

The stranger was frank and communicative. He told Birt that he was a professor of Natural Science in a college in one of the "valley towns," and that he was sojourning, for his health's sake, at a little watering-place some twelve miles distant on the bench of the mountain. Occasionally he made an excursion into the range, which was peculiarly interesting geologically.

"But what I wish you to do is to dig for--bones."

"BONES?" faltered Birt.

"Bones," reiterated the professor solemnly.

DID his spectacles twinkle?

Birt stood silent, vaguely wondering what his mother would think of "bones." Presently the professor, seeing that the boy was not likely to ask amusing questions, explained.

He informed Birt that in the neighborhood of salt licks--"saline quagmires" he called them--were often found the remains of animals of an extinct species, which are of great value to science. He gave Birt the extremely long name of these animals, and descanted upon such conditions of their existence as is known, much of which Birt did not understand. Although this fact was very apparent, it did not in the least affect the professor's ardor in the theme. He was in the habit of talking of these things to boys who did not understand, and alack! to boys who did not want to understand.

One point, however, he made very clear. With the hope of some such "find," he was anxious to investigate this particular lick,--about which indeed he had heard a vague tradition of a "big bone"

discovery, such as is common to similar localities in this region,-- and for this purpose he proposed to furnish the science and the fifty cents per diem, and earnestly desired that some one else should furnish the muscle.

He was accustomed to think much more rapidly than the men with whom Birt was a.s.sociated, and his briskness in arranging the matter had an incongruous suggestion of the giddiness of youth. He said that he would go home with Birt to fetch the spade, and while there he could settle the terms with the boy's mother, and then they could get to work.

He started off at a dapper gait up the deer-path, while Birt, with his rifle on his shoulder, followed.

A sudden thought struck Birt. He stopped short.

"Now _I_ dunno which side o' that thar lick Nate Griggs's line runs on," he remarked.

"Never mind," said the professor, waving away objections with airy efficiency; "I shall first secure the consent of the owner of the land."

Birt cogitated for a moment. "Nate Griggs ain't goin' ter gin his cornsent ter n.o.body ter dig ennywhar down the ravine, ef it air inside o' his lines," he said confidently, "'kase I--'kase he-- leastwise, 'kase gold hev been fund hyar lately, an' he hev entered the land."

The professor stopped short in the path.

"Gold!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "Gold!"

Was there a vibration of incredulity in his voice?

Birt remembered all at once the specimens which he had picked up that memorable evening, down the ravine, when he shot the red fox.

Here they still were in his pocket. They showed l.u.s.trous, metallic, yellow gleams as he placed them carefully in the old man's outstretched hand, telling how he came by them, of his mistaken confidence, the betrayed trust, and ending by pointing at the group of gold-seekers, microscopic in the distance on the opposite slope.

"I hev hearn tell," he added, "ez Nate air countin' on goin'

pardners with a man in Sparty, who hev got money, to work the gold mine."

Now and then, as he talked, he glanced up at his companion's face, vaguely expecting to discover his opinion by its expression, but the light still played in a baffling glitter upon his spectacles.

Birt could only follow when the professor suddenly handed back the specimens with a peremptory "Come--come! We must go for the spade.

But when we reach your mother's house I will test this mineral, and you shall see for yourself what you have lost."

Mrs. Dicey's first impression upon meeting the stranger and learning of his mission was not altogether surprise as Birt had expected.

Her chief absorption was a deep thankfulness that the floors all preserved their freshly scoured appearance.

"Fur ef Rufe hed been playin' round hyar ter-day, same ez common, the rubbish would have been a scandal ter the kentry," she reflected.

In fact, all was so neat, albeit so poor, that the stranger felt as polite as he looked, while he talked to her about employing Birt in his researches.

Birt, however, had little disposition to listen to this. He was excited by the prospect of testing the mineral, and he busied himself with great alacrity in preparing for it under the professor's directions. He suffered a qualm, it is true, as he pounded the shining fragments into a coa.r.s.e powder, and then he drew out with the shovel a great glowing ma.s.s of live coals on the hearth.

The dogs peered eagerly in at the door, having followed the stranger with the liveliest curiosity. Towse, bolder than the rest, entered intrepidly with a nonchalant air and a wagging tail, for he and Rufe, having failed to find Birt, had just returned home. The small boy paused on the threshold in amazed recognition of the old gentleman who had occasioned him such a fright that day down the ravine.

The professor gesticulated a great deal as he bent over the fire and gave Birt directions, and, with his waving hands and the glow on his h.o.a.ry hair and beard, he looked like some fantastic sorcerer.

Somehow Rufe was glad to see the familiar countenances of Pete and Joe, and was still more rea.s.sured to note that his mother was quietly standing beside the table, as she stirred the batter for bread in a wooden bowl. Tennessee had pressed close to Birt, her chubby hand clutching his collar as he knelt on the hearth. He held above the glowing coals a long fire shovel, on which the pulverized mineral had been placed, and his eyes were very bright as he earnestly watched it.

"If it is gold," said the old man, "a moderate heat will not affect it."

The shovel was growing hot. The live coals glowed beneath it. The breath of the fire stirred Tennessee's flaxen hair. And Birt's dilated eyes saw the yellow particles still glistening unchanged in the centre of the shovel, which was beginning to redden.

CHAPTER XI.

Suddenly--was the glistening yellow mineral taking fire? It began to give off sulphurous fumes. And drifting away with them were all Birt's golden visions and Nate's ill-gotten wealth--ending in smoke!