THE STRANGER
Forgotten now was the fate Roy had just escaped by the narrowest margin.
Forgotten was the terrific labor that had been necessary to extricate
him. Forgotten was everything except that piece of yellow-studded rock
that lay on Roy’s palm.
“Pay dirt!” Nick gasped. “Pay dirt, by golly! Two hundred bucks--in one
handful--”
“Nick, for Pete’s sake, if you’re going to lay down on the job, let’s
have the shovel and I’ll dig myself out!” Roy said, grinning weakly. He
was recovering rapidly from his unpleasant experience. “Think I want to
sleep here?”
“Snakes, I forgot about that!” Nick seized the shovel again and
continued his labors with energy. Roy, still clinging to the nugget, was
finally brought to the surface. What had seemed the beginning of a
tragedy had turned into a stroke of marvelous luck.
“Here’s how it was,” Roy explained, as he sat on the ground. “I heard
some one yell overhead, and--”
“That was Silent,” Nick interrupted.
“And then the next thing I knew a clod of earth hit me on the shoulder.
I thought some one was kidding me. The next second the walls started to
cave in. A big chunk slid off and buried me up to my knees. I yelled,
and tried to get out quick, and then I saw this nugget in the hole where
the dirt had slid from.” He held the odd-shaped rock in his hand and
gazed at it. “Yes, sir,” he went on, “I saw the nugget and made a grab
for it. Then the whole world hit me on the head and shoulders, and the
rest you know.”
“Yes, we know,” murmured Teddy.
“It’s an ill wind that blows nobody no good,” Nick orated. “An’ it’s a
bum landslide that don’t uncover somethin’. Well, Roy, you sure have had
your initiation as a miner.”
“Personally, I’m going back to camp and remove some of the initiation,”
Roy answered, with a laugh. “I suppose you waddies will be right here?”
“We’ll be right here,” Teddy replied. “Where there’s some gold there’s
sure to be more. What you going to do with the nugget, Roy?”
“Take it to the assay office.”
“That’s a good idea,” Silent approved. “Leave it there to be tested.”
“She’ll test up plenty,” Gus declared. “Two hundred is about right, I
reckon. You all right now, Roy? I’ll get back to my claim.”
“And whatever that nugget measures, you’re in it,” Roy called. “Lucky
for me you were around. We didn’t have enough shovels. I’d have been
there yet. Thanks, Gus--a lot.”
“Toss it away,” Gus replied, with a grin. “What’s the idea, thankin’ me?
I had a little exercise, that’s all.”
Alone, Roy rode back to the tent, washed and changed his clothing. His
head ached, but aside from that he felt no effects from his experience.
Later he took the nugget and left it at the assay office.
When he returned to “One hundred and eleven” he found that the hole was
even deeper now than it had been before. But to prevent a re-occurrence
of the cave-in, timbers cut from trees were driven into the ground
against the walls.
“That’s what should have been done before,” Silent remarked, as he saw
Roy. “I was goin’ to suggest it, but thought I’d wait a while. I’ll know
better the next time.”
“We all will,” Roy declared. “How you making out?”
“Struck nothin’ yet. Give us time. We will.”
The work went on all that day and the next, the shaft growing ever
deeper. Nick was engaged in the construction of a makeshift windlass
when he heard a voice:
“Hey!”
The others heard it too, and stopped to listen. It seemed to come from
behind a pile of cut timber.
“Hey! Blame it, how about--”
“Who is it--Gus?” Teddy asked.
“No, there’s Gus over there. I don’t know who it is. Maybe--”
“Hey! My flivver’s busted! But I got here, by golly, on two flats an’ a
busted wheel! I got here!”
A figure stepped into view. Teddy let out a shout.
“It’s Bug Eye! For the love of Pete! What’d you say, Bug Eye?”
“Not much!” The puncher approached, grinned ruefully, took off his
sombrero and bowed low.
“Greetings to you-all,” he said. “I bring with me the dewy freshness of
the early morn, good luck from my boss, an’ one broken-down flivver.
Howdy, Gus! How you fellers hittin’ ’em?”
“Gradually,” Gus replied. “What’s new?”
“First, I want to know if you found anything,” Bug Eye declared, rolling
a cigarette. “Me an’ my flivver--which, by the way, lies yonder in the
cornfield or some place--has come to you a-thirst for knowledge. Tell
me, pretty maiden, hast found any gold?”
“Roy picked up a nugget worth five hundred,” Nick declared. “Five or six
hundred.”
“Or even two,” Silent corrected, with a chuckle. “But he did find one.”
“Baby! Then there is gold? An’ I was afraid it was a fairy tale! Hot
potato, here’s where I locate! Gold, hey? Well, split my esophagus!” He