To The West Part 70

"Oh, all right. I s'pose you know," he cried; "but I wouldn't tell any one else."

"Of course I'm right," I said, sharply.

"And we couldn't go on getting the gold here without his knowing it. So you'd better tell him."

"That's a nice selfish way of looking at it, Master Esau," I said.

"Dessay it is," he replied; "but gold makes you feel selfish. I dunno that I feel so glad now that we've found it."

And I don't think I felt quite so excited and pleased as I had a short time before.

"It ain't my fault," said Dean; "it's your thinking I didn't want to play fair."

"Don't talk like that," I cried, angrily. "Who thinks you don't want to play fair? No, no; don't say any more about it. Now then: can we recollect this spot exactly?"

"Why, you said that there must be gold all along."

"Yes, I know," I cried; "but Mr Raydon may want to see the place, and we must bring him where we can find some and show him directly."

"Well," said Esau, "there's a clump of fir-trees on this side, and a clump of fir-trees on that side."

"Oh, you old stupid," I cried, "when there are clumps of fir-trees everywhere. That won't do."

"Well then, let's make a cross with our knives on those twisting ones."

"What, to tell people this is the very place? That wouldn't do."

"Well then," he cried, peevishly, "you find out a better way."

I stood thinking a few minutes, but no better way came. Then I thought I had hit out the plan.

"Look here," I said, "we'll make the two crosses on the other side of the trees. No one would notice them then."

Esau burst into a hoa.r.s.e laugh.

"Of course they will not," he said, "nor us neither. Why, you keep on coming to trees like these over and over all day long. We shan't find 'em again."

I felt that he was right, and thought of plan after plan--putting stones in a heap, cutting off a branch, sticking up a post, and the like, but they all seemed as if they would attract people to the spot, and then induce them to search about and at last try the sand as Quong did, and I said so.

"Yes," said Esau, "that's right enough. There ain't many people likely to see 'em but Indians, and I s'pose they won't go gold-washing, nor any other washing, for fear of taking off their paint."

"Well, what shall we do?" I cried. "We mustn't lose the place again now we have found it, and we shall be sure to if we don't mark it. I've seen hundreds of places just like this."

"Well then, why not make a mark?" said Esau. "Because whoever sees it will be sure that it means something particular, for some one to stop and search."

"Make a mark then on that big tree which will tell 'em to go on," said Esau, grinning.

"But how?"

"I'll show you," he said; and he took out his big knife from its sheath.

"Let's look round again first."

We looked round, but the silence was almost awful, not even a bird's note fell upon our ears. Once a faint, whistling sound came from the far distance, that was all; and Esau went up to the biggest fir-tree whose trunk was clear of boughs, and he was about to use his knife, when we both jumped away from the tree. For from close at hand came a sharp, clear tap, as if somebody had touched the ground with a light cane.

"What's that?" whispered Esau, with his eyes staring, and his mouth partly opened.

I shook my head.

"Some one a-watching us," he whispered. "Here, let's dive right in among the trees and see."

But I held his arm, and we stood in that beautiful wild ravine, listening to the rippling of the water, and peering in among the tall pines, expecting to see the man who had made the sound.

"I say," whispered Esau, "I can't see or hear anything. Ain't it rather rum?"

He said "rum," but he looked at me as if he thought it very terrible, with the consequence that his fear was contagious, and I began to feel uncomfortable as we kept looking at each other.

"Shall we run?" whispered Esau.

At another time such an idea would not have occurred to him. The forest and the streams that run up the valleys were always solitary, but we felt no particular dread when going about, unless we saw the footmarks of bears. But now that we were in possession of the secret of the gold, the same idea of our being watched impressed us both, and we turned cold with fear, and all because we had heard that faint blow on the ground.

I don't know whether I looked pale as I stood by Esau, when he asked me if we should run, but I do know that the next moment I felt utterly ashamed of myself, and in the reaction--I suppose to conceal my shame for my cowardice--I struck Esau heavily on the shoulder and made a false start.

"Run--run--the Fort!" I cried. Esau bounded off, and I hung back watching him till he turned to see me standing there laughing, when he stopped short, looking at me curiously, and then came slowly to where I was.

"What did you say run for?" he cried, angrily.

"You asked me if you should," I replied.

"Then there ain't no one coming?"

"No."

"What a shame!" he cried. "It's too bad."

"Yes, for us to be frightened at nothing. Do you know what that noise was?"

"No, I don't know."

"It was a squirrel dropped a nut or a fir-cone. Why, it's just the same noise as you hear in the country at home when they drop an acorn."

"Then why didn't you say so? I've never been in no countries where squirrels shies nuts and acorns at people. I've always seen 'em in cages spinning round and round."

"That's what it was, Esau. There's n.o.body watching. Now then, how are you going to mark the tree?"

He looked at me rather sulkily, but began to smile directly, as he drew his keen-edged knife across the trunk of the great tree upon which he was going to operate before. Then, making a parallel incision close to the first, he produced a white streak where he removed the bark.

"Well," I said, "that's as bad as anything."