JOHN BALL AND THE MYSTERY OF THE GOLD
Mukoki, hearing Rod's cry, hurried to the pool, but before he reached
the spot where the white youth was standing with the yellow nugget in
his hand Wabigoon had again plunged beneath the surface. For several
minutes he remained in the water, and when he once more crawled out
upon the rocks there was something so strange in his face and eyes
that for a moment Rod believed he had found the dead body of the
madman.
"He isn't--in--the--pool!" he panted. Mukoki shrugged his shoulders
and shivered.
"Dead!" he grunted.
"He isn't in the pool!"
Wabigoon's black eyes gleamed in uncanny emphasis of his words.
"He isn't in the pool!"
The others understood what he meant. Mukoki's eyes wandered to where
the water of the pool gushed between the rocks into the broader
channel of the chasm stream. It was not more than knee deep!
"He no go out there!"
"No!"
"Then--where?"
He shrugged his shoulders suggestively again, and pointed into the
pool.
"Body slip under rock. He there!"
"Try it!" said Wabigoon tersely.
He hurried to the fire, and Rod went with him to gather more fuel
while the young Indian warmed his chilled body. They heard the old
pathfinder leap into the water under the fall as they ran.
Ten minutes later Mukoki joined them.
"Gone! Bad-dog man no there!"
He stretched out one of his dripping arms.
"Gol' bullet!" he grunted.
In the palm of his hand lay another yellow nugget, as large as a
hazelnut!
"I told you," said Wabi softly, "that John Ball was coming back to his
gold. And he has done so! The treasure is in the pool!"
But where was John Ball?
Dead or alive, where could he have disappeared?
Under other conditions the chasm would have rung with the wild
rejoicing of the gold seekers. But there was something now that
stilled the enthusiasm in them. At last the ancient map had given up
its secret, and riches were within their grasp. But no one of the
three shouted out his triumph. Somehow it seemed that John Ball had
died for them, and the thought clutched at their hearts that if they
had not cut down the stub he would still be alive. Indirectly they had
brought about the death of the poor creature who for nearly half a
century had lived alone with the beasts in these solitudes. And that
one glimpse of the old man on the rock, the prayerful entreaty in his
wailing voice, the despair which he sobbed forth when he found his
tree gone, had livened in them something that was more than sympathy.
At this moment the three adventurers would willingly have given up all
hopes of gold could sacrifice have brought back that sad, lonely old
man who had looked down upon them from the wall of the upper chasm.
"I am sorry we cut down the stub," said Rod.
They were the first words spoken.
"So am I," replied Wabi simply, beginning to strip off his wet
clothes. "But--" He stopped, and shrugged his shoulders.
"What?"
"Well, we're taking it for granted that John Ball is dead. If he is
dead why isn't he in the pool? By George, I should think that Mukoki's
old superstition would be getting the best of him!"
"I believe he is in the pool!" declared Rod.
Wabi turned upon him and repeated the words he had spoken to the old
warrior half an hour before.
"Try it!"
After the attempts of the two Indians, who could dive like otter, Rod
had no inclination to follow Wabi's invitation. Mukoki, who had hung
up a half of his clothes near the fire, was fitting one of the pans
to the end of a long pole which he had cut from a sapling, and it was
obvious that his intention was to begin at once the dredging of
the pool for gold. Rod joined him, and once more the excitement of
treasure hunting stirred in his veins. When the pan was on securely
Wabi left the fire to join his companions, and the three returned to
the pool. With a long sweep of his improvised dredge Mukoki scooped up
two quarts or more of sand and gravel and emptied it upon one of the
flat rocks, and the two boys pounced upon it eagerly, raking it out
with their fingers and wiping the mud and sand from every suspicious
looking pebble.
"The quickest way is to wash it!" said Rod, as Mukoki dumped another
load upon the rock. "I'll get some water!"
He ran to the camp for the remaining pans and when he turned back he
saw Wabi leaping in a grotesque dance about the rock while Mukoki
stood on the edge of the pool, his dredge poised over it, silent and
grinning.
"What do you think of that?" cried the young Indian as Rod hurried to
him. "What do you think of that?"
He held out his hand, and in it there gleamed a third yellow nugget,
fully twice as large as the one discovered by Mukoki!
Rod fairly gasped. "The pool must be full of 'em!"
