Two nights after the wheel of fortune gave an unlooked-for turn.
Donald's wife was so proud of the nugget that she could not keep the
news to herself, and, next morning, although Donald had carefully told
her to keep it quiet, confided his good-luck to another miner's wife,
who lived a few hundred yards off. This worthy woman told another, and
in twenty-four hours the fame of Donald's nugget was spread from end to
end of the valley. This would not have mattered in most places, but
mining districts are peopled by criminals and adventurers of all kinds,
and among these were some lawless characters whose chief business was to
get gold in some other way than by working for it. Two of these men,
brothers, who lived with their families at the lower end of the valley,
determined that they should possess themselves of Donald's nugget.
Covering their faces with black masks, and armed with revolvers, they
set off about midnight for the miner's cabin. The family were fast
asleep, and the robbers noiselessly pushed up the window, and entered
the room where Donald slept. Pointing a loaded revolver at his head, one
of the men roughly awoke him, and told him if he moved or cried out he
would blow out his brains and murder every one in the house. Donald was
too familiar with stories of camp crime to resist an attack so sudden,
and, though a loaded revolver was under his own pillow, he saw his
disadvantage and, for the sake of his wife and children, controlled
himself with a great effort.
[Illustration: POINTING A LOADED REVOLVER AT HIS HEAD]
'I want that little bit of metal of yours,' said the robber. Donald lay
perfectly quiet. 'Do you hear!' exclaimed the man, 'I want that gold.'
'Then you won't get it,' said Donald quietly.
'I believe he has sent it to the bank,' whispered the other man. 'Kill
him if he has.'
'Look here!' thundered the first, 'do you mean to say that nugget is
gone?'
Donald made no reply. If he said it was gone, the robbers would have
simply sneaked home, for Donald was known in these parts as a man who
never told a lie. Once more the robber asked him, but Donald remained
silent. This was enough. If it had really been gone Donald would have
certainly said so. So, while the first man stood with a revolver at his
ear, the second proceeded to search the house. Drawers, boxes, and
cupboards were opened and ransacked in quick succession; every corner of
the two rooms was examined; the very dishes on the shelf were turned
upside down, and the sugar-basin smashed to pieces with a blow, in case
it should have been hidden there.
'Let me try,' said the man with the revolver; 'you watch the old bear,
and see if I can't find it.'
Once more the house was ransacked from top to bottom, and the robber was
about to abandon the search, when a sudden thought occurred to him. On
the mantel-piece ticked a wooden American clock, about two feet high.
The man opened the door in the case, and fumbled about with his finger.
Next moment he had drawn out the nugget. He bent over the fire to get a
better look at it, and then proceeded to weigh it in the palm of his
hand, to see how much it was worth. The other robber, unable to restrain
his curiosity, moved likewise toward the fire, when the first checked
him with an angry cry, and sent him back to his victim's side to
continue his guard. Another moment, and Donald would have had his
revolver out, and the nugget would have been saved. But there was
another spectator of this scene on whom the thieves had scarcely
reckoned. In his usual berth, crouched at the side of the fireplace, sat
Gum. The robber was weighing the gold in his hand, turning it round and
round, and gloating over it, when the glitter from the precious metal
attracted the monkey's eye. It seemed to feel some sense of property in
this gold, for, quick as lightning, one hairy paw brushed the robber's
hand, and the next moment the nugget was gone. With a great oath the
robber turned on Gum, and dealt it a blow on the head which knocked it
senseless to the other side of the room. But, before that blow fell, two
things happened. With one hand held out to protect itself against this
sudden onslaught, the monkey made a grab at its assailant's face, and
tore off the black mask, so that Donald instantly recognised the man, in
the glow of the firelight; with the other hand, which held the gold, the
monkey swiftly transferred the nugget to its mouth.
The robber's eye followed this last movement, however, and he picked up
Gum roughly, and proceeded to wrench open its jaws. He felt all round
his mouth, but the nugget was not there. He held the senseless body up
by the tail and shook it, but no gold appeared. He took his head between
his knees, and sounded all over its throat, but the nugget was not to be
found. As a matter of fact it was not there. The blow which had fallen
upon the monkey's head had knocked it down its throat. Gum had swallowed
the nugget!
What was to be done now? If the robber had had a knife in his pocket,
Gum would have been a dead monkey in two seconds. But while he was
unsuccessfully feeling for his knife, Gum suddenly came to, and with one
violent wriggle shook itself free, and sprang on the highest shelf. The
robber gave chase; then followed the most comical hunt you ever saw. The
robber's face being now exposed (he had no idea that Donald had already
recognised him), he was afraid to turn round, and he had to keep up the
hunt without once facing in the direction where Donald lay, with the
result that he was fairly baffled, and after a quarter of an hour's hard
work, gave up the chase. All that remained now was to blind Donald.
Roughly approaching the bed, the robber drew the blankets over Donald's
face, and told him he would shoot him if he dared to stir. As an extra
precaution, the miner's revolver was taken out of reach, and then both
men started, with a piece of rope, to secure the monkey. Clever as Gum
was, he was scarcely a match for two men, who, as noted horse-thieves,
were experts in the use of the lasso, and in a short time the monkey was
ignominiously driven from his perch on a rafter, tied up in Donald's
pillow-case, and swung over the shoulder of one of the men. Then the
robbers wished Donald a grim good-night, and marched off with their
'purse.' As they were going out of the door Donald called after them,
'Good-night, ye blackguards, and mark my words, if ye lay a hand on that
monkey ye'll regret it as long as ye live!' This made the men a little
frightened, for although they did not like to confess it to one another,
there was something about Gum that was 'not canny.' Anyhow, whether it
was fear of the monkey, or of their own consciences, instead of killing
Gum as soon as they left the house they carried it all the way home with
them, discussing which of them was to kill it, and how it was to be
done.