THE FIDDLER OF APPLE TREE LANE (_Continued_)
Felix tended the little horse as best he could, bringing her grass,
which she would not eat and water, which she drank gratefully. At
last, unbelievably tired, he built up the fire and lay down to sleep.
His heavy eyes were just closing when he saw a black shadow move
silently across the basin of the little watercourse and heard the
crunch of a pebble dislodged by a softly padding foot. As he sat up, a
big gray wolf, as unafraid as a dog, from long following at the heels
of the emigrant trains, came out into the circle of light. With its
head lowered and its eyes shining in the dark, it sat down--to wait.
The fire dwindled, for there was little to burn save the dried twigs
from the bushes that lined the stream, nor did Felix dare to leave the
horse long enough to gather a fresh supply. More gray figures came
through the dark to gather in a wide, waiting circle all about the
fire. Within the limits of their brutish minds lay the knowledge that
fires would die down, that strength of man and beast would fail, and
that, once a straggler could not go on, patient waiting always made
him their prey at last. Felix cocked his gun, took long aim at a pair
of green eyes glittering in the dark, but in the end lowered the
muzzle without firing. The flash of a rifle and its report carried far
over the level prairie, and there were other eyes that might be
watching for human stragglers, fiercer and hungrier eyes even than
were the wolves'. As the foremost animal drew a little closer, he took
up his violin and began to play.
He had a strange audience, the greedy white-fanged beasts that slunk
away at the first strains of the unwonted sound, stole back, yet moved
uneasily away again, the little fat, inquisitive prairie dogs that
popped out of their burrows and sat up to listen, the circling
nighthawks that wheeled and called overhead. Hour after hour he
played, but whenever he paused the hungry circle drew in about him and
he was forced to raise his aching arm and ply his bow again. The first
hint of dawn was brightening the sky when the creatures of the night
began to slip away, and Felix, laying down his violin, suddenly
laughed aloud.
"I wish that Granny Fullerton, who thought that it wasn't quite safe
for us to live on the Windy Hill," he said, "I wish that she could see
me now!"
Then he lay down, pillowed his head upon his arm, and fell so fast
asleep that, as he said afterward, "a whole tribe of Indians could
have ridden over him and he would never have moved."
It was, indeed, horse's feet that aroused him, but not, by good
fortune, the unshod hoofs of Indian ponies. A band of men was riding
toward him from the westward, hard, grizzled men, weather-beaten and
toil-worn beyond anything Felix had ever seen.
"We met your party back yonder," said their leader. "They asked us to
look out for you as we went by. Glad to see the Indians haven't got
you yet."
"Oh!" exclaimed Felix, sitting up and rubbing his eyes, "Have
you--have you been in California?"
The man nodded. He drew out of his pocket a greasy little buckskin
bag, opened the strings, and poured a stream of something yellow into
the boy's hand.
"Ever see gold dust before?" he asked.
It was Felix's first sight of the odd, flattened flakes of metal that
shine dully in your hand, that are no two alike, so that you can turn
them over and over, always seeing different shapes and sizes,
different gleams and lights upon their changing surfaces.
"There's a lot of it back there where we've been," the man said,
grinning slowly as he saw Felix's excited face. "We left it there for
you and those like you."
"And did you find all you wanted? Are you going home now to be rich
and comfortable all your days?" the boy inquired.
The man's grin grew broader still.
"You don't know gold miners, sonny," he said. "We've been at work on
the American River diggings, where your folks ahead there are going,
and we found it good enough, but we've heard of something better. Over
to the southward of that valley there's another one deeper, wilder,
hard to get into but with the richest pay dirt you ever dreamed of. We
staked out our claims and left one man to hold it, while we go back to
the States for supplies and better equipment. The gold's harder to get
out, but it's there all right. It makes American River look like
nothing at all."
He turned in the saddle and looked up the little stream bed where the
water lay in shallow pools below the overhanging bushes. The black
mare had at last struggled to her feet and was now grazing on the
sparse grass that bordered the river.