He half-filled his pan with the sand and gravel and ran knee-deep out
into the running stream. In his eagerness he splashed over a part of
his material with the wash, but he excused himself by thinking that
this was his first pan, and that with the rest he would be more
careful. He began to notice now that all of the sand was not washing
out, and when he saw that it persisted in lying heavy and thick among
the pebbles his heart leaped into his mouth. One more dip, and he held
his pan to the light coming through the rift in the chasm. A thousand
tiny, glittering particles met his eyes! In the center of the pan
there gleamed dully a nugget of pure gold as big as a pea! At last
they had struck it rich, so rich that he trembled as he stared down
into the pan, and the cry that had welled up in his throat was choked
back by the swift, excited beating of his heart. In that moment's
glance down into his treasure-laden pan he saw all of his hopes
and all of his ambitions achieved. He was rich! In those gleaming
particles he saw freedom for his mother and himself. No longer a
bitter struggle for existence in the city, no more pinching and
striving and sacrifice that they might keep the little home in which
his father had died! When he turned toward Wabigoon his face was
filled with the ecstasy of those visions. He waded ashore and held his
pan under the other's eyes.
"Another nugget!" exclaimed Wabi excitedly.
"Yes. But it isn't the nugget. It's the--" He moved the pan until the
thousand little particles glittered and swam before the Indian's eyes.
"It's the dust. The sand is full of gold!"
His voice trembled, his face was white. From his crouching posture
Wabi looked up at him, and they spoke no more words.
Mukoki looked, and was silent. Then he went back to his dredging.
Little by little Rod washed down his pan. Half an hour later he showed
it again to Wabigoon. The pebbles were gone. What sand was left was
heavy with the gleaming particles, and half buried in it all was the
yellow nugget! In Wabi's pan there was no nugget but it was rich with
the gleam of fine gold.
Mukoki had dredged a bushel of sand and gravel from the pool, and was
upon his knees beside the heap which he had piled on the rock. When
Rod went to that rock for his third pan of dirt the old warrior made
no sign that he had discovered anything. The early gloom of afternoon
was beginning to settle between the chasm walls, and at the end of his
fourth pan Rod found that it was becoming so dark that he could
no longer distinguish the yellow particles in the sand. With the
exception of one nugget he had found only fine gold. With Wabi's dust
were three small nuggets.
When they ceased work Mukoki rose from beside the rock, chuckling,
grimacing, and holding out his hand. Wabi was the first to see, and
his cry of astonishment drew Rod quickly to his side. The hollow of
the old warrior's hand was filled with nuggets! He turned them into
Wabigoon's hand, and the young Indian turned them into Rod's, and
as he felt the weight of the treasure he held Rod could no longer
restrain the yell of exultation that had been held in all that
afternoon. Jumping high into the air and whooping at every other step
he raced to the camp and soon had the small scale which they had
brought with them from Wabinosh House. The nuggets they had found that
afternoon weighed full seven ounces, and the fine gold, after allowing
the deduction of a third for sand, weighed a little more than eleven
ounces.
"Eighteen ounces--and a quarter!"
Rod gave the total in a voice tremulous with incredulity.
"Eighteen ounces--at twenty dollars an ounce--three hundred and sixty
dollars!" he figured rapidly. "By George--" The prospect seemed too
big for him, and he stopped.
"Less than half a day's work," added Wabi. "We're doing better than
John Ball and the Frenchmen. It means eighteen thousand dollars a
month!"
"And by autumn--" began Rod.
He was interrupted by the inimitable chuckling laugh of Mukoki and
found the old warrior's face a map of creases and grimaces.
"In twent' t'ous'nd moon--mak' heem how much?" he questioned.
In all his life Wabigoon had never heard Mukoki joke before, and with
a wild whoop of joy he rolled the stoical old pathfinder off the rock
on which he was sitting, and Rod joined heartily in Wabi's merriment.
And Mukoki's question proved not to be so much of a joke after all,
as the boys were soon to learn. For several days the work went on
uninterrupted. The buckskin bags in the balsam shelter grew heavier
and heavier. Each succeeding hour added to the visions of the gold
seekers. On the fifth day Rod found seventeen nuggets among his fine
gold, one of them as large as the end of his thumb. On the seventh
came the richest of all their panning, but on the ninth a startling
thing happened. Mukoki was compelled to work ceaselessly to keep the
two boys supplied with "pay dirt" from the pool. His improvised dredge
now brought up only a handful or two of sand and pebbles at a dip. It
was on this ninth day that the truth dawned upon them all.
The pool was becoming exhausted of its treasure!
