I. Introduces "The Apache Kid" with whom Later I become Acquainted
II. Mr. Laughlin Tells the Story up to Date
III. Mr. Laughlin's Prophecy is Fulfilled
IV. I Take my Life in my Hands
V. I Agree to "Keep the Peace" in a New Sense
VI. Farewell to Baker City
VII. The Man with the Red Head
VIII. What Befell at the Half-Way House
IX. First Blood
X. In the Enemy's Camp
XI. How it was Dark in the Sunlight
XII. I am Held as a Hostage
XIII. In which Apache Kid Behaves in his Wonted Way
XIV. Apache Kid Prophesies
XV. In which the Tables are Turned--at Some Cost
XVI. Sounds in the Forest
XVII. The Coming of Mike Canlan
XVIII. The Lost Cabin is Found
XIX. Canlan Hears Voices
XX. Compensation
XXI. Re-enter--The Sheriff of Baker City
XXII. The Mud-Slide
XXIII. The Sheriff Changes his Opinion
XXIV. For Fear of Judge Lynch
XXV. The Making of a Public Hero
XXVI. Apache Kid Makes a Speech
XXVII. The Beginning of the End
XXVIII. Apache Kid Behaves Strangely at the Half-Way House to Kettle
XXIX. So-Long
XXX. And Last
_*The Lost Cabin Mine*_
*CHAPTER I*
_*Introduces "The Apache Kid" with Whom Later
I Become Acquainted*_
The Lost Cabin Mine, as a name, is familiar to many. But the true story
of that mine there is no man who knows. Of that I am positive--because
"dead men tell no tales."
It was on the sixth day of June, 1900, that I first heard the unfinished
story of the Lost Cabin, the first half of the story I may call it, for
the story is all finished now, and in the second half I was destined to
play a part. Of the date I am certain because I verified it only the
other day when I came by accident upon a pile of letters, tied with red
silk ribbon and bearing a tag "Letters from Francis." These were the
letters I sent to my mother during my Odyssey and one of them, bearing
the date of the day succeeding that I have named, contained an account,
toned down very considerably, as I had thought necessary for her
sensitive and retired heart, of the previous day's doings, with an
outline of the strange tale heard that day. That nothing was mentioned
in the epistle of the doings of that night, you will be scarcely
astonished when you read of them.
I was sitting alone on the rear verandah of the Laughlin Hotel, Baker
City, watching the cicadi hopping about on the sun-scorched flats, now
and again raising my eyes to the great, confronting mountain, the lower
trees of which seemed as though trembling, seen through the heat haze;
while away above, the white wedge of the glacier, near the summit,
glistened dry and clear like salt in the midst of the high blue rocks.
The landlord, a thin, quick-moving man with a furtive air, a straggling
apology for a moustache, and tiny eyes that seemed ever on the alert,
came shuffling out to the verandah, hanging up there, to a hook in the
projecting roof, a parrot's cage which he carried.
His coming awoke me from my reveries.
"Hullo," he said: "still setting there, are you? Warmish?"
"Yes."
"You ain't rustled a job for yourself yet?" he inquired, touching the
edge of the cage lightly with his lean, bony fingers to stop its
swaying.
I shook my head. I had indeed been sitting there that very moment,
despite the brightness of the day, in a mood somewhat despondent,
wondering if ever I was to obtain that long-sought-for, long-wished-for
"job."
"Been up to the McNair Mine?" he asked.