"It is none too safe for you to be here alone, young fellow," the man
observed. "There's a band of Indians have been doing considerable
mischief around this neighborhood just lately. We've been hearing of
them from every party as we came along."
"I'm not afraid," returned Felix stoutly. "One boy and one horse would
be hard to find in this great wide prairie. Aren't you afraid you will
meet the Indians yourselves?"
"Afraid!" The other laughed aloud. "Why, we're looking for them and it
will be a sorry day for them when we find them." He sobered and went
on earnestly: "The woman in that party you left called out a message
for you as we came by. 'Tell him,' she said to us, 'that the horse is
his and that he is to go back with you to the States. Tell him, God
bless him,' she said. We'll be glad enough to have you if you care to
come with us," he concluded.
Felix looked at the long, empty trail before him; he looked up at the
prospector's hard brown face, and then at the little heap of gold dust
in his hand.
"I'll not go back--just yet," he said. "There are things I must see
first."
They rode jingling away, the sun glinting on their gun barrels and
pistol butts until they disappeared in the shimmering hot distance of
the dusty trail. Felix, as the heat of the day increased, led the mare
up the watercourse to where the bushes were tall enough to afford a
little shade. He, himself, crawled under a rock beside one of the
pools and lay there very quietly, waiting for the long, sleepy day to
pass. It was noontime, with the world so still that he could actually
hear the water of the stream filtering through the sand as it ran
sluggishly from pool to pool, when a new sound caught his attention.
There was a shuffling of muffled feet, a stone dislodged from the bank
above, the click of metal against metal, but every noise so stealthy
and quiet that he could hardly believe he heard.
He did not dare to move, but peered through the branches of the bush
beside him and saw a strange cavalcade passing on the high bank above,
little brown and buckskin and piebald Indian ponies, their unshod
hoofs stepping lightly and quietly over the dry grass, each with a
painted, red-skinned rider, armed and decorated with all of an
Indian's trappings of war. The feathered war bonnets that crowned
their heads and reached to their heels were of every gay color, their
fierce faces were daubed with red and ocher, they carried, some of
them, guns, more of them rude lances and bows and arrows. Felix was so
near that he could make out the strings of beads and claws of wild
animals about their necks, could see their red skins glisten, and
could watch the muscles of their slim thighs move and ripple as they
guided their wise little horses more by pressure of the knee than by
use of the rude Indian bridles. Not one of them spoke, once a pony
snorted in the dust, but that was the only sound as they moved past
him and turned into the trail with their faces eastward. The whole
procession might have been a vision--a mirage of the high, hot
noontide and of the boy's tired brain. But after the men were gone and
he had crawled out from his hiding place he could see the horses'
footprints in the dust and could assure himself that they were real.
After a long time he heard shots, very faint and far away, lasting for
an hour or more before the hush of the prairie fell again. The cool
night came at last, and the little mare, visibly strengthened by the
rest and grazing, came trotting to him, splashing happily through the
water of the pool. Those gray enemies of the night before did not come
near, nor, though he waited two days, watchful and alert, did any of
the Indians return. He thought of that band of men he had talked with,
hard, seasoned, and well armed for the struggle. From the very first
he had felt little doubt as to what the issue of such a battle would
be.
It seems too long to tell of how Felix mounted the mare at last and
cantered away along the trail, rejoicing in swift motion again after
the long wait and the crawling pace of the ox team. Nor can it be
fully told how he and his friends toiled forward across the plain,
over that dreaded stretch of desert that came at the far edge of it,
up the tempest-swept, snow-covered mountains, until that wondrous
minute when the endless bleak slopes suddenly fell away before them
and they looked down into the wide green wonder of a new land. In less
than a week from that day, Felix's long dream had come true; he was
standing knee-deep in a rushing stream with a miner's pan in his
excited hands, he saw the gravel wash away, the muddy earth dissolve,
the black sand settle to the bottom to be dried and blown away,
leaving--it did not even then seem believable--the sparkling grains of
yellow gold.
