The Killer Part 20

"What kind of rock did you find it in?" demanded Tibbetts, after he had recovered his breath from the youngsters' enthusiastic man-handling.

"Oh, a kind of red, pasty-looking rock," said they.

"Show us," demanded the miners.

"What?" cried Jimmy, astounded, "and give Old Man Luck the backhand slap just when he's decided to buy a corner lot in the Gaynes Addition? Not on your saccharine existence!"

"But we'll show you some more of this to-morrow Q.M.," said George.

They bought drinks all round, and paid their various bills, and departed again feverishly to the Lost Dog whence rose smoke and clankings. And next day, sure enough, they left their work just long enough to exhibit another respectable little clean-up of fifty dollars or so.

"And we're just getting into it!" said George, triumphantly.

California John and all the rest of his good friends rejoiced exceedingly and genuinely. They liked the Babes. The little strike of the Lost Dog quite overshadowed in importance the fact that old man Bright's "Clarice" had run into a fabulously rich pocket.

The end of the month drew near. The Lost Dog had produced nearly eight hundred dollars. The Babes waxed important and talked largely of their moneyed interests.

"I think," said Jimmy, importantly, "that we will decide to keep three hundred dollars to boost the game; and nail down the rest where moths won't corrupt. Where do you fellows salt your surplus, anyway?"

"There's an express goes out pretty soon," someone explained, "with the clean-up of the Clarice. We send our dust out with that; and I reckon you can fix it with Bright."

They saw Bright, but ran up against an unexpected difficulty. Old Man Bright received them with considerable surliness. He considered himself as the originator, discoverer, inventor, and almost the proprietor of Bright's Cove and all it contained. Therefore, when he first heard of the new strike, he walked up to the Lost Dog to see what it looked like.

The Babes, panic stricken at the intended affront to "Old Man Luck,"

headed him off. Bright had not the least belief in the reason given. He surveyed them with disfavour.

"I can't take your package," he told them. "Send it out yourself."

"And that old skunk has cleaned up a hundred thousand this month!"

complained Jimmy, pathetically, to the group around the horse trough.

"And he won't even take a pore little five hundred package of dust out to some suffering bank! I suppose I'll have to cache it in a tomato can for Johnson's old billy goat to chew up."

"Bring it over and I'll shove it in with mine," suggested California John.

So it was done. The express, carrying nearly four hundred pounds of gold dust, set forth over the steep road. In two hours the driver and messenger sailed in, bung-eyed with excitement. They had been held up by a single road agent.

"He come out right on that point of rocks where you can see the whole valley," said the driver in answer to many questions, "right where the heavy grade is and the thick chaparral. We was busy climbing; and he had us before we could wink. Made us drop off the dust and 'bout face. He was a big, tall feller; and had a sawed-off Winchester. Once, when we stopped, he dropped a bullet right behind us. He must have watched us all the way to camp."

The camp turned out. As the men pa.s.sed the Lost Dog someone yelled to the Babes. George, covered with mud, came to the door of the mill.

"Gee!" said he. "Lucky we saved out that three hundred. I'm powerful sorry for that suffering bank. I'll join you as soon as I can get Jimmy up out of the shaft." Before the party had gone a mile they were joined by the brothers boyishly eager over this new excitement.

The men toiled up the road to where the robbery had taken place. Plainly to be seen were the marks of the man's boots. The tracks of a single horse, walking, followed the man.

"He packed off the dust, and he had an almighty big horse to carry it,"

p.r.o.nounced someone.

They followed the trail. It led a half mile to a broad sheet of rock.

There it disappeared. On one side the bank rose twenty or thirty feet.

On the other it fell away nearly a hundred. On the other side of the sheet of rock stretched the dusty road unbroken by anything more recent than the wheel-tracks of the day before. It was as though man and horse had taken unto themselves wings.

Immediately Bright took active charge of the posse.

"Stand here, on this rock," he commanded. "This road's been tracked up too much already. You, John, and Tibbetts and Simmins, there, come 'long with me to see what you can make out."

The old mountaineers retraced their steps, examining carefully every inch of the ground. They returned vastly puzzled.

