A TALE OF THE WEST
Next morning the storm still raged, and although its fury had somewhat
abated the snow was still falling so heavily and the wind was still
blowing with such intensity that the boys decided to wait in the
shelter of the wrecked cabin in the hope that the blizzard would die
down. They were comfortable enough where they were and, after they
had eaten breakfast, they even began to enjoy their predicament as an
adventure which their school chums would envy.
"The worst of it is," commented Chet, "that to-day is Sunday and we're
not getting out of one day of school. Unless," he added, hopefully,
"the storm keeps up for another couple of days."
"I don't think it'll be that bad," Frank laughed.
Jadbury Wilson was feeling somewhat more cheerful, although it
developed that his bruises and injuries sustained when his house was
blown off the cliff were more serious than had been at first apparent.
No bones were broken, but he was black and blue in many spots and
unable to rise from his cot without pain. However, he was philosophic
enough to regard the mishap as part of his lot in life and it was
easily seen that the company of the boys cheered him up immensely.
"I've had so much bad luck already," he told them, "that it don't seem
like much worse could ever happen to me."
"What kind of bad luck?" asked Joe, scenting a story.
"All kinds of it," the old man replied. "When I was out in the West
in the early days it looked at one time as if I'd be a regular
millionaire. And then my bad luck set in and it's follered me ever
since."
"Did you find any mines?" asked Frank.
"In Nevada, we did. Me and my two partners--brothers they were, by the
name of Coulson--prospected about for nigh on a year without findin'
anything. Then, one day, just when our grub was runnin' low and it
looked as if we'd have to give up, while I was cuttin' some firewood
for the mornin' my axe-handle broke and the blade of it went flyin'
about a dozen yards away. When I went over to pick it up I found it had
gone smash against a rock and chipped some of the surface away."
"And you found gold?" asked Joe eagerly.
"That there little accident uncovered a fine vein of gold. So we
started to work it and we staked our property and was gettin' along
fine when some smooth strangers heard about it and come out to see
what we had. Well, with half an eye they could see we'd made a real
find. We was so joyful about it that we didn't try to hide it much. And
that's where we made our mistake. You can't trust nobody where gold is
concerned."
"What happened?"
"Those smooth chaps went back to town and got a slick lawyer to work
with them and one night they come out and jumped our claims. Of course
we laughed at 'em, for we knew we'd been there first, but we soon
found out what we was up against. That lawyer made out that we hadn't
registered our claims right, and he dragged out the case until all our
money was gone and we couldn't afford to fight it any longer. And the
judge gave a decision against us and we lost our mine."
"Gosh, that was crooked!" remarked Jerry audibly.
"Of course it was crooked! But what could we do? We had to pack up and
get out. That there mine was later worth millions, although the joke
was on the crooks after all, for their lawyer horned in on the property
and worked it so that he got most of it in the long run."
"What did you and the Coulsons do then?"
"We was pretty well discouraged. We just hung around town for a while,
but later on we packed up and got clean out of Nevada. We didn't want
to be near anythin' that'd remind us of how near we'd been to bein'
rich. So we went to Montana."
"Prospecting?"
"Prospectin'. And there we went through all the disappointments
of huntin' for gold all over again. We managed to get a fellow to
grubstake us and we went out into the mountains and spent almost a
whole autumn searchin' high and low for some good ground, but nary a
trace of gold did we find. But just as we was about to give up again,
Bill Coulson struck it and we figgered that _this_ time we would be
able to hold on to it. We had a good block of claims and off one of
them I got a nugget that prospectors told me was one of the biggest
ever seen in that part of the country."
"Well," continued Wilson, "we took mighty good care that we registered
our claims _right_ that time, and we stayed there all winter and in the
spring got down to business. We mined the place ourselves, the three
of us. There was a syndicate made us an offer but it didn't seem high
enough. A fellow named Dawson, who had been prospectin' with us for a
while in Nevada, showed up at the camp one day, down and out. He had
been havin' hard luck too and he was broke, so we took him in with us,
for he was a good fellow and he had stood by us when things wasn't
goin' well in Nevada."
"Our little mine was all right for a while, but after a time it began
to peter out. We had four bags of gold by that time, some of it in big
nuggets, but we didn't know whether to cash in and use the money to buy
new machinery and sink a deep shaft or not. We were in our camp one
night talkin' things over and wonderin' just what to do about it when
we heard some one prowlin' around among the rocks.
"I went to the door and opened it, and just then I saw a flash in the
dark and then I heard a gun go off. I jumped back into the cabin quick
and I could hear the bullet go plunk into the wood at the side of the
door. Next minute there was a regular gunfight under way. A gang of
toughs from town had heard about our gold and had come up to rob us.
"Well, sir, they surrounded our camp half the night and it looked as if
we was out of luck. There was the four bags of gold, everythin' we had
in the world, and there was them bandits outside, ready to shoot us if
we showed our noses out the door. And our ammunition was givin' out
too. We knew we didn't have much chance.
