Gold Out of Celebes Part 14

For hours they stemmed the stream, brushing overhanging vines and mosses with their masts at times; then a great round moon peeped over the tangled trees and shed a ribbon of vivid light upon the river, ever intensifying and widening until the surrounding country stood revealed to them as clearly as in noontime.

Little sat beside the skipper, wide-eyed and alert as himself, and now they could see something of the windings of the stream. Barry's chart had shown the river only as far as navigation was possible for vessels coming up from the sea, and that stopped at a very short distance above the trading post. Here, a few miles beyond the point where they had left Vandersee, the banks trended ever in a wide sweep, reach after reach, until, allowing for the moon's hourly pa.s.sage, something in her position proved to Barry what he had for some time begun to suspect.

"Say, Little," he remarked, "we've sailed or rowed almost twenty miles now, and be darned if I don't think we're within five miles of the post yet!"

"Anything's likely to me, Barry," returned Little carelessly. "If you said we'd gone the other way and would sight Surabaya in fifteen minutes, I'd believe you, old sailor. This darkness and light, racket and hush, mud flats and moss on the masts, all in one evening, has got me flummuxed. But I've got one little thought myself," he added dreamily.

"Ye G.o.ds!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Barry sarcastically. "What?"

"Oh, just whether Leyden knows Vandersee's here or not."

"I suppose so. The Mission folks and Mrs. Goring know it, don't they?

And everybody knows more about this affair than you or I, don't they?"

"I don't know," drawled Little, and without another word he pulled his hat over his eyes, snuggled down, and gave Barry his answer in the shape of a soft, prolonged snore.

The moon sailed overhead and dipped with dimming l.u.s.ter behind a ridge of jungle giants whose upper branches were waking into life. Monkeys and parrots with higher, keener vision than that of the boatmen heralded the gray light breaking low down in the east, and with the swiftness of the moon's coming, dawn turned the black of the river to gray, then to yellow.

But now the yellowness was clear and transparent, different altogether from the muddy foulness of the lower reaches. And the country around lost the density of matted jungle and undulated in a succession of gra.s.sy stretches through which cropped great round hummocks of sandy hills. The stream narrowed to a swift running gorge between two such hummocks, then suddenly widened out to five times the width, and the water rippled over sandy shoals that barred further progress in the loaded boat. Barry searched the scene eagerly, bringing the boat to the wind to arrest her way; then suddenly he awoke Little with a shake.

"Come to life, man, we're here!" he said.

Little sat up, rubbing his eyes in confusion at the total change in his surroundings, for he had not opened them once since falling asleep. To be there meant to him that he had arrived among gold dust and romance, and he sought as eagerly as Barry for signs of their arrival. He was disappointed, frankly and utterly.

"Gosh, Barry, this can't be it!" he gasped. "Why, man, where are the red shirts and the faro joints?"

To the eye Houten's gold sands offered little of allure. On both sh.o.r.es the river seemed exactly as other rivers, except for a small cl.u.s.ter of ramshackle gra.s.s huts under a clump of dwarf trees and a rough raft of logs tied with gra.s.s ropes to a stake set in the bed of the river itself. Of life there was none visible; but as oars rattled in the boat to swing her insh.o.r.e, a sleepy native emerged from one of the huts, and his swift cry brought a score of his fellows to stare at the intruders.

"Don't look like El Dorado, at that!" grunted Barry, steering insh.o.r.e and running the boat up on the sand.

"El Dorado? The gold washers look more like collar washers to me!"

retorted Little disgustedly. "And is this what I gave up a decent drumming round for? Gosh!"

Profiting by early lessons, Barry warned his men to keep a sharp lookout. He divided them into two watches, bidding them to cook some food for all hands against his return, and giving permission for them to rest or sleep if they wished to, so long as half of them remained awake.

Then followed by Little in abashed silence, he went up to the huts and announced his mission.

"Gol' dust, sar? No catchum here," was the response in a chorus.

"No catchum, hey? Very quick I make catchum," retorted Barry grimly. The little brown men stared at each other and then at the white men, some grinning openly, others shifting uneasily under the skipper's scrutiny.

"This is Cornelius Houten's gold camp, ain't it?" put in Little, addressing a man who seemed to be pushed forward by his fellows.

"Ho yis, sar, dis Misser Houten's camp," the man replied, "but he no got gol' dust here. I don' know what Misser Gordon send us here for, sar,"

he concluded, with a grin of enlightenment.

