MOVING A SHACK
Less than a week had passed since Bostwick's arrival in Goldite, but
excitement was rife in the air. Despite the angered protests of half a
thousand mining men, the Easterner, with four of the shrewdest
prospectors in the State, had traversed the entire mineral region of
the reservation in the utmost security and assurance. Five hundred men
had been forced to remain at the border, at the points of official
guns. A few desperate adventurers had crept through the guard, but
nearly all were presently captured and ejected from the place, while
Bostwick--granted special privileges--was assuming this inside track.
The day for the opening of the lands was less than two weeks off--and
the news leaked out and spread like a wind that the "Laughing Water"
claim had suddenly promised amazing wealth as a placer where Van and
his partners were taking out the gold by the simplest, most primitive
of methods.
The rush for the region came like a stampede of cattle. An army of men
went swarming over the ridges and overran the country like a plague of
ants. They trooped across the border of the reservation, so close to
the "Laughing Water" claim, they staked out all the visible world,
above, below, and all about Van's property, they tore down each others'
monuments, including a number where Van had located new, protective
claims, and they builded a tent town over night, not a mile from his
first discovery.
At the claim in the cove the fortunate holders of a private treasury of
gold had lost no time. In the absence of better lumber, for which they
had no money, Van and his partners had torn down the shaft-house, made
it into sluices, and turned in the water from the stream. That was all
the plant required. They had then commenced to shovel the gravel into
the trough-like boxes, and the gold had begun to lodge behind the
riffles.
The cove became a theatre of curiosity, envy, and covetous longings.
Men came there by motor, on horses, mules, and on foot to take one
delirious look and rush madly about to improve what chances still
remained. The fame of it swept like prairie fire, far and wide. The
new-made town began at once to spread and encroach upon all who were
careless of their holdings. Lawlessness was rampant.
At the cabin on the "Laughing Water" claim Algy, the Chinese cook, was
still disabled. Gettysburg was chief culinary artist. Napoleon
hustled for grub, the only supplies of which were over at Goldite--and
expensive. All were constantly exhausted with the labors of the day.
Despite their vigilance they awoke one morning to see a brand-new cabin
standing on the claim, at the top of a hill. A man was on the rough
pine roof, rapidly laying weather paper. Van beheld him, watched him
for a moment, then quietly walked over to the site.
"Say, friend," he called to the man on the roof, "you've broken into
Eden by mistake. This property is mine and I haven't any building lots
to sell."
The visiting builder took out a huge revolver and laid it on a block.
He said nothing at all. Van felt his impatience rising.
"I'm talking to you, Mr. Carpenter," he added. "Come on, now, I don't
want any trouble with neighbors, but this cabin will have to be
removed."
"Go to hell!" said the builder. He continued to pound in his nails.
"If I go," said Van calmly, "I'll bring a little back. Are you going
to move or be moved?"
"Don't talk to me, I'm busy," answered the intruder. "I'm an irritable
man, and everything I own is irritable, understand?" And taking up his
gun he thumped with it briskly on the boards.
"If you're looking for trouble," Van replied, "you won't need a
double-barreled glass."
He turned away and the man continued operations. When he came to the
shack Van selected a hammer and a couple of drills from among a lot of
tools in the corner.
To his partner's questions as to what the visitor intended he replied
that only time could tell.
"Here, Nap," he added, fetching forth the tools, "I want you to take
this junk and go up there where the neighbor is working. Just sit down
quietly and drill three shallow holes and don't say a word to yonder
busy bee. If he asks you what's doing, play possum--and don't make the
holes too deep."
Napoleon went off as directed. His blows could presently be heard as
he drilled in a porphyry dike.
His advent puzzled the man intent on building.
"Say, you," said he, "what's on your programme?"
Napoleon drilled and said nothing.
The carpenter watched him in some uneasiness.
"Say, you ain't starting a shaft?"
No answer.
"Ain't this a placer? Say, you, are you deef?"
Napoleon pounded on the steel.
"Go to hell!" said the builder, as he had before, "--a man that can't
answer civil questions!"
He resumed his labors, pausing now and then to stare at Napoleon, in a
steadily increasing dubiety of mind.
In something less than twenty minutes he had done very little roofing,
owing to a nervousness he found it hard to banish, while Napoleon had
all but completed his holes. Then Van came leisurely strolling to the
place, comfortably loaded with dynamite, of which a man may carry much.
With utter indifference to the man on the roof he proceeded to charge
those shallow holes. As a matter of fact he overcharged them. He used
an exceptional amount of the harmless looking stuff, and laid a short
fuse to the cap. When he turned to the builder, who had watched
proceedings with a sickening alarm at his vitals, that industrious
person had taken on a heavy, leaden hue.
"You see I went where you told me," said Van, "and I've brought some
back as I promised. This shot has got to go before breakfast--and
breakfast is just about ready."
"For God's sake give a man a chance," implored the man who had
trespassed in the night. "I'll move the shack to-morrow."
"You won't have to," Van informed him, "but you'd better move your meat
to-day."
He took out a match, scratched it with quiet deliberation and lighted
the end of the fuse.
"For God's sake--man!" cried the carpenter, and without even waiting to
climb from the roof he rolled to the edge in a panic, fell off on his
feet, and ran as if all the fiends of Hades were fairly at his heels.
Van and Napoleon also moved away with becoming alacrity. Three minutes
later the charge went off. It sounded like the crack of doom. It
seemed to split the earth and very firmament. A huge black toadstool
of smoke rose up abruptly. Something like a blot of yellowish color
spattered all over the landscape. It was the shack.
It had moved. The smoke cloud drifted rapidly away. On the hill was a
great jagged hole, lined with rock, but there was nothing more. The
cabin was hung in lumber shreds on the stunted trees for hundreds of
feet in all directions. With it went hammers, saws and a barrel of
nails whose usefulness was ended.
Gettysburg, aproned, and fresh from his labors at the stove, came
hastening out of the cabin to where his partners stood, in great
distress of mind.
"Holy toads, Van!" he said excitedly, "it must have been the shot!
I've dropped an egg--and what in the world shall I do?"
"Cackle, man, cackle," Van answered him gravely. "That's a mighty rare
occurrence."
"And two-bits apiece!" almost wailed poor Gettysburg, diving back into
the cabin, "and only them four in the shack!"
That was also the day that Bostwick came out upon the scene. He came
with his prospectors, all the party somewhat disillusionized as to all
that fabled gold upon the Indian reservation.
Some word of the wealth of the "Laughing Water" claim had come to
Searle early in the week. He did not visit the cabin or the owners of
the cove. For fifteen minutes, however, he sat upon his horse and
scanned the place in silence. Then out of his newly-acquired knowledge
of the boundaries of the reservation the hounds of his mind jumped up a
half-mad plan. His cold eyes glittered as he looked across to where
Van and his partners were toiling. His lips were compressed in a smile.
He rode to Goldite hurriedly and sought out his friend McCoppet. When
the two were presently closeted together where their privacy was
assured, a conspiracy, diabolically insidious, was about to have its
birth.