IN A day or two the excitement over the great evening party at the
Shields ranch had passed and the humdrum duties of everyday life had
been resumed. Whitley Adams had completed his business at Encampment and
taken his departure with the solemnly renewed promise to Roderick that
for the present the latter’s whereabouts would not be disclosed to the
good folks at Keokuk although their anxiety as to his safety and good
health would be relieved. Grant Jones had torn himself away from
his beloved to resume his eternal—and as he felt at the moment
infernal—task of getting out the next issue of his weekly newspaper.
Gail Holden had ridden off over the foothills, the Shields sisters had
returned to their domestic duties, and all the other beauties of the
ballroom had scattered far and wide like thistledown in a breeze. The
cowboys had reverted to chaps and sombreros, dress clothes had been
stowed away with moth balls to keep them company, and the language of
superlative politeness had lapsed back into the terser vernacular of the
stock corral. Roderick was pretty well alone all day in the bunk
house, nursing the stiff leg that had resulted from the broncho-busting
episode.
Between embrocations he was doing a little figuring and stock-taking of
ways and means. During his six months on the ranch most of his salary
had been saved. The accumulated amount would enable him to clear off
one-half of his remaining indebtedness in New York and leave him a
matter of a hundred dollars for some prospecting on his own account
during the summer months among the hills. But he would stay by his
job for yet another month or two, because, although the words had been
spoken in the heat of the moment, he had pledged himself to meet the
cowboy Scotty Meisch in the riding contest at the Frontier Day’s
celebration. Yes, he would stick to that promise, he mused as he rubbed
in the liniment Gail Holden, when she had come to bid him good-by
and express her condolence over his accident, had announced her own
intention of entering for the lariat throwing competition, but he would
never have admitted to himself that the chance of meeting her again
in such circumstances, the chance of restoring his prestige as a
broncho-buster before her very eyes, had the slightest thing to do with
his resolve to delay his start in systematic quest of the lost mine.
Meanwhile Buell Hampton seemed to have withdrawn himself from the world.
During the two weeks that had intervened between the invitation and the
dance, he had not called at the ranch. Nor did he come now during the
weeks that followed, and one evening when Grant Jones paid a visit to
the Major’s home he found the door locked. Grant surveyed with both
surprise and curiosity the addition that had been made to the building.
It was a solid structure of logs, showing neither door nor window to the
outside, and evidently was only reached through the big living room.
He reported the matter to Roderick, but the latter, his stiff leg now
all right again, was too busy among the cattle on the ranges to bother
about other things.
But Buell Hampton all this time had been very active indeed. During the
winter months he had thought out his plans. Somehow he had come to look
upon the hidden valley with its storehouse of golden wealth as a sacred
place not to be trespassed on by the common human drove. Just so soon as
the melting snows rendered the journey practicable, he had returned all
alone to the sequestered nook nested in the mountains. He had discovered
that quite a little herd of deer had found shelter and subsistence there
during the months of winter. As he came among them, they had shown,
themselves quite tame and fearless; three or four does had nibbled the
fresh spring grass almost at his very feet as he had sat on the porphyry
dyke, enjoying the beautiful scene, alone in his little kingdom, with
only these gentle creatures and the twittering birds for companions.
And there and then Buell Hampton had resolved that he would not
desecrate this sanctuary of nature—that he would not bring in the
brutal eager throng of gold seekers, changing the lovely little valley
into a scene of sordid greed and ugliness, its wild flowers crushed
underfoot, its pellucid stream turned to sludge, its rightful
inhabitants, the gentle-eyed deer, butchered for riotous gluttony.
No, never! He would take the rich God-given gift of gold that was his,
gratefully and for the ulterior purpose of spreading human happiness.
But all else he would leave undisturbed.
The gold-bearing porphyry dyke stretching across the narrow valley was
decomposed; it required no drilling nor blasting; its bulk could easily
be broken by aid of sledge hammer and crowbar. Two or three men working
steadily for two or three months could remove the entire dyke as it lay
visible between mountain rock wall and mountain rock wall, and taking
the assay value of the ore as already ascertained, from this operation
alone there was wealth for all interested beyond the dreams of avarice.
Buell Hampton debated the issues all through that afternoon of solitude
spent in the little canyon. And when he regained his home he had arrived
at a fixed resolution. He would win the treasure but he would save the
valley—he would keep it a hidden valley still.
Next evening he had Tom Sun, Boney Earnest and Jim Rankin all assembled
in secret conclave. While the aid of Grant Jones and Roderick Warfield
would be called in later on, for the present their services would not be
required. So for the present likewise there would be nothing more said
to them—the fewer in the “know” the safer for all concerned.
It was agreed that Tom Sun, Jim Rankin and the Major would bring out
the ore. Jim was to hire a substitute to drive his stage, while Tom Sun
would temporarily hand over the care of his flocks to his manager and
herders. Boney Earnest could not leave his work at the smelter—his
duties there were so responsible that any sudden withdrawal might have
stopped operations entirely and so caused the publicity all were anxious
to avoid. But as he did not go to the plant on Sundays, his active help
would be available each Saturday night. Thus the plans were laid.
