THE LUCK OF DICKSON
The next morning, a good hour before sunrise, Thure and Bud found
themselves suddenly tumbled out of their blankets and the grinning face
of Ham bending over them.
"Sleepyheads!" and, reaching down, he gripped each boy by his coat
collar, the night had been chilly and both had slept in their coats,
jerked him to his feet and shook him violently, "Wake up!" and, suddenly
letting go, he sent both boys staggering from him. "Thar, them's my
patented double-j'inted yunk-wakers," and he shook both of his big fists
in the faces of the two boys, "warranted tew wake th' soundest sleepin'
yunk that ever rolled himself up in a blanket, in seven an'
three-quarters seconds by th' watch, or money refunded. For
testimonials, see Bud Randolph and Thure Conroyal," and the grin
broadened on his face, until it threatened to engulf all his features.
"It sure does the waking all right," laughed Thure; "and you can have my
testimony to that effect any time you wish it."
For an hour all hands were busy, getting the breakfast, eating, packing
and saddling and bridling the horses; and then, just as the sun, like a
great globe of gold, rose above the gold-filled mountains of their hopes
to the east and shone down on the waters of the Sacramento, Ham gave the
word to start, and, leading one of his well-loaded pack-horses on either
side of him, he strode off, headed for the rough trail to Hangtown,
followed by Thure and Bud, driving their pack-horses before them.
As they passed along by the various camps in the outskirts of the town,
a man, holding a long-handled frying-pan over the coals of his
camp-fire, looked up and then remarked casually:
"Queer shootin' scrap that down on the levee last night!"
"Heer'd th' shootin', but that's all I heer'd," answered Ham, halting
for a moment. "What might thar be queer 'bout it?"
"Both on 'em bosum friends 'til they gits a lot of French Ike's whiskey
down 'em. Then one calls t'other a liar, an' both on 'em pulls their
guns an' shoots; an' both on 'em falls dead, th' bullets goin' through
th' heart of each one on 'em," answered the man.
"Hump! Nuthin' queer 'bout that!" grunted Ham. "That's a common thing
for whiskey tew dew. Git up!" and he continued on his way.
The trail to Hangtown, after leaving the Sacramento Valley, entered the
rough and picturesque regions of the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada
Mountains, where the traveling was slow and difficult, especially with
heavily loaded pack-horses; and, although the distance from Sacramento
City, as the crow flies, was scarcely more than forty miles, yet it was
not until near the middle of the afternoon of the third day that our
friends came in sight of the rude log cabins and tents of Hangtown. They
had climbed to the summit of a particularly rough hill and had just
rounded a huge pile of rocks, when Ham brought his pack-horses to a
sudden halt.
"Thar's Hangtown," he said, and pointed down the steep side of the hill
into what was little more than a wide ravine, where a number of rudely
built log houses and dirty-looking tents lay scattered along the sides
and the bottom of the declivity and men could be seen at work with picks
and shovels, digging up the hard stony ground, or, with gold-pans in
their hands, washing the dirt thus dug in the waters of the little creek
that flowed through the bottom of the ravine.
"Hurrah!" yelled both boys, taking off their hats and swinging them
around their heads the moment their eyes caught sight of the houses and
the tents.
"At last we are where gold is being actually dug up out of the ground!"
exclaimed Thure enthusiastically, a moment later, as he sat on the back
of his horse, watching, with glowing face and eyes, the men of the pick
and the shovel toiling below.
"It shore does have tew be dug up out of th' ground, at least th' most
on it," agreed Ham, grinning. "More diggin' than gold, th' most on us
find."
"Oh, come! Let's hurry. I want to get to dad," and Bud started off down
the hill excitedly, with Thure and Ham hurrying along behind him.
The side of the hill was seamed with small water worn gulches and strewn
with rocks and the logs of fallen trees; and the trail down to the
bottom wound and twisted and turned to avoid these obstructions, until
it seemed to the impatient boys, that, for every step downward, they had
to go a dozen steps to get around some gulch or huge rock or fallen
tree; but, at last, they reached the bottom, and were actually on the
very ground where men were digging gold out of the dirt.
"Now, where are our dads and the rest?" and Thure looked curiously and
excitedly around him at the various groups of miners hard at work with
their picks or shovels or pans or other washing machines. "I can't see
anybody in sight that looks like them--Oh, there is Dick Dickson!" and
he jumped excitedly off his horse and ran up to a miner at work near by,
who was about to wash a pan of dirt, followed by Bud.