"Finally, Dawson said the only thing to do was for one of us to try and
get outside and hide the gold. There was no use hidin' it in the cabin,
for they'd be sure to find it. He volunteered to try and reach the mine
and hide it underground somewhere. So we figgered it out and decided
that was our only chance. Mebbe the bandits might catch him and get the
gold, but if we kept it in the cabin they'd be sure to get it anyway,
so we figgered we'd better risk it.
"Dawson had lots of nerve. That's one thing I'll say for him although
I'll never forgive him for what he done afterward. He had nerve, and
somehow I could never believe he really meant to double-cross us at
the time. We waited until the shootin' had died down, and along about
three o'clock in the mornin', when everythin' was mighty dark, Dawson
let himself out the back window. He got out all right, and nobody saw
him, and how he ever got through the ring of bandits around the place
I never could tell. He had the four bags of gold with him, and mighty
heavy they were too. The last we knew, he was creepin' across the rocks
toward the shaft. And that was the last we ever saw or heard of him."
"He ran away?" exclaimed the boys.
"He just cleared out. And he was a fellow any of us would have trusted
right to the last. But it only goes to show you can't trust nobody when
there's forty or fifty thousand dollars' worth of gold in his hands. We
never heard of him again."
"But what about the bandits?"
"After we thought Dawson must have hidden the gold all right, we waited
till mornin' and then hung a white handkerchief out the window and gave
ourselves up. The bandits came swarmin' in--there was about ten of 'em.
One of them was only a young chap, "Black Pepper" they called him, for
his real name was Pepperill. He was only a young chap, but a tougher
and more cold-blooded fellow I never hope to meet. When they searched
the cabin and found that Dawson was gone and the gold with him they
was as mad as a nest of hornets. They raved and turned the whole cabin
upside down huntin' for that gold, but it didn't do them no good. The
gold was gone. So finally they went away, and we set out to hunt for
Dawson. But he was gone.
"He wasn't in the mine, although we found footprints down on one of the
levels that looked like his, but we couldn't find him anywhere. And
there was no gold. Well, even then we couldn't imagine he'd cleared out
on us and we waited around there for nearly a week tryin' to find him
and hopin' he'd show up sometime. But he never showed up. He had just
cleared out."
"That was a dirty trick!" exclaimed Joe indignantly.
"We didn't mind losin' the gold so much. It was thinkin' we'd trusted
him so much. He was the last man on earth I'd have thought would do
a thing like that. Bill and Jack Coulson, my pardners, they just
_wouldn't_ believe it of him. But after a while we knew we'd never see
him, and although we tried to trace him it was no use. We heard from
a prospector a few weeks later that he'd seen Dawson in a minin' camp
up North, but that was the last we ever heard of him. He'd gone up and
called him by name, but Dawson just looked at him kind o' funny and
said he must be mistaken and that his name wasn't Dawson at all. So I
guess that sort of proved he was crooked."
"And the mine?" asked Frank.
"It wasn't no good after that. We worked it a few months longer, but it
had petered out and the syndicate wouldn't take a chance on it and we
didn't have any money to work it any more. So we abandoned it and went
away. We had to split up partnership. I prospected around Montana five
or six years more but didn't make any more lucky strikes.
"The last I heard of Jack Coulson he was supposed to be dead, and as
for Bill he sort of gave up prospectin' and left the mining camps for
good. I've never seen either of them since. I went up on a couple of
gold rushes in other parts, but I was always too late. I guess it was
just my bad luck. I've never had any good luck since. So finally I come
East and I've been livin' up here for the last few months, just makin'
a living as best I could. And now look--" he gestured to the interior
of the wrecked cabin. "Bad luck's still follerin' me."
The boys gazed at the old man in silence. His story of misfortune had
made a profound impression upon them. Ill-luck had certainly pursued
him relentlessly.
"The storm's dyin' down," said Jadbury Wilson at last. "You'll be goin'
back to the city, I guess."
"But how about you?" asked Frank.
"I'll just have to stay here and make the best of it. I can build a new
cabin, but I'm not goin' to build it on top of the cliff this time.
I'll build it back in the wood where the worst that can happen is
havin' a tree fall on it."
"But you won't be able to work for a few days yet," Joe pointed out.
"That's true," admitted the old man. "I can't even get up off this cot
right now."
"You'll have to come to town with us. Have you got a sled here that we
could draw you in on?"
"I got a sled all right. But what's the use? There's no place for me to
go when I do get into town. I ain't got no money."
"You can stay at our place," declared Frank. "I know mother won't mind.
You can stay there until you get on your feet again."
"I'm sure it's mighty good of you," said Wilson gratefully. "But I
don't like to be intrudin' on people."
The old man's simple independence won the boys' admiration. But Frank
and Joe knew it would be impossible to leave him alone in the wrecked
cabin in his present condition. It was unthinkable.
"You'll come with us," Frank said, with determination. "Let's get the
sled ready, fellows."