But the discovery brought no great gloom with it. Somewhere near that
pool must be the very source of the treasure itself, and the gold
hunters were confident of finding it. Besides, they had already
accumulated what to them was a considerable fortune, at least two
thousand dollars apiece. For three more days the work continued, and
then Mukoki's dredge no longer brought up pebbles or sand from the
bottom of the pool.
The last pan was washed early in the morning, and as the warm
weather had begun to taint the caribou meat Mukoki and Wabigoon left
immediately after dinner to secure fresh meat out on the plains, while
Rod remained in camp. The strange thick gloom of night which began to
gather in the chasm before the sun had disappeared beyond the plains
above was already descending upon him when Rod began preparations for
supper. He knew that the Indians would not wait until dark before
reëntering the break between the mountains, and confident that they
would soon appear he began mixing up flour and water for their usual
batch of hot-stone biscuits. So intent was he upon his task that he
did not see a shadowy form creeping up foot by foot from the rocks. He
caught no glimpse of the eyes that glared like smoldering coals from
out of the half darkness between him and the fall.
His first knowledge of another presence came in a low, whining cry, a
cry that was not much more than a whisper, and he leaped to his feet,
every nerve in his body once more tingling with that excitement which
had possessed him when he stood under the rock talking to the madman.
A dozen yards away he saw a face, a great, white, ghost-like face,
staring at him from out of the thickening shadows, and under that face
and its tangled veil of beard and hair he saw the crouching form of
the mad hunter!
In that moment Roderick Drew thanked God that he was not afraid.
Standing full in the glow of the fire he stretched out his arms, as he
had once before reached them out to this weird creature, and again,
softly, pleadingly, he called the name of John Ball! There came in
reply a faint, almost unheard sound from the wild man, a sound that
was repeated again and again, and which sent a thrill into the young
hunter, for it was wondrously like the name he was calling: "John
Ball! John Ball! John Ball!" And as the mad hunter repeated that sound
he advanced, foot by foot, as though creeping upon all fours, and Rod
saw then that one of his arms was stretched out to him, and that in
the extended hand was a fish.
He advanced a step, reaching out his own hands eagerly, and the wild
creature stopped, cringing as if fearing a blow.
"John Ball! John Ball!" he repeated. He thought of no other words but
those, and advanced bit by bit as he called them gently again and
again. Now he was within ten feet of the old man, now eight, presently
he was so near that he might have reached him in a single leap. Then
he stopped.
The mad hunter laid down his fish. Slowly he retreated, murmuring
incoherent sounds in his beard, then sprang to his feet and with a
wailing cry sped back toward the pool. Swiftly Rod followed. He saw
the form leap from the rocks at its edge, heard a heavy splash, and
all was still!
For many minutes Rod stood with the spray of the cataract dashing in
his face. This time the madman's plunge into the cold depths at his
feet filled him with none of the horror of that first insane leap from
the rock above. Somewhere in that pool the old man was seeking refuge!
What did it mean? His eyes scanned the thin sheet of water that
plunged down from the upper chasm. It was a dozen feet in width and
hid the black wall of rock behind it like a thick veil. What was there
just behind that falling torrent? Was it possible that in the wall
of rock behind the waterfall there was a place where John Ball found
concealment?
Rod returned to camp, convinced that he had at last guessed a solution
to the mystery. John Ball was behind the cataract! The strange
murmurings of the old man who for a few moments had crouched so
close to him still rang in his ears, and he was sure that in these
half-articulate sounds had been John Ball's own name. If there had
been a doubt in his mind before, it was wiped away now. The mad hunter
was John Ball, and with that thought burning in his brain Rod stopped
beside the fish--the madman's offering of peace--and turned his face
once more back toward the black loneliness of the pool.
Unconsciously a sobbing cry of sympathy fell softly from Rod's lips,
and he called John Ball's name again, louder and louder, until
it echoed far down the gloomy depths of the chasm. There came no
response. Then he turned to the fish. John Ball wished them to be
friends, and he had brought this offering! In the firelight Rod saw
that it was a curious looking, dark-colored fish, covered with small
scales that were almost black. It was the size of a large trout, and
yet it was not a trout. The head was thick and heavy, like a sucker's,
and yet it was not a sucker. He looked at this head more closely, and
gave a sudden start when he saw that it had no eyes!
In one great flood the truth swept upon him, the truth of what lay
behind the cataract, of where John Ball had gone! For he held in his
hands an eyeless creature of another world, a world hidden in the
bowels of the earth itself, a proof that beyond the fall was a great
cavern filled with the mystery and the sightless things of eternal
night, and that in this cavern John Ball found his food and made his
home!