They did well, he and Abner Blythe. Though their backs ached at the
end of the day and they came home to sleep, worn out, wet, and dirty,
their buckskin bags filled slowly with gold dust as the autumn
passed. Yet Felix could not put from his mind the talk of the man he
had met on the prairie, the tale of higher mountains, deeper valleys,
and richer diggings over to the southward. When the rains came and
there was little work to do, he thought of those words more and more,
and when the open weather came once more he gathered supplies, said
good-by one day to Abner and Anna, and set forth to seek a further,
greater fortune for them all.
It was a toilsome journey over the mountains, for very few had as yet
passed that way. The deep, shadowy canyons, the rushing streams, the
smooth faces of granite walls seemed impassable barriers, but Felix at
last passed them all and came into the wild, rugged valley of Bear
Creek. He staked his claim, put up his little tent, and went down to
the river to wash his first pan of gold. Yes, the prospector had been
right; here in this bleak, far region the toil was much heavier, but
the reward was unbelievably great.
There were not yet many miners who had come so far, but the one whose
claim was next to Felix's and whose rough shanty stood almost side by
side with his tent had been there among the first. He was a friend of
those men from whom the boy had first heard of the place, and he
willingly showed the newcomer the best slope for his claim and the
easiest way to wash the gold.
"There's room for all, so far," he said. "The others below there on
American River haven't had time to get discontented yet, but there
will be a rush up here soon. When the place begins to be crowded there
will be jumping of claims, and robbery and fights, with knives out and
blood shed, just as you have seen it down there. But we will be
peaceable and friendly here as long as we can."
The old miner seemed to take a great fancy to Felix and helped him
with advice and kindness in unnumbered ways. He had built himself a
little hut of pine logs roofed with bark as a better protection than a
tent against the mountain storms. Felix sat there with him one night
before the rude stone hearth, while the rain fell in deluges outside
and the wind went calling and blustering down the valley. The miner
piled the fuel high upon the fire and, as the hours passed, told story
after story of wild adventure, of desperate escape, of bold crime, and
of the quick, merciless justice of the frontier. At last his fund of
narrative seemed to come to an end and he was silent for a little.
"Yes, these are rich diggings," he said finally, going back to the
subject of which they had first been talking, "but--there is more gold
even than this somewhere beyond. A man I knew once, a prospector, told
me a strange story. He was captured by the Indians and carried off to
the south, over beyond the mountains to the edge of the desert. He
escaped from them, but he got lost, trying to go back, and wandered
for days, nearly dying with thirst, torn and cut by the cactus
thorns, blind and nearly crazed by the terrible heat. He came to the
foot of a hill that he was too weak to climb and he lay down there to
die. But a rain fell and he lay soaking in it all night, drinking what
gathered in a rock pool beside him, with rattlesnakes and lizards, he
said, crawling up to drink with him and he never cared. In the morning
his head was clear and he looked up the hill to see the outcropping of
such a gold mine as you never dreamed of. Lying there on the open
slope was the gold-bearing quartz in plain sight, to be picked up with
your bare hands. He took some with him, but not much, for gold is
heavy when you are staggering weak, and he went on and on, lost again
and nearly dead, but at last he came to a settlement. He lay in a
Mexican's house, raving with fever for weeks, but in the end he got
well. But when he tried to go back to his mine he could never find the
way."
Felix was listening eagerly, but he did not interrupt or even ask a
question when the man paused. The deep voice rasped huskily, for
evidently the miner was telling his tale with an intent purpose.
"I have always meant, some day, to go and look for that mine myself,
when I found a comrade I could trust, one who would not be afraid of
the hardship and the danger. The way there is a terrible journey, but
I believe I know almost to a certainty where the place must be. Will
you come, boy--will you come?"