"Hello, Dick! Didn't know you in them clothes," and Thure held out his
hand to the miner, whose only dress was a broad-brimmed hat, a red
woollen shirt, and a pair of trousers.
"Glad to see you," and the miner set down the pan of dirt and gripped
the hands of both the boys. "Had to come to the diggings with the rest,
did you? Well, it's hard work; but the gold is here!" and his eyes
sparkled.
"Are you going to wash that pan of dirt, Dick?" and the eyes of Thure
turned excitedly to the pan full of dirt that the miner had placed on
the ground at the sudden appearance of the boys.
"Yes," answered Dickson, grinning; "and it's the first pan that looks
like pay-dirt that I've taken out of my new mine over yonder alongside
of that big rock," and he pointed to a huge rock that jutted up above
the ground a couple of rods away, where the boys could see a pile of
dirt that had been thrown out of a hole dug down close to the upper side
of the rock; "and so I am just a little anxious to see how it pans out."
"Don't--don't let us keep you from washing it," and Bud's face flushed
with excitement. "We, too, would like to see how it pans out, wouldn't
we Thure?"
"You bet!" was Thure's emphatic rejoinder. "I hope we bring you good
luck, Dick. Now, let's see how you do it."
"All right. I sure need some good luck. Well, here goes," and with hands
that trembled a little with excitement, for the washing of that pan full
of dirt might mean a small fortune, he bent and picked up the gold-pan.
The creek was only a few feet away and Dickson hurried thither, followed
by the two eager boys, while Ham, a good-natured grin on his face, stood
guard over the horses.
Dickson first submerged the pan in the water and held it there until the
dirt was thoroughly soaked, while with one hand he crushed and broke the
larger lumps and stirred the mass with his fingers, until all the dirt
was dissolved, and a great deal of it had been borne away, in a thick
muddy cloud, by the current of the stream. He then tipped the pan a
little, at the same time giving it a slight whirling motion, holding it
with both his hands, which soon caused all the remaining dirt to float
away in the water, except a little coarse black gravel that covered the
bottom of the pan in a thin layer.
"Now," and Dickson straightened up, the pan in his hands, his face
flushed with excitement, for already his eyes had caught the yellow
glitter of gold, shining amongst the coarse grains of gravel, "we'll see
how hard I've struck it," and he thrust his fingers down into the wet
black gravel that covered the bottom of the pan, and moved them slowly
about in it, bending his head down close to the pan, so that his eyes
could catch every gleam of gold.
"Is there any? Is there any?" and Thure, in his anxiety to see, almost
bunted his head into the head of Dickson.
"Is there any! Whoop!" and Dickson let out a yell that nearly startled
both boys off their feet. "Is there any! Just look there! And there! And
there!" and with a trembling finger he pointed, as he spoke, to little
rough bits of gold, a little larger than pin-heads, that fairly flecked
with yellow the bottommost layer of black gravel.
[Illustration: "IS THERE ANY! JUST LOOK THERE! AND THERE! AND THERE!"]
Thure and Bud shouted with delight; and Ham and half a dozen of the
miners at work near by came up on the run, the faces of all showing the
liveliest interest.
"Whoop! I've struck it! Struck it rich, boys!" and the miner, almost
beside himself with excitement, swiftly gathered the golden bits out of
the pan and spread them out on the palm of his hand where all could see.
"A good ten ounces!" he almost shouted, as he tossed them up and down to
test their weight. "One hundred and sixty dollars! And out of the first
pan full of pay-dirt! Gee-wilikins, but won't this be good news for
Mollie!"
"You shore have struck it, Dickson," declared Ham, who, with glowing
eyes, had been examining the bits of gold on the palm of the miner's
hand. "I reckon thar's a pocketful of it where that comed from," and he
glanced toward the big rock. "That thar rock acted like a big riffle an'
stopped th' gold a-comin' down th' stream that hit ag'in it. I'm mighty
glad you've hit y'ur luck at last," and the big hand of Ham went out in
a hearty grip of the miner's calloused palm. "You shore deserve it,
Dickson."
The congratulations of all were equally hearty and apparently free from
envy; but Dickson was too eager to further test his discovery to wait
long to listen to congratulation; and, hurriedly pocketing the gold, he
grabbed up the pan and rushed back to his "mine" by the side of the big
rock.
