THE MINE WITH THE IRON DOOR BOOKS BY HAROLD BELL WRIGHT
THAT PRINTER OF UDELL’S
THE SHEPHERD OF THE HILLS
THE CALLING OF DAN MATTHEWS
THE WINNING OF BARBARA WORTH
THEIR YESTERDAYS
THE EYES OF THE WORLD
WHEN A MAN’S A MAN
THE RE-CREATION OF BRIAN KENT
THE UNCROWNED KING
HELEN OF THE OLD HOUSE
THE MINE WITH THE IRON DOOR
D. APPLETON & COMPANY
New York London
[Illustration: SHE CAUGHT HIM BY THE ARM.... “THE SHERIFF IS HERE!”]
THE MINE
WITH THE IRON DOOR
A ROMANCE
BY
HAROLD BELL WRIGHT
AUTHOR OF “HELEN OF THE OLD HOUSE,” “THE
SHEPHERD OF THE HILLS,” “THE WINNING
OF BARBARA WORTH,” ETC.
THE RYERSON PRESS
TORONTO
1923
COPYRIGHT, 1923, BY
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
TO
MY FRIENDS
IN THE OLD PUEBLO
TUCSON
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE CAÑON OF GOLD 1
II. AT THE ORACLE STORE 7
III. THE PARDNERS’ GIRL 13
IV. SAINT JIMMY 25
V. THE PROSPECTOR’S STORY 34
VI. NIGHT 45
VII. THE STRANGER’S QUEST 50
VIII. THE NEW NEIGHBOR 58
IX. “GOLD IS WHERE YOU FIND IT” 80
X. SUMMER 90
XI. THE LIZARD 103
XII. GHOSTS 108
XIII. THE AWAKENING 120
XIV. THE STORM 132
XV. MARTA’S FLIGHT 149
XVI. NATACHEE 156
XVII. THE SHERIFF’S VISIT 172
XVIII. AN INDIAN’S ADVICE 185
XIX. ON EQUAL TERMS 191
XX. THE ONLY CHANCE 196
XXI. THE WAY OF A RED MAN 208
XXII. THE LOST MINE 217
XXIII. SONORA JACK 225
XXIV. THE WAY OF A WHITE MAN 235
XXV. THE WAYS OF GOD 247
XXVI. TRAGEDY 256
XXVII. ON THE TRAIL 263
XXVIII. THE OUTLAWS 276
XXIX. THE RESCUE 291
XXX. PARDNERS STILL 305
XXXI. THE MEXICAN’S CONFESSION 312
XXXII. REVELATION 320
XXXIII. GOLD 324
XXXIV. MORNING 330
XXXV. FREEDOM 337
THE MINE WITH THE IRON DOOR
CHAPTER I
THE CAÑON OF GOLD
And yet--those who look for it still find “color” in the Cañada del
Oro. Romance and adventure still live in the Cañon of Gold. The
treasures of life are not all hidden in a lost mine behind an iron
door.
From every street and corner in Tucson we see the mountains. From our
places of business, from our railway depots and hotels, from our
University campus and halls, and from the windows and porches of our
homes we look up to the mighty hills.
But of all the peaks and ranges that keep their sentinel posts around
this old pueblo there are none so bold in the outlines of their granite
heights and rugged cañons, so exquisitely beautiful in their soft colors
of red and blue and purple, or so luring in the call of their remote and
hidden fastnesses, as the Santa Catalinas.
Every morning they are there--looking down upon our little city in the
desert with a brooding, Godlike tolerance--remote yet very near. All
day long they watch with world-old patience our fretful activities, our
puny strivings and our foolish pretenses. And when evening is come and
the dusk of our desert basin deepens, their castle crags and turret
peaks signal, with the red fire of the sunset, “good-night” to us who
dwell in the gloom below. Even in the darkness we see their shadowy
might against the sky, and feel the still and solemn mystery of their
enduring strength under the desert stars.
This is a story of some people who lived in the Catalinas.
If you would find more exactly the scenes of this romance you must take
the new Bankhead Highway that, in its course from Tucson to Florence and
Phœnix, runs for miles in the shadow of these mountains. From the old
Mexican quarter of the city--picturesque still with the colorful life of
the West that is vanishing--you go straight north on Main Street, where
the dust of your passing is the dust of the crumbled adobe buildings and
fortifications of the ancient pueblo that had its beginning somewhere in
the forgotten centuries. Leaving the outskirts of the town your way
leads over rolling lands of greasewood and cacti, down the long grade
past the cemetery, past the Government hospital in the valley, to the
bridge that spans the Rillito. From the little river you climb quickly
up to the desert slopes that form the western base of the main range and
that lie under their wide skies unmarked by human hands since the
beginning of deserts and mountains. Beyond the famous Steam Pump Ranch,
some sixteen miles from Tucson, the road to Oracle branches off from the
Bankhead Highway and climbs higher and higher until from a wide mesa you
can see the place of my story--the mighty Cañada del Oro--the Cañon of
Gold.