"Don't know, hey?" burst out Barry, shoving the man aside and entering the biggest of the huts. "Keep your eye on these chaps, Little," he cried. "If they budge a finger don't wait. Shoot."

There was no shooting. Barry found himself in a squalid interior, containing all the discomforts of native bachelordom with no compensating comforts. Remnants of food and dilapidated sleeping mats strewed the dirty floor. But the thing that sent the skipper outside on the run was the sight of a heap of gold-washing implements piled in a corner and bearing no evidence of more than very casual usage. Anything approaching the appearance of an active gold camp escaped his eye, and his eye was unwontedly keen.

"Little, bring up half the boat crew!" he ordered, rejoining his friend outside. "Have 'em bring their guns quickly. And bring all the small rope there is. There's some queer business here."

The skipper drew out his own pistol, huddled the wondering natives into a bunch, and kept them under his muzzle. When his sailors arrived, he lined out every man clear of the huts, compared their number with the figure on Little's list brought from the post, and then pulled out the spokesman by the ear, holding his pistol to the man's head. The boat crew held their rifles threateningly.

"What's up, Barry?" demanded Little, in a mental fog.

"Shut up!" snorted the skipper and turned to his captive. Giving the man's ear a twist, he demanded:

"What's your game here? Speak up, or I'll shoot you!"

The man squirmed uneasily, scared out of most of his wits; but in his fright he retained some sense, and what was better, some loyalty.

"No game, sar," he cried. "Me Misser Houten's man. We all Misser Houten's man, sar. I tell you true; dere is no gol' dust here. Suppose you want to steal gol' dust, some other place, maybe. Here no gott.i.t."

"Steal? Why--Oh dammit, Little!" Barry exclaimed, "the fellow thinks we've come to rob Houten. Show him your letter, or whatever it is.

Better yet, let one of the hands tell him who we are. I'll never make him understand."

The _bona fides_ of the party established, the atmosphere was cleared to the extent of faces smiling where faces had looked frightened before; but no other answer could be got from the gold washers.

"We been here many weeks--months, sar--but no gol' dust got. Very soon we all go back; no got food no more; n.o.body come here. Misser Gordon tell us stop along here until he say come back. Many days we wash sand in de river, but no gol', sar, no, sar."

Barry was nonplussed. He glared at Little, seeking inspiration from a man as dumbfounded as himself. Little grinned sheepishly back at him and remarked:

"I expected this, Barry. It didn't seem right, somehow, for me to ever find honest-to-gosh gold sands. All my adventures have proved dreams.

This is about right."

"Right! Then sleep on it. It isn't right to me, by a jugful, Little.

Here!" he called one of his crew. "Bring that rope, and I'll see whether these fellows are playing straight with us."

One by one the sailor pa.s.sed down the line of natives, tying each man securely until only the spokesman remained free. This man Barry turned towards the hut, and said to him:

"If you speak truth, you're all right. Lie, and you're all wrong, my lad. Take the gear you want for washing and get out into the river. Go right to it, if you want to save your skin. Let me see if there's gold or not there." He turned to the rest and told them: "You'll all have a chance. The man who brings me dust is free. The others--" he finished with a suggestive gesture that they could not misunderstand.

"All ri', sar," replied the man, taking up his gear, "suppose I die, no can help. I tell you no gol' here, sar, dat's true." And as the fellow waded into the river, his companions echoed in dismay:

"No, sar. No gol' in dis river. He some udder place."

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The cry of the gold washers did not alter Barry's plans; he followed the native to the river and kept him under close observation from the bank.

But Little thought he had detected a note of sincerity in that dismal wail and undertook a little scrutiny himself. He, like Barry, was ignorant regarding the business of gold seeking; but the native sense and shrewdness that had carried him to a high point of salesmanship fitted him to at least read signs if such signs were. He opened a bulky wallet which served him for a travelling case, and from among a litter of shaving gear, hairbrush, and spare sock-suspenders, he took a huge reading gla.s.s, purchased in Batavia with a vague idea of studying insect life in the primitive wilds.

This he carried into the hut and diligently sought with it for traces of glittering metal. Common sense told him that if gold had ever been found here, it must have been carried away or stored against transportation, and in so crude a plant it was conceivable that specks of gold would be discovered somewhere about the floor. Thus he scrutinized every square foot of the floors of all the huts, pulling off roofs and knocking out walls wherever necessary to get sufficient light. But no trace of metal did he find; nothing but a populous colony of virile insects that at last drove him out to the river, shedding clothes as he ran.

Barry met him with a grin on the bank and helped him peel off his garments.