The Frontier Boys in the Sierras Part 2

"This is a fine old night," declared Jo, as he stretched himself comfortably out on the canvas cover of the hatch.

"I never saw so many stars before," declared Tom, "must be a million in sight."

"Not so, son," remarked Jeems. "There is not more than three thousand visible to the naked eye."

"Go on with you," said Tom, conclusively, "you needn't tell me that.

It's as much of a yarn as your story of the lost mine."

"Don't mind him, Jeems," said Jim. "Let's hear your tale of woe about this mine that somebody lost."

"Well," remarked Jeems, "if you children will be quiet and don't interrupt, I'll begin. First make yourselves comfortable."

This the boys proceeded to do; Jim and Juarez stretched their long legs out on the deck, with their backs against the hatch, while Tom started to make himself content and at ease by using Jo's stomach for a pillow. This, however, did not agree with Jo's idea of comfort, or perhaps it was his stomach that it did not agree with. However that may be, there was a cat fight on the hatch, Jo and Tom grappling with each other and struggling over and over. Jim was about to jump in and separate them, when he saw that they were likely to roll off the hatch on to the deck, and then he would not have interfered for anything.

The two combatants were so interested that they did not see or care.

Then they poised on the edge and, as the ship gave a roll, over they went, just missing Jeems' shepherd dog, who was peacefully lying, nose over paws, upon the deck. This unexpected avalanche sent him howling for'ard for safety.

Then still clutching each other they rolled into the scuppers, Tom striving to get a strangle hold on brother Jo, and the latter chugging Tom in the side with his free fist. At this juncture Jim took a hand, not in the interest of peace, but because he wanted to hear the shepherd's yarn. So he yanked them apart, none too gently.

"Ain't you ashamed of yourselves?" exclaimed Jim severely, "mussing up my clean deck and scaring Jeems' dog into a fit."

"I'm no sofa pillow," panted Jo. "Tom will find that out."

"I'll put you children on either side of the hatch if you don't behave," advised Jim, "and make you sit there."

"Like to see you try it," replied Tom belligerently.

"Send 'em to bed without any supper," put in Juarez jocosely.

"I'd give 'em a taste of the rope's end."

It was the old captain's voice rumbling down from the quarter deck.

He, too, had been aroused by the sound of the scuffle. Tom glanced up at him with an apprehensive eye, for he stood in considerable awe of the old sailor, and quieted right down.

"They will be good boys now, Captain," grinned Jim. "Their feelings were temporarily upset."

"It seemed to be an upset of some kind," replied the captain with a grim smile, and went back to his chair.

Peace being restored, Jeems began his narrative in the slow, drawling manner characteristic of his mode of speech. He was leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, and his gray eyes--large and open--seemed to be looking dreamily over the dusky sea, that was rolling languidly through the warm darkness of the night.

"It was a some different sort of night than this when I first heard tell of the mine, which maybe you boys think you will find some trace of, being young and hopeful and full of action."

"Now, Jeems, don't get personal," warned Jim. "We aren't as young as we act."

"I know it, Skipper," admitted Jeems; "but as I was going to tell you, this night I was speaking of, it had started in to snow something fierce. I was young then myself, and had been prospectin' all day and had come home to my little cabin that was under the shelter of a huge ledge in the mid-Sierras.

"I can tell you, lads, I was mighty glad to be out of the storm that night, and I pitied any poor prospector who might be caught out in it.

My cabin was smaller than the one I had on the Island off the coast, where you first discovered me, but it was comfortable and warm, and well sheltered from the wind.

"I had built a big stone fireplace in one corner of the cabin, and had big sticks of pine piled up to the roof and a lot just outside of the door. You know how pitch pine will burn."

"Needn't tell us," cried the audience in chorus.

"Besides wood, I had enough grub to stand a siege, as I was always forehanded."

"Must have been durn lonesome," commented Jo. "Grub and firewood ain't everything."

"That sort of business would just suit me," put in Juarez.

"Well, I wasn't entirely alone," said the shepherd.

"Wife with you?" cut in Tom, who could be over-smart at times. Jim noticed that the shepherd winced at the careless question, and he put a grip on Tom's knee that meant that the said Tom had better keep his mouth shut.

"A man don't take his wife into such a wilderness as that," said Jim.

"Go on, Jeems, and there won't be any more personal interruptions."

"Well, Skipper, as I was agoin' to say, I had with me a big hound, one that had followed me on my trips ever since he was a puppy. A prospector had given him to me when I was sluicing for gold on Rainbow Creek. He was a smooth, black-skinned dog, with stubby ears, and a jaw on him like a prize fighter. He was equal to anything in a fight short of a grizzly, and I valued his company considerable, I can tell you."

"I should like to have seen a sc.r.a.p between him and Captain Graves'

Santa Anna." (This was on the back trail when the Frontier Boys were in Colorado), said Juarez.

"Get Jo and Tom to mixing it," laughed Jim, "and you'll have some idea of what it would be like."

At this point the boys were surprised to see Jeems become angry at Juarez's innocent interruption. It was the first time that the boys had ever seen Jeems Howell anything but good-natured, no matter what happened, or what prank was played on him. But, as Jo remarked later, "Human nature is a mighty uncertain business, and everybody has got a cranky spot in 'em if you just happen to strike it at the explosive time." Which is a mighty true observation, which you can prove to your own satisfaction any day in the week. The writer being example No. 1, and you, indulgent reader, example No. 2.

Jim and Juarez, by their combined and genial efforts, pulled Jeems out of the sulks and on to his own sunny level once more. Then he took up his narrative again.

"Well, boys, it don't seem that I have got any right to criticize that black hound's temper, considering my own."

"Anybody is apt to get riled once in a lifetime, Jeems," said Jim, "even Tom here has been known to act up occasionally." Tom joined in the laugh because he had a notoriously quick temper, and complete serenity was restored.

"That hound would never make friends with anyone except me," continued Jeems, "and I could always depend on his watchfulness to warn me of the approach of any marauder. It was a wild country, and with bad Indians and worse white men you always had to be on your guard. Still on this night I tell ye of, the storm was so wild and fierce that I did not believe anyone would be abroad who had any sort of a place to stay in.

"Before turning in, I stepped outside to see how things were going.

The hound followed close on my heels. I closed the door tight and stood in the darkness with my old gray hat pulled down close around my head. I could scarcely see. The snow was swirling from the ledge above my cabin, and was blown out in great sheets into the night.

"Then the hound began to growl kind of low, and his hair was bristling, but he did not show any sudden desire to take a jump down the mountain side, as he would under ordinary circ.u.mstances, and I didn't urge him because I thought he showed mighty good sense."

CHAPTER IV

THE LOST MINE

"'Anybody down thar?' I yelled, but my voice was blown down my throat, and you couldn't have heard it six feet away, as the wind was doing all the talking that night. So I stepped back into my cabin, followed by the dog, who kept growling to himself like a man with a grouch.