THE CATASTROPHE
"Now, the question is, what shall we do with our captives?" and Mr.
Conroyal glanced a little anxiously around the circle of faces that had
gathered about him, a short time after all the robbers had been safely
bound. "We cannot hang them, as they deserve, and we have not food
enough to keep them, and it will be hardly safe to turn them loose. What
do you think we had better do, Ham?" and he turned to Hammer Jones.
"First off," answered Ham, "we'd better make a raid on their camp an'
git all their hosses an' supplies. Maybe that'll answer th' food
question; for, I reckon, they must have come well supplied, seein' that
Ugger an' Quinley would have plenty of gold-dust tew buy with."
"Good," promptly declared Mr. Conroyal. "You and Rex and Dill and
Dickson make that raid at once on their camp, which, I fancy, you will
find somewhere near the Devil's Slide."
Ham proved to be right; for, when he and the men who went with him,
returned from the raid, some two hours later, they had with them fifteen
horses, ten of which were heavily laden with food and other camp
supplies, and one prisoner, the man who had been left to guard the camp.
"Now, I reckon, we've got them all, twenty-tew livin' an' tew dead," Ham
declared, as he bound his prisoner and placed him with the other
captives: "an' right whar we can keep them out of mischief. Thar's
plenty of food for all, Con," and he turned to Conroyal, "leastwise for
a few days, so th' food problem is settled. Now, what are you proposin'
of dewin'? We want tew git th' gold an' git out of here as soon as we
can," and he lowered his voice.
"I can't see but one thing for us to do, Ham," Mr. Conroyal answered,
"and that is to keep a guard over the prisoners, while the rest of us
get the gold out; and then, when we've got the gold, to turn them loose
in the mountains, without weapons or horses, and make for home as fast
as we can. We've been considering the problem, while you were after the
horses and camp supplies, and that is the conclusion that we have come
to. How does it strike you?"
"'Bout right, under th' circumstances," answered Ham. "An' th' sooner we
git things a-goin' ag'in th' better. I'm gettin' some anxious tew git
back intew that cave."
"We'll get busy at once," declared Mr. Conroyal. "But first, I reckon,
we ought to bury them two corpses. 'Twouldn't be Christian to leave them
to rot a-top the ground or to be ate up by wolves."
"Shore," agreed Ham. "Come on, Rex. We're th' responsible fellers, an',
I reckon, it's up tew us tew dig th' grave. We'll put 'em both in one
grave," and he picked up a pick and shovel and started to where the body
of Quinley lay.
In a short time the two men had the grave dug.
"Now for the bodies," and Ham caught hold of Quinley and turned the body
over. "Wal, I swun!" and he stared down at the left hand. The little
finger had been recently shot away and the wound was still roughly
bandaged. "So y'ur th' feller that I owe a finger tew. Wal, here it is,"
and he thrust his hand into his pocket and pulled out the little
buckskin-wrapped parcel, containing the little finger that he had shot
from the unknown hand the night they were encamped on the shore of Goose
Neck Lake, and laid it down on the corpse.
"Now, I reckon, we'll have to see if you have any of that stolen
gold-dust left," and Ham began a search of the body, which resulted in
the finding of a heavily laden gold-belt buckled around the waist, next
to the skin.
Ham at once appropriated this; and then the two men lowered the body
into the grave. A similar belt, also well-filled with gold-dust, was
found around the body of Bill Ugger. Ham unbuckled this belt and placed
it with the other. Then he and Rex lifted the body of Ugger and carried
it to the grave and lowered it down on top of the body of Quinley; and
then filled the grave with broken pieces of rocks and dirt, to prevent
the wolves from digging up the bodies.
"Th' way of th' transgresser is hard, accordin' tew th' good book," and
Ham's eyes rested thoughtfully on that lonely new-made grave. "An' shore
th' end of them tew 'pears tew bear out th' good book. Wal, th' dead is
dead, an' that's all thar is tew it. Now, for th' livin'," and he turned
from the grave and walked up to where Mr. and Mrs. Dickson were
standing, the two confiscated gold-belts in his hand.
"Here, Dick, I reckon, is a part of th' gold them skunks got from you,"
and he handed the two belts to Dickson. "Leastwise we got them from
their bodies."
But Mr. and Mrs. Dickson refused to take the gold and insisted that it
be placed in the common fund, to be shared by all alike, so Ham turned
the two gold-belts over to Mr. Conroyal.
The camp was now placed under the strictest discipline. Ten of the
prisoners were compelled to assist in getting the gold from the cave.
The others were kept bound and under constant guard, night and day, all
except Pedro, who, during the day, was forced to do the cooking and the
camp work for all, while at night he was securely bound and returned to
his place with the other prisoners.
Thus the work of getting the gold out of the cave went steadily on for
five days, every one, even Mrs. Dickson, working to the very limit of
his or her endurance. Then came the night of the catastrophe.
The gold, as fast as it was taken out of the cave, was carried, in sacks
made from blankets, to the opening in the wall of rock that gave
entrance to Crooked Arm Gulch, and from there lowered to the ground with
ropes. Each night all the workers returned to the camp under the Big
Tree. On this night, the sixth night from the day of the finding of the
Cave of Gold, about midnight, there suddenly swept through the air above
them one of those rare, for that time of the year, but often very
violent, mountain storms.