"Supposing we wait and see him wash out another pan of dirt," and Thure
turned his flushed face and glowing eyes eagerly to Ham. "I never was so
much interested in anything in my life."
"You shore have got the gold-fever an' got it bad," laughed Ham. "An', I
reckon, you're not th' only boy hereabouts that is a-sufferin' with it,"
and he glanced at Bud's flushed face. "Wal, I'm some interested myself
in seein' how Dickson's luck holds out; so we'll wait tew see the
washin' of another pan."
In less than ten minutes the excited miner was back with another pan
full of the precious dirt, which he at once began to wash, his nervous
excitement being so great that the pan shook and trembled in his hands.
Suddenly, in the midst of his washing, he jumped to his feet with a wild
yell.
"A nugget! A nugget!" and he held aloft in one hand a little chunk of
solid gold, about as large as an egg and nearly of the same shape, only
rougher in outline.
By this time quite a little crowd of miners had gathered around the
lucky man; and handshakes and claps on the shoulders and verbal
congratulations were showered on him from all sides, while the nugget
was passed from hand to hand, with many wise and otherwise comments as
to its weight and probable value and the likelihood of there being
others like it where it came from. In the excitement caused by the
finding of the nugget, the remaining dirt in the pan was forgotten,
until Ham, suddenly remembering, turned to the excited Dickson.
"Better finish cleanin' out th' pan, Dick," he said. "Thar's probably
more gold in it."
"Gosh, if I didn't forget it!" and Dickson grabbed up the pan and began
washing its contents with feverish haste.
In a few minutes he arose and held out the pan, his hands trembling.
"There! Just look there!" he cried, pointing to the glitter of gold in
the black sand that covered the bottom of the pan. "If there isn't a
good fifteen ounces of gold there, then I miss my guess!" and he broke
into a happy laugh. "Well, boys, my luck has turned at last! And there
is a little woman up there in that little log cabin that has got to know
about it at once," and Dickson dropped the pan and started on the run up
the side of the hill toward a little log house that stood in a cluster
of pines halfway up its side, followed by cheers from the miners, who
appeared to be almost as rejoiced over his good fortune, as if it had
been their own.
All this had been very interesting and very exciting to Thure and Bud;
but now that the climax had been passed their thoughts turned at once to
their fathers.
"Now," and Thure caught hold of Ham's coat sleeve, "now that we have
seen how they get the gold from the ground, take us to our dads. We are
more anxious than ever to get to them as quickly as possible."
"I'm pow'ful glad Dickson made that strike," Ham commented, when they
were again on their way. "He's been workin' like a hoss for months,
without hardly gittin' a sight of color; but he's had th' pluck tew keep
a-diggin'. I reckon it's th' Leetle Woman up in th' cabin that's kept
him a-goin'. She's pluck clean through an' has stood right by th' side
of Dick, no matter what sort of luck fate dished out tew him. I shore am
glad Dick has hit it for th' Leetle Woman's sake, as well as his own.
Now, 'bout y'ur dads. That's their house up thar, 'bout a dozen rods
beyond Dickson's. But, I reckon, we won't find none of 'em at home this
time of th' day," and he turned his horses into a rude trail that wound
up the side of the hill toward the little grove of pine trees, in which
the boys could see the little cabin where Dickson lived and beyond that
a larger log house.
During this time Dickson had been speeding up the hill, shouting and
yelling the good news at the top of his voice as he ran. Suddenly the
boys saw the door of the cabin thrown open, and a woman rush out and run
madly down the rough trail toward the miner, her long unconfined hair
streaming out behind her.
"Whoop! I've struck it! Struck it rich, Mollie!" they heard Dickson
yell, while from down the hill rang out cheer after cheer from the
little group of miners now gathered about Dickson's find and watching
the meeting between the lucky man and the "Little Woman," as nearly all
the miners in Hangtown called Mrs. Dickson.
A few minutes later Dickson and the "Little Woman," hand in hand, like
two happy children, ran past them on their way down to the wonderful
find.
Thure and Bud, and even Ham, cheered and yelled as they ran by; and the
woman turned her shining eyes in their direction and waved her free hand
and shouted a welcome to the two boys.
"I shore am glad that Dickson made that strike," Ham again remarked,
with something that looked suspiciously like moisture in his eyes. "He's
a deservin' cuss; an' th' Leetle Woman's ben like a mother tew us all."