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HE story I am about to narrate happened this way, Thomas Burke and I
were old schoolmates. But his course and mine had been widely divergent
for a score of years, so that by the time he had brought his family back
to New York, and our acquaintance could be renewed, many untold things
had happened to each.
I knew Tom had won his fortune by mining in the Rocky Mountains. It was
rumored that his accomplished wife also had wealth in her own right, but
Tom never had much to say in regard to his financial matters, and I did
not like to question him notwithstanding our intimacy. I had dined with
him two Christmases in succession, and now for the third time had eaten
my Christmas dinner at his table.
On each of these occasions Mrs. Burke had worn at her throat a
magificient brooch which I had never seen at any other time, though I
had met her often when such an ornament would have been suitable enough.
This brooch was a bear's face, holding in its teeth a tiny steel key.
It was a marvel of delicacy in the goldsmith's art, and evidently very
costly; for the eyes were each a ruby, and the head was encircled with
large diamonds, half hidden by hairs of gold, as though they represented
a collar round bruin's hirsute neck.
“Tom,” I said, when Mrs. Burke had left us to ourselves after dinner, “I
am very curious about that bear's head brooch your wife wears. Why do
I never see it except at Christmas? I am sure it has a history, and if
there is no secret about it I wish you would enlighten me.”
“Well,” said my old friend, “that is rather a lengthy story. There is no
secret about it--at least none to keep from an old chum like you. As for
the brooch, that's only an ornament I had made some years ago; but the
design and the little key--which is a real key--remind Marion and myself
of what we call our Christmas story, because it culminated on that day.
“When you and I left the old university in 1870, and you came here, and
I went West----”
But if I were to tell the story as he did, it would hardly be as plain
to you as it was to me. I must write it out.
When Tom Burke left the university after his graduation he took the few
hundred dollars which were the measure of his capital and went to the
Rocky Mountains to seek his fortune. In the autumn of 1871 he became
the superintendent of the Crimson Canyon Mining Company in Southern
Colorado, where he found as assayer, and scientific assistant generally,
a queer, learned and proud old Scotchman named Corbitt. This man had
been one of the “Forty-niners” and had made a fortune which he had
greatly enjoyed while it lasted, and the loss of which, in some
wrong-headed speculation, he never ceased to deplore.
Now, a few weeks before Tom's arrival at the camp, Corbitt's home had
been brightened by the coming of his daughter Marion, on what he told
his envious acquaintances was a “veesit,” implying that she could not be
expected to make her home there.
And truly this remote mountain settlement, inclement in climate,
uncouth, dusty, filled with rough men, and bountiful only in pure air
and divine pictures of crag and glen, icy-blue peaks and chromatic
patches of stained cliff above or flower meadow below--all this was
anything but the sort of place for a girl like her to spend her maiden
days in.
Perhaps it was not quite a case of love at first sight between her and
Tom, but certainly the winter had not passed before each had confessed
that there was no one else in the world beside the other whose presence
much mattered in the way of happiness.
But that seemed to be the end of it, for Corbitt gave young Burke to
understand most decisively that he could hope for nothing more--an
engagement to marry was out of the question.
“Love, let us wait,” was Marion's last word, when, on her first and last
tryst, she had stolen away to meet him, and he counted her kisses as a
miser counts his gold.
“Let us wait. I care for nobody else, and nobody can marry me against
my will. We are young yet. Who knows what may happen? You may get money
enough to satisfy papa--I don't suppose he holds me at a very, very high
price, do you? Or I may be freer after a while to do as I wish.”
This was commonplace advice enough, but Tom saw both the good sense and
the pure love in it, and accepted the decree, steeling his heart against
the impulses of rage and revolt.
And then, quite unexpectedly, Mr. Corbitt resigned his place and went
to Denver, taking his family with him. The same week the mine changed
owners, and Burke was superseded by a new superintendent; and so, almost
at a stroke, the lad lost both his sweetheart and the weapon by which he
was to fight for her in the business tournament of the world. However,
the latter evil was presently remedied, and he worked on, saving his
money and teasing his brain for suggestions how to make it increase
faster.
At that time the mighty range had never been very carefully prospected.
Men had, indeed, ascended Crimson Creek to its sources in search of
the deposits of quartz whence the auriferous gravels below had been
enriched, but they had brought back a discouraging report. Tom was
not satisfied to accept their conclusions. He was confident, from the
geological and other indications, that treasures of ore lay undiscovered
among those azure heights. At last, resolved to see for himself, he
enlisted the help of a young miner and mountaineer named Cooper, and one
day late in August they started.