For an hour the water fell out of the skies, as if poured from an
enormous bucket. The wind blew, until it seemed almost to shake the
solid mountains themselves, while vivid glares of lightning blinded the
eyes and heavy peals of thunder deafened the ears. Then came a lull in
the violence of the storm, as if the elements had paused to gather
themselves for a last supreme effort, followed almost instantly by a
glare of lightning so vivid, that, for the moment, it seemed as if the
whole world was ablaze, and a shock of thunder, so appalling, that
everyone leaped from his blanket and stood staring with blanched face
and frightened eyes around him, not knowing what awful thing was
happening. For two or three minutes the dreadful sounds continued, as if
mountains were being torn up by the roots and thrown crashing to the
earth again, while the ground shook and trembled beneath their feet, as
if the earth had the ague. Then, only the roar of the falling rain and
the rushing of the wind through the limbs of the Big Tree above their
heads, was heard. Fifteen minutes later the rain had ceased, the wind
had died down, the clouds had swept by, and the stars were shining again
in a clear sky.
The next morning, when our friends, on their way to the Cave of Gold,
reached the narrow shelf of rock in Crooked Arm Gulch, from which they
had had their first view of the Golden Elbow, an astonishing sight met
their eyes.
The great arch, overhanging the entrance to the Cave of Gold, with its
millions of tons of superincumbent rocks, had given away, and the whole
of that side of the gulch, nearly a thousand feet high and for a couple
of hundred feet on either side, had split off and fallen in a great mass
of rocks, hundreds of feet high, where the day before had been the
entrance to the dead miner's marvelous Cave of Gold.
For a number of minutes all stood staring at this unexpected and
astounding sight in awed silence. No wonder it had sounded the night
before as if mountains were being torn up and thrown down again! No
wonder the ground beneath them had shook and trembled from the impact of
those millions of tons of rocks!
"Gosh! I'm glad I ain't in that Cave of Gold!" and Ham turned an awed
face to the others. "If that storm had comed up in th' daytime, some on
us might be in thar right now. I reckon we've got all th' gold th' Lord
intended us tew git, an' now we'd better git for home."
"Well, if that was the Lord's work, He has been mighty accommodating to
wait until we got all the gold we need," and Mr. Conroyal smiled. "I was
thinking last night that we had about enough, and had better be starting
for home. Mighty curious place, that Cave of Gold; and I have been
wondering quite a bit how the gold got into it; and this is about the
way I figure it out:
"Thousands of years ago, how many thousands God alone knows, there must
have been a great river pouring through Lot's Canyon, with its bed
hundreds of feet below the present bottom of the canyon; and, at that
time, there must also have been a powerful stream of water flowing
through this gulch, and emptying into the river in Lot's Canyon, through
a great hole worn through the solid wall of rock, which is now
completely hidden under the rocks that have fallen down into the gulch
during the ages since both rivers dried up. Now, in making that turn,"
and he pointed to where the Golden Elbow had been, "I figure that the
water struck a soft ledge of gold-bearing rock, and gradually scooped
out a big cave right in the point of the turn, and, of course, as the
gold was washed out of the rock, it would fall to the bottom of the
cave, and, being in quite large chunks, it was too heavy for the action
of the water to carry it out of the cave, while the water would carry
out nearly all the other dirt and gravel, thus leaving the bottom of the
cave covered with gold nuggets, the way we found it. And, after the
river had dried up, rocks from the arch at the entrance to the cave
would fall off, and little by little fill up the entrance and form the
big arch we found. Now, that's about the way the gold came into the
cave, according to my figureing. What's your idea, Rad?" and Mr.
Conroyal turned to Rad Randolph.
"I think that you've hit it about right, Con," answered Mr. Randolph.
"But, now that there is no hope of getting any more gold out of that
cave, I am getting powerful anxious to make a start for home with what
we have got. Let's go back to the Big Tree at once and get agoing
homeward as soon as we can."
"Hurrah for home!" yelled Thure, starting for the opening out of Crooked
Arm Gulch. "I'd rather see home now than another Cave of Gold."
In a few minutes all were back in the camp under the Big Tree; and
preparations for the start homeward were begun at once.
In three hours everything was ready for the journey. The gold, there was
fifty bags of it, each weighing about one hundred pounds, was packed on
the fifteen horses they had secured from the robbers. Mrs. Dickson was
given one of the other horses to ride, and the food and the camp
supplies were packed on the remaining five horses.
The twenty-two prisoners were now all gathered in a bunch under the Big
Tree, and the hands of each man strongly tied behind his back. Then Mr.
Conroyal stepped out in front of them.
"You cowardly pack of scoundrels," he said, "if we could, we would
gladly take you to where we could deliver you up to the justice you so
richly deserve; but, under existing circumstances, that is impossible;
and so we have decided to leave you here, bound as you now are, without
weapons of any kind, but with food enough to last you three days, which
ought to be enough to keep you until you can get to one of the
mining-camps. Doubtless, by working real hard, you can manage to get the
hands of one of you untied in course of the next two or three hours, and
then he can soon untie the hands of the others, and you can start for
one of the mining-camps as soon as you please. But," Mr. Conroyal spoke
slowly, so that every man could understand every word that he uttered,
"do not, if you value your lives, follow our trail. We will shoot, and
shoot to kill, on sight. Now, that is all I have to say to you, except,"
and he grinned joyously, "to thank you for bringing us those fifteen
horses and for your help in getting out the gold. I do not know what we
would have done without the horses and without your help. Hope this will
learn you to give up trying to steal gold and start you to digging for
it," and he turned and led the little company down the canyon, bound, at
last, for home.