To Win or to Die Part 47

Constant disappointment had been their portion, and a general feeling of being utterly worn out was dulling their efforts, when toward the close of a dreary day Tregelly exclaimed:

"Look here, my sons; I think we've seen the end of that red-headed ruffian at last."

"I wish I could think so," said Dallas.

"No," said Abel; "we shall see him again. I feel that he'll be the death of us all."

"Bah! you're in the dumps again," said Tregelly. "I feel that we must have completely given the scoundrel the slip by our last move. I'm not one of your grumbling sort, am I?"

"No, Bob, no," said Dallas sadly. "I envy you the calm patience and perseverance you possess."

The Cornishman laughed.

"Did possess, my son. I did have a lot, but it's all used up to the last sc.r.a.p, and I'm regularly done."

Abel looked at him in surprise, but Dallas seemed too dejected to notice anything, and sat forward, haggard and staring, with his eyes fixed upon their struggling fire.

"Well, don't you believe me?" said Tregelly.

"I always believe what you say, Bob; but I don't understand what you mean now."

"You don't? Well, then, I'll soon make you, my son. It's like this: I feel just like a squirrel in a cage, galloping on over miles of wire and never getting a bit farther, or like one of those chaps on the old-fashioned treadmill, who were always going upstairs, but never got to the top."

"Look here," said Dallas, springing up suddenly from his seat in the rough shelter made with pine-boughs, where they had been now for some days, while they tried the banks of a tiny creek, one of many which they had followed to their sources in their daring quest. "This is no time for idle talk; which is it to be? Shall we retreat at once, and try to get back to the main river, where we may find help, and perhaps save our lives, or go on?"

There was a dead silence, and then a gust of wind swept down the narrow valley, laden with fine, dusty snow, evidently a forerunner of a wintry storm.

"If we start back now," said Abel at last, "we are not sure of reaching the settlement before the winter sets in."

"And if we do we've nothing left to live upon, my sons. You see, those last supplies emptied the bag, and we've never settled down since. You both said, 'Let it be a man or a mouse.'"

"And you said 'All right,'" cried Dallas angrily.

"So I did, my son; but I hoped we should turn out men instead of mice."

"Well," said Dallas bitterly, "we must not find fault with one another.

We did our best."

"That's true," said Tregelly. "Hear, hear. Go on. What were you going to say?"

"That I have had it my own way for long enough, but now I'll give up to you two. There's no gold worth getting here, so if you both say, 'Let's make a dash back for life before we are shut in by the winter that seems to be coming on early,' I'm ready, and we'll make a brave fight for it."

"And if we say, 'No! Let's go on and fight for the stuff to the last'-- what then?"

"We will not look back," cried Dallas, stepping outside, to stand gazing, with a far-off look in his eyes, straight along the narrow ravine running up into the savage-looking snow-covered mountains.

"Go on," said Abel, who seemed to catch his cousin's enthusiasm as he stood there, gradually growing whitened by the fine drifting snow.

"Go on?" said Dallas, without turning his head; "well, let's go on. The gold must be up yonder, where it crumbles or is ground out of the rocky mountains, to be washed, in the course of ages, down the streams into the gravel and sand."

"Ay, there must be plenty of it up yonder, my son," said Tregelly, stepping out to shade his eyes and gaze upward towards the wilderness of mountains to the north, probably never yet trodden by the foot of man.

"Then I say, as we have come so far, let's go on and find it," cried Dallas; "and if we fail--well, it is only lying down at last to sleep!

No one will know, for our bones will never be found. I feel as if I can't go back--and you, Bel?"

For answer Abel laid his hand upon his cousin's shoulder, and stood gazing with him into the dimly seen, mysterious land, just as, high up, one of the snowy summits suddenly grew bright and flashed in the feeble sunshine which played upon it for a few minutes before the snow-clouds closed in again.

And as if the one bright gleam had inspired him, Tregelly began to whistle softly.

"Look here!" he cried, "never say pitch a thing up when there's a bit of hope left. 'To win or to die' is my motto!"

"And mine," cried Dallas, enthusiastically.

"And mine," said Abel, in a soft, low, dreamy voice.

"Then look here," said Tregelly; "we've got enough to give us all a small ration for seven days, so let's load up one sledge and leave the others. Then we can take it in turns and push right on up into the mountains with nothing to hinder us. Snow don't make a bad shelter when you've plenty of blankets, and there's nothing to fear now. Old Redbeard never could have come up here; he must have gone off by one of the side gulches, and got round and back to where he can rob some one else."

"Yes; we must have pa.s.sed him days ago," said Dallas.

"Very well, then, we can all sleep o' nights without keeping watch."

"And we can push on and on, just trying the rocks with the hammer here and there wherever we find a place clear of ice."

"That's the way, my son, and who knows but what we may shoot a bear or something else to keep us going for another week, eh?"

Abel nodded--he could not trust himself to speak; and then, with determination plainly marked in their haggard faces, they set to work in the shelter of the dwarfed pines around them, and packed one sledge with all they felt to be necessary to take on this forlorn hope expedition, and with it the last of their dwindling store of food.

"There," cried Dallas, pointing up the narrow gully, as they finished their preparations, "how could we despair with such a sign as that before us?"

His companions stood and looked up in the direction indicated, where the transformation that had taken place was wonderful.

An hour before they had gazed through drifting, dusty snow at forbidding crags and wintry desolation. For a few minutes that one peak had flashed out hopefully, but only to fade away again, while now their eyes literally ached with the dazzling splendour of what seemed to be a grotto-like palace of precious stones, set in frosted silver and burnished gold; for the mountains blazed in the last rays of the setting sun with the hues of the iris magnified into one gorgeous sheen.

"Yes, that looks as if we'd got to the golden land at last, my sons,"

said Tregelly. "It's something like what one has dreamed of after reading the 'Arabian Nights'; only you see they aren't fast colours, and they won't wash."

"Never mind," said Dallas; "we know that the gold must be there, and we'll find it yet. Ready?"

For answer Tregelly picked up the trace, and was about to pa.s.s it over his head, but he paused and looked round.

"Here," he cried; "where's that there dog?"

Abel went into the rough shelter they had made, to find Scruff curled-up fast asleep beneath one of the skins they were going to leave behind; but he sprang up at a touch, and trotted out to take his place by Tregelly, who slipped his slight harness over the st.u.r.dy animal's head.

"No shuffling now, my son," he said merrily. "You're stores, you know, and we shall want you to eat when the rest of the prog is done.

Forward! we're going to do it now."