But if you know the way you may turn aside from the main road before you
come to this new Oracle branch and take instead the old road that winds
closer to the mountains and for several miles follows the bed of the
lower cañon. It was along this ancient trail that the eventful and
romantic life of this southern Arizona country, through its many ages,
moved.
This way, centuries ago, came the Spaniards--lured by tales of a strange
people who used silver and gold as we use tin and iron, and who set
turquoise in the gates of their houses. This way came the Franciscan
Fathers to find in the Cañada del Oro gold for their mission at San
Xavier. This way, from the San Pedro and the Aravaipa, came savage
Apache to raid the peaceful farming Papagos and later to war against the
pale-face settlers in the valley of the Santa Cruz. Prehistoric races,
explorers, Indians, priests, pioneers, prospectors, cattlemen, soldiers
and adventurers of every sort from every land--all, all have come this
way--along this old road through the Cañon of Gold.
And because there was water here, and because there was gold here, this
wild and adventurous life, through the passing centuries, made this
place a camping ground and a battle field--a place of labor and crime,
of victory and defeat; of splendid heroism, noble sacrifice, and
dreadful fear. Set amid the grandeur and the beauty of these vast
deserts, lonely skies and wild and rugged mountains, the Cañada del Oro
has been, most of all, as indeed it is to-day, a place of dreams that
never came true; of hopes that were never fulfilled; of labor that was
vain.
Of all the stirring tales of this picturesque region of the Santa
Catalinas, of all the romantic legends and traditions that have come
down to us from its shadowy past, none is more filled with the essence
of human life and love and hopes and dreams than is the tale of the Mine
with the Iron Door.
But this is not a story of those old Spaniards and padres and Indians
and pioneers. It is a story of to-day.
The old, old tale of the Mine with the Iron Door is as true for us as it
ever was for those who lived and loved so many years ago. We too, in
these days, have our dreams that must remain always, merely dreams and
nothing more. We too, in these modern times, are called upon to bury in
the secret places of our modern hearts hopes that are dead. In every
life there are the ashes of fires that have burned out or, by some cold
fate, have been extinguished. For every living one of us, I believe,
there is a Cañada del Oro--a Cañon of Gold--there is a lost mine that
will never be found--there are iron doors that may never be opened.
And yet--those who look for it still find “color” in the Cañada del
Oro. Romance and adventure still live in the Cañon of Gold. The
treasures of life are not all hidden in a lost mine behind an iron door.
As the old prospector, Thad Grove, said to his pardner one time when
their last pinch of dust was gone and their most promising lead had
pinched out: “After all, it’s a dead immortal cinch that if we _had_
a-happened to strike it rich like we was hopin’, we couldn’t never bin
as rich as we was hopin’ to be. There jest naterally _ain’t_ that much
gold, nohow.”
“Sure,” returned Bob Hill, the other old-timer, “and ain’t you never
took notice how much richer a feller with one poor, little, old nugget
in his pan is than the hombre what only thinks he’s got a bonanza
somewheres on the insides of a mountain? An’ look at this, will you: If
everybody was to certain sure _find_ the mine he’s huntin’ there’d be so
blame _much_ gold in the world that it’d take a hundred-mule train to
pack enough to buy a mess of frijoles. It’s a good thing, _I_ say, that
somebody, er something has fixed it somehow so’s _all_ our fool dreams
_can’t_ come true.”
“Speakin’ of love,” said Thad on another occasion, when the two were
discussing the happiness that had so strangely come to them with their
partnership daughter, “love ain’t no big deposit that a feller is allus
hopin’ to find but mostly never does. Love is jest a medium high-grade
ore that you got to dig for.”
“Yep,” agreed Bob, “an’ when you’ve got your ore you’ve sure got to run
it through the mill an’ treat it scientific if you expect to recover
much of the values.”
* * * * *
The affairs of the old Pardners and their daughter Marta were matters of
great and never-failing interest to the loungers who gathered in front
of the general store and post-office in Oracle.
Bill Janson, known as the Lizard, invariably opened and led the
discussions. The Janson family, it should be said, had drifted into the
Cañada del Oro from Arkansas. They were, in the picturesque vernacular
of the cattlemen, “nesters.” The Lizard, an only son, was one of those
rat-faced, shifty-eyed, loose-mouthed, male creatures who know
everything about everybody and spend the major part of their days
telling it.
It was on one of those social occasions when the Lizard was entertaining
a group of idlers on the platform in front of the store that I first
heard of the two old prospectors and their partnership girl.