"No sabe," California John summed up their investigations. "There's the man's track leadin' his hoss. The hoss had on new shoes, and the robber did his own shoeing. So we ain't got any blacksmiths to help us."

"How do you know he shod the horse himself?" asked Jimmy Gaynes.

"Shoes just alike on front and back feet. Shows he must just have tacked on ready-made shoes. A blacksmith shapes 'em different. Those tracks leads right up to this rock: and here they quit. If you can figger how a horse, a man, and nigh four hundredweight of gold dust got off this rock, I'll be obleeged."

The men looked up at the perpendicular cliff to their right; over the sheer precipice at their left; and upon the untracked deep, white dust ahead.

"Furthermore," California John went on, impressively, after a moment, "where did that man and that hoss come from in the beginning? Not from up this way. They's no fresh tracks comin' down the road no more than they's fresh tracks goin' up. Not from camp. They's no tracks whatsomever on the road below, except our'n and the stage outfit's."

"Are you sure of that?" asked Jimmy, his eyes shining with interest.

"Sartin sure," replied California John, positively. "We didn't take no chances on that."

"Then he must have come into the road from up the mountain or down the mountain."

"Where?" demanded California John. "A man afoot might scramble down in one or two places; but not a hoss. They ain't no tracks either side the muss-up where the express was stopped. And at that p'int the mountain is straight up and down, like it is here."

They talked it over, and argued it, and reexamined the evidence, but without avail. The stubborn facts remained: Between the hold-up and the sheet of rock was one set of tracks going one way; elsewhere, nothing.

CHAPTER II

Nearly a year pa.s.sed. If it had not been for the very tangible loss of a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, the little community at Bright's Cove might almost have come to doubt the evidence of their senses and the accuracy of their memories, so fantastic on sober reflection did all the circ.u.mstances become. Even the indisputable four hundred pounds of gold could not quite avert an unconfessed suspicion of the uncanny.

Miners are superst.i.tious folk. Old Man Bright remembered the parting and involved curses of his squaw before she went back to her acorns and pine nuts. To Tibbetts alone he imparted a vague hint of the imaginings into which he had fallen. But he brooded much, seeking a plausible theory that would not force him back on the powers of darkness. This he did not find.

Nor did any other man. It remained a mystery, a single bizarre anomaly in the life of the camp. For some time thereafter the express went heavily guarded. The road was patrolled. Jimmy or George Gaynes in person accompanied each shipment of dust. Their pay streak held out, increased steadily in value. They would hire no a.s.sistance for the actual mining in the shaft, although they had several hands to work at the mill. One month they cleaned up twelve thousand dollars.

"You bet I'm going," said Jimmy, "I don't care if it is only a little compared to what Bright and you fellows are sending. It's a heap sight to us, and I'm going to see it safe to the city. No more spooks in mine.

I got my fingers crossed. Allah skazallalum! I don't know what a ghost would want with cash a.s.sets, but they seemed to use George's and my little old five hundred, all right."

Twelve months went by. Two expresses a month toiled up the road. Nothing happened. Finally Jimmy decided that four good working days a month were a good deal to pay for apparently useless supervision. Three men comprised the shot-gun guard. They, with the driver, were considered ample.

"You'll have to get on without me," said Jimmy to them in farewell. "Be good boys. We've got the biggest clean-up yet aboard you."

They started on the twenty-fifth trip since the hold-up. After a time, far up the mountain was heard a single shot. Inside of two hours the express drew sorrowfully into camp. The driver appeared to be alone. In the bottom of the wagon were the three guards weak and sick. The gold sacks were very much absent.

"Done it again," said the driver. "Ain't more than got started afore the whole outfit's down with the belly-ache. Too much of that cursed salmon.

Told 'em so. I didn't eat none. That road agent hit her lucky this trip sure. He was all organized for business. Never showed himself at all.

Just opened fire. Sent a bullet through the top of my hat. He's either a d.a.m.n good shot or a d.a.m.n poor one. I hung up both hands and yelled we was down and out. What could I do? This outfit couldn't a fit a b.u.mble bee. And I couldn't git away, or git hold of no gun, or see anything to shoot, if I did. He was behind that big rock."