But although Buell Hampton had allied himself with these helpers in his
work and participants in the spoil, he yet guarded from them the
exact locality of his find. All this was strictly in accordance with
goldmining usage among the mountains of Wyoming, so the Major offered no
apology for his precautions, his associates asked for or expected none.
Each man agreed that he would go blindfolded to the spot where the rich
ore was to be broken and packed for removal.
Thus had it come about that, while Buell Hampton seemed to have
disappeared from the world, all the while he was very busy indeed,
and great things were in progress. Actual work had commenced some days
before the dance at the Shields’ home, and it continued steadily in
the following routine.
The Major, Tom Sun and Jim Rankin passed most of the day sleeping. At
night after dark, they would sally forth into the hills, mounted on
three horses with three pack burros. A few miles away from Encampment
the Major would blindfold his two assistants, and then they would
proceed in silence. When they arrived near Spirit Falls the horses and
burros would be tethered and Major Hampton would lead the way down the
embankment to the river’s bank, then turn to the left, while Tom Sun,
blindfolded, extended one hand on Buell Hampton’s shoulder and still
behind was Jim Rankin with his hand extended on Tom Sun’s shoulder.
Thus they would make their way to a point back of the waterfall, and
then some considerable distance into the mountain cavern where the
blindfolds were removed. With an electric torch the Major lighted the
way through the grotto into the open valley.
A little farther on was the dyke of porphyry, quartz and gold. Here the
sacks would be filled with the rich ore—their loads all that each man
could carry. Footsteps were then retraced with the same precautions as
before.
Placing the ore sacks on the backs of their burros, the night riders
would climb into their saddles and slowly start out on the return
journey, the Major driving the burros ahead along a mountain path, while
Tom Sun and Jim Rankin’s horses followed. After they had gone on for a
few miles Major Hampton would shout back to his assistants to remove the
blindfolds, and thus they would return to the town of Encampment in
the gray dawn of morning, unloading their burros at the door of Major
Hampton’s house. Jim Rankin would take charge of the stock and put
them in a stable and corral he had prepared down near the banks of the
Platte River just over the hill. Tom Sun would show his early training
by preparing a breakfast of ham and eggs and steaming coffee while the
Major was placing the ore in one hundred pound sacks and carrying them
back into the blockade addition he had built to his home. He would then
lock the heavy door connecting the storehouse with the living room.
Usually the breakfast was ready by the time the Major had finished his
part of the work and Jim Rankin had returned. After the morning meal and
a smoke, these three mysterious workers of the night would lie down
to sleep, only to repeat the trip the following evening. Each Saturday
night, as has been explained, Boney Earnest was added to the party, as
well as an extra horse and burro.
Buell Hampton estimated that each burro was bringing out one hundred
pounds nightly, or about three hundred pounds every trip for the three
burros, with an extra hundred pounds on Saturday night. If this ore
yielded $114.00 per pound, the assay value already paid him, or call it
$100.00, it meant that he was adding to his storehouse of treasure
about $220,000.00 as the result of each week’s labors. Thus in three
months’ time there would be not far short of $3,000,-000.00 worth of
high grade gold ores accumulated. If reduced to tons this would make
nearly a full carload when the time came for moving the vast wealth to
the railroad.
One night in the midst of these operations, when Jim Rankin and Tom Sun
supposed they were on the point of starting on the usual trip into the
hidden valley, Buell Hampton filled his pipe for an extra smoke and
invited his two faithful friends to do likewise. “We are not going
tonight,” said he. “We will have a rest and hold a conference.”
“Good,” said Jim Rankin. “Speakin’ wide open like, by gunnies,
my old bones are gettin’ to be pretty dangnation sore.”
“Too bad about you,” said Tom Sun. “Too bad that you aren’t as
young as I am, Jim.”
“Young, the devil,” returned Jim. “I’m prognosticatin’ I have
pints about me that’d loco you any time good and plenty. ‘Sides you
know you are seven years older than me. Gosh ‘lmighty, Tom, you an’
me have been together ever since we struck this here country mor’n
forty years ago.”
Tom laughed and the Major laughed.
It was arranged that when the carload was ready Jim Rankin was to rig
up three four-horse teams and Grant Jones and Roderick Warfield would be
called on to accompany the whole outfit to Walcott, the nearest town
on the Union Pacific, where a car would be engaged in advance for the
shipment of the ore to one of the big smelters at Denver. The strictest
secrecy would be kept even then, for reasons of safety as well as to
preserve the privacy desired by Buell Hampton. So they would load up the
wagons at night and start for the railroad about three o’clock in the
morning.
Thus as they smoked and yawned during their night of rest the three men
discussed and decided every detail of these future plans.