After passing the pillared gateways of the Canyon, and ascending for a
few miles the great gorge down which the creek cascaded over boulders
and ledges of granite and rounded fragments of trachyte and quartz, you
come to a noble cataract leaping into the Canyon from the left through a
narrow gash or depression in the wall. By climbing up the opposite slope
a little way, you see that this stream comes tumbling white and furious
down a long rugged stairway of rocky fragments before it reaches the
brink, whence it shoots out in the air and then falls in a thousand
wreaths of dangling vapor.
“Cooper,” Tom called out to his companion, who was more comrade than
servant, “I guess we'll camp here. I want to examine this side gorge a
bit.”
“It looks to me,” remarked Tom, “as if this had formerly been the main
stream, and had carried pretty much all the drainage of the valley until
a big landslide--and it didn't happen so very long ago either--dammed
the exit of the valley and changed the shape of things generally, eh?”
“That's about the size of it, I guess. But, I say, ain't that smoke down
there by the lake?”
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“I reckon we've got time enough to go and see. It ain't far down there,
and the moon'll show us the way back if we get late.”
Noting their bearings, they began the descent toward the lake and
presently came out upon its border, where the walking was easier.
Advancing cautiously half a mile or thereabout, they again caught sight
of the smoke through the bushes--a feeble column rising from some embers
before a small shelter of boughs and bark that hardly deserved the
name of hut. A skillet, a light pick and shovel, and one or two other
household articles lay near by, but nothing alive appeared.
“No Injun 'bout that,” said Cooper.
“No, Cooper; more likely a prospector.”
Hallooing as they neared the hut, a lean and miserable dog rushed out
and greeted them with ferocious growls, whereupon they heard a weak
voice speaking to him, and saw a frowsy gray head and a bony hand,
clutching a revolver, stretched out of the opening that answered for a
door.
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“Hello!” Tom cried. “Call off your dog; we're friends.”
Then a tousled, ragged, gaunt-limbed figure, emaciated with hunger, wild
eyed with fever, dragged itself from the sheltering brush, gave one long
look at the stalwart strangers, and fell back on the stony ground in a
dead faint, while the dog, rushing forward with the courage of a starved
wolf, planted himself before the corpse-like form and defied them to
touch it.
They fought off the animal, brought water from the lake and revived the
man. A dram from Tom's flask stimulated him, whereupon he sat up and
began to chatter incoherently, thanks to God and wild exclamations about
some hidden treasure mingling with such plaintive cries as “She'll be
all right now!” and “Mebbe she'll forgive her old dad!” making up the
whole of his ceaseless talk.
“He's clean crazy!” was Cooper's opinion.
“Yes,” Tom assented, “but it is fever and famine. Couldn't you shoot a
rabbit or something? Then I could make him a stew. Try it.”
But all that Cooper could quickly find to kill were three mountain jays,
which were converted into a broth, thickened with the dust of flour that
remained. A little tea was also found in the sick man's pack, and this
was brewed for him. Then Cooper volunteered to go back to their own camp
and bring over more food and Tom's little medicine case.
The next day he fetched the rest of their luggage, and in the afternoon
shot a deer. So they encamped here beside the lake and nursed the old
fellow until his fever subsided and the delirium had ceased to a great
extent. Then by easy stages, partly carrying him on a stretcher, partly
assisting him to walk, they managed to take him back to Crimson Camp and
gave him a bed in Tom's cabin.
But the strain of this effort had been too much for the aged and feeble
frame. No sooner was the excitement of the march at an end than a
relapse occurred, and for a fortnight the old man hovered on the edge of
death; skill and care seemed to conquer, however, and one morning peace
came to the tortured brain and the old prospector began to get better.
Now at last he was awake, with seeming intelligence in his eyes, asking
where he was and who were the people around him. Tom explained and then
questioned him in return.
But the mystery was not to be so easily solved. The invalid could
not tell his name, nor where he had come from. He said he had been
prospecting all his life--where--how long--all particulars were a blank.
“I can't remember anything but the cache--nothing else at all,” he
declared, gazing piteously into one face after another.
“Tell us about that, then.”
He felt in his bosom and drew out the little pouch. It was opened for
him and its contents--a fragment of quartz heavy with gold and a tiny
steel key--taken out.
“Ah! What do you call that?” he inquired eagerly, pointing to the yellow
metal.
“Gold.”
“Yes? Well, there is lots of that in my cache.”
“Where is your cache?” inquired Tom.
The old fellow dropped his head and tried to think, but couldn't clutch
any of the motes of memory dodging like phantasmagoria before his eyes.
