Tom took the first watch in the morning. Dick rendered all the
assistance he could to the men, who cut down a couple of the trees that
stood in the gorge, chopped them into eight-feet lengths, and then with
wedges split them into boards, which they smoothed up with an adze. All
were accustomed to the work, and by nightfall a deep trough was
constructed, resting upon rockers like a cradle.
Next morning the work began; two men threw the gravel and sand into the
cradle, the third kept it in motion, while whichever of the boys was off
watch brought water in two of the pails from the hole.
The horses were no trouble, finding plenty of coarse grass among the
rocks, and only requiring watering night and morning. Thrice a day the
contents of the cradle were cleared entirely out, and the gold that had
sunk to the bottom collected. Much, of it was in fine dust, but there
was also a large number of nuggets, varying in size from a pea to a
marble. Each clear-up they obtained on an average eight or nine pounds
of gold.
The fourth day Tom had come down from above at twelve o'clock, and found
that the men had only just finished the clear-up, and had sat down to
have some food.
Having nothing to do, he strolled away to the spot where the Mexicans
had been massacred, a short distance away, on some ground at the side of
the valley. Some three or four feet above the ground level of the bottom
he saw a charred stump of a pole sticking up; he went across to it.
"I suppose this is where the leader of the party had a tent or rough
hut," he said.
He was confirmed in the belief by a number of bits of charred wood lying
round the pole.
"It was sort of arbor, I suppose," he said to himself.
There were several relics lying about: two boots shriveled by fire, a
tin cup flattened by some weight that had fallen on it, a pistol with
its stock blackened by fire. He called the men to the spot.
"Yes, like enough it is as you say, Dick, but it is scarcely worth
getting up to look at."
"No, there is not much to look at, Dave, but you have been wondering
ever since you came that you had not come upon any of the gold they must
have gathered, and you said you didn't believe the Indians had taken it
away. Now if this was the hut of the leader of the party, it struck me
that it would most likely be kept here, and that it may be buried
somewhere under this circle of ashes."
"Tom is right, mates," Dave said, "that is just where the gold would be
kept, and there aint much doubt that they would bury it as they got it,
so as to prevent anyone from taking any of it till it was divided up.
Let us fetch our picks, Boston, and we will soon see if it is here. Let
us try round the post first," he went on, when the three men fetched
their picks; "it will be either close to the middle of the hut, or else
on one side under where he made his bed."
The ground was sand, which had been washed up by an, eddy in one of the
floods, and they had struck but three or four blows with the pick, when
Dave exclaimed:
"Here is something, boys!"
They had brought a shovel with them, and throwing aside the sand, they
saw a piece of leather.
"It is a bag," Joe said; "this is their hoard, sure enough."
Going down on their hands and knees, they pulled up bag after bag, each
about fifty pounds in weight, until they had a pile on the surface of
eight bags.
"Eureka!" Dave exclaimed, as he lifted the last bag out of the hole.
"They had made something like a pile; no doubt they were a strong party,
but even with that they must have been here a couple of months to have
got this lot together. Well, Boston," and he held out his hand, "we can
go east again; we have struck it rich at last."
"You bet," Joe said briefly.
"How much is it?" Dick asked.
"Each of them bags weighs about fifty pounds, Dick."
Dick looked incredulous, and stooped to pick up one of the bags, and was
astonished at its weight.
"Fifty pounds if it weighs an ounce, and there are eight of them--four
hundred pounds of gold; think of that, lad; that is pretty nigh eighty
pounds apiece. I aint good at reckoning, but put it rough at two hundred
and fifty dollars a pound, that is somewhere like two hundred thousand
dollars each."
"Forty thousand pounds!" Dick exclaimed; "it does not seem possible."
"We aint got it to the settlements yet," Zeke said quietly; "them chaps
had it, and they lost it. Don't let us figure it up much till we get
beyond the sound of the Apache war-whoop."
"Well, I will go on watch at the mouth," Dick said, "and then you can
talk things over together."
"Do, Dick; there is a lot more to look after than there was before, and
it makes one feel one can't be too careful. Anyhow we won't stay a day
longer in this place. We will be off to-night."
Dick went nearly down to the mouth of the narrow gorge. He had expected
they would find a treasure, and although this far exceeded his
anticipations, he did not feel the excitement the men had shown at the
discovery of the treasure. He sat down on a rock, and amused himself
with the thought of the wonder there would be at home. Suddenly he heard
the sound of a horse's hoof, and grasping his rifle, stooped down behind
a fallen rock. A moment later a mounted Indian dashed past the mouth of
the rift. He was scarce twenty yards away, but Dick noticed the eagle
feathers of his head-dress, the rifle slung across his shoulder, and the
leggings decorated with tufts of hair. It was but a moment, and then he
was gone. Dick waited a minute or two, and then ran in to tell the
miners. They uttered an exclamation of alarm.
"He went right on," Dick said. "He didn't check the speed of his horse
or glance my way."
"That is no sign," Zeke said. "The chances are that fellow has happened
on our trail maybe a mile, maybe fifty, back and he has just been
following it. Why should he be riding so close to the cliffs if he was
not tracking us?"
"But he didn't look in," Dick persisted.
"He warn't such a fool, lad. He knew well enough that if he glanced
round, and there was anyone on watch there, he would have a bullet
through him sartin."
"What shall we do? Shall we saddle up at once, Dave?" Boston Joe asked.
"We may as well pack the horses anyhow, Boston, but we can't go till it
is dark. If a party like ours were to show up there, they would see us
from the village sure. Do you run up, Dick, and keep a lookout with Tom
at the village. You can crawl along, if you like, nearer to the edge,
and make out if that fellow is riding there. If you see him go there
come down with the news, and tell Tom to hurry down as quick as he can
if he sees a party setting out. We will have the horses saddled up by
the time you are down again."