Felix got up and went to the tiny square window to look out. His voice
was thick with excitement, but he did not answer directly.
"The storm has passed," he said, "and I must go back to my tent. I--I
will think about what you say and tell you in the morning."
He went out into the dark, wet night, closing the door with a hand
that shook and fumbled against the wooden latch.
The old miner must have slept little, for it was scarcely dawn before
he had crossed the muddy slope to Felix's tent. Early as he was, the
boy was before him, gathering up his possessions and thrusting them
into his pack.
"You're going?" cried the man joyfully, but Felix shook his head.
"I'm going back," he said and beyond that he would tell him nothing.
He could not explain how, in the watches of the night, there had come
to him the realization that the fever for finding gold is more
consuming than the fever for getting it, that there is always the
thirst to go on, to leave what one has and seek some new, dazzling
discovery that seems just out of reach. To follow adventure is one
thing; but, as the years pass, to surrender a whole life to a single
and selfish desire is quite another. Some indwelling wisdom had told
Felix that it was time to turn back, but he had no words by which to
make the other understand. The old miner had given up to the dream
long ago; he would always be seeking something richer and better,
always leaving it for some golden vision that would lure him forward
until at last he would disappear in the mountains or the desert and
never return.
"I am going to turn over my claim here to Abner Blythe," declared
Felix. "It will make him rich and his wife happy, and you had better
stay to work it with him, for I am going home."
"I can't stay." The miner seemed to understand also, but he was as
brief and inarticulate as was the boy. "I'm one of those that has to
go on--and on."
He turned away and walked back to his cabin through the rain-drenched
flowers and the dripping green bushes. Who may know what pictures
either of dark regret or of golden hope were passing before his eyes
as vividly as were Felix's memories of the low cottage on the hill, of
the apple trees that would be in bloom now all up and down Medford
Valley, of the wind talking in the oak tree outside his window. A
quarrel with one's only brother looks suddenly very small when so many
thousand miles are stretched out between.
* * * * *
Ralph had often said that the hollyhocks were growing too many and
should be uprooted, but Barbara's begging for their lives somehow
always saved them in the end. They had spread out from the door and
advanced down the hill in marching regiments, a glowing mass of
color. The singing, yellow-banded bees were busy all day in the cups
of scarlet fading to pink and white, and white shading into yellow.
The afternoon sun was behind them, lighting them to unwonted glory,
when Felix came plodding along the lane on each side of which the
apple trees were beginning to grow tall. Barbara was in the garden
cutting sweet peas into her apron and Ralph, beside her, was standing
in silence, watching the bees. A dozen times the girl had read that
same thought in his mind, that he would give ten years of life to
unsay the words that had driven his brother away and that had taught
himself such a bitter lesson. Then suddenly Barbara uttered such a cry
of joy that even the bees hummed and hovered lower, and slow old Chloe
came hurrying to the door. The old woman smiled, with tears running
down her wrinkled face, as she saw who it was that came trudging up
the hill.
"There's good luck come back to this house at last," she said aloud an
hour later when Felix, as the twilight was falling, sat down upon the
doorstep and began to play his violin.
He never grew tired of telling the tale of his adventurous journey,
nor did his sister and brother ever grow tired of listening. Ralph
Brighton had lost, in that one dreadful hour, his love for dollar
signs, and he nodded in wise agreement over Felix's decision to give
up the quest for gold. Barbara would hearken in awed fascination to
that story of the man lost in the desert, whose eyes looked once upon
fabulous wealth but who could never find it again.
Wherever gold mines are, there is to be found such a legend, a tale of
greater riches just beyond men's knowledge. No matter how dazzling is
the wealth at hand there is always that tantalizing story of the lost
mine, sometimes reputed to be far and inaccessible, sometimes only
just over the next hill, yet always as difficult to discover as the
end of the rainbow. But, as Abner Blythe said, it is so a country
grows, and when men cease from following rainbows, then will the world
stand still.