“I can't tell,” he confessed, with infinite sadness. “I reckon I'd know
the place if I saw it. And I've forgotten everything before that, but it
seems to me that I fell a great ways, and lay for years and years with
an awful pain in my head. Then all at once my head got better and I
opened my eyes--mebbe it was a dream--and there I and the dog were in
a little camp 'way up a big gulch. I knew the place, but I felt kind o'
weak and dizzy-like and 'lowed I'd make a cache o' all my stuff, and go
down to Del Nort' and see a doctor. So I dug a hole beside a big rock
that had a peculiar mark on it, and put into it most o' my grub and some
papers, and a lot o' that yellow stuff--what d'ye call it?--and reckoned
they'd be safe till I come back in three or four weeks. I can remember
all about the cache and my camp there, and my leavin' it and climbin'
down a devilish steep place, and there I stop and can't remember nothin'
since.”
This was absolutely all that was left of the man's memory, and, though
he was now quite sane, he had to be taught the names and uses of many
of the commonest objects. Moreover, he seemed to grow weaker instead
of stronger, and after a few days the physician announced that his
patient's end was near. When the old fellow was told this he called Tom
to his bedside, and said to him:
“Pardner, you've done the square thing by me, and I want you to have
half the traps in that cache after I've passed in my checks, and give
the other half to--to--oh, God! Now I can't remember!”
Then his face brightened again.
“Oh, the letters'll tell! Read the letters and give her half of it. I'll
sign a paper if you'll write it.”
So a will was made, and the dying man made a mark before witness, in
lieu of the signature he had lost the power to make, and the next day he
died.
The miners generally believed the stranger's story of this cache to be
a figment of his disordered imagination, and Tom himself might have
yielded to this theory had not the physician assured him that there was
a fair chance of its truth.
So Tom preserved the will, the quartz and the key, hoping that chance
might sometime disclose the treasure trove if there were any; and a
few days later he and young Cooper started a second time on their
prospecting tour. This time they took a burro with them, and so were
able to carry a small tent and outfit for a fortnight's trip.
By active marching they reached the lake that night, finding it slow
work to get their unwilling donkey up the steep rocks at the fall, by a
circuitous trail and aided by some actual lifting of the little beast.
They researched the hut, but found nothing new. The dog, now fat
and strong, and a devoted friend, accompanied them and betrayed most
excitedly his recognition of the bivouac. Next morning they made their
way up to the head of the lake, where the breadth of the gulch and the
appearance of things confirmed Tom's previous surmise that this was
originally the main channel of drainage.
If this were true they ought to get evidence of drift gold; and several
days were spent in panning the gravels (nowhere, however, of great
extent), with most encouraging results. A few miles above the lake they
found the gulch forked into two ravines divided by a rocky spur. They
chose the right-hand one and lost three days in fruitless exploration of
its bed and walls. Shep (the dog was a collie and they had rechristened
him) did not display anything like the joy he had shown in the advance
up the main stream, and when they finally returned to the forks
they could not but notice his renewed spirits. The dog was again all
eagerness, and intensely delighted when on the following morning they
started up the left-hand gulch.
“It looks as though his master had come down that way, doesn't it?”
said Tom. “Maybe he could guide us right back to where he came from; but
he'll have to wait a while, for I like the look of that crag up there,”
directing his companion's attention to the crest of the wall on the
left, “and I want to examine it. You'd better stay here and try to get a
blacktail. Bacon three times a day is getting monotonous.”
“Don't you think you'd better take the Winchester?” said Cooper. (They
had brought but one rifle.) “You might hit up against a grizzly or a
mountain lion. I heard one of 'em screeching last night.”
“No; I can't lug a gun. I've got my six shooter, and I'll risk it. Come
on, Shep! It's noon now, and we won't get back to supper if we don't
hurry.”
The dog raced gleefully ahead as the young man strode up the gulch,
scanning its rugged slope in search of a convenient place to begin the
ascent, and presently, as though cognizant of the plan, the dog turned
aside and with loud barking and much tail wagging invited attention to a
dry watercourse that offered a sort of path.
“I guess you're right, Shep,” Tom assented, and set his face to the
sturdy climb.
Half way up a ledge, covered with cedars and Spanish bayonet, made the
ascent really arduous for a little way, and here the dog, which as usual
was some rods in advance, suddenly began barking furiously, and capering
around a small object.
“Chipmunk, I reckon,” said Tom to himself, as he scrambled on, short of
breath; but when Shep came sliding down, holding in his mouth a battered
old felt hat, curiosity changed to amazement. The dog growled at first,
and refused to give up his prize, but after a little coaxing yielded it
into Tom's hands.
The old prospector had had no hat when found. Could this be it? It did
not seem to have lain out of doors long, and the dog would hardly show
so much interest unless his sharp nose had recognized it as something
belonging to his former inaster. Closely scrutinizing, Tom found tucked
into the lining a slip of sweat-stained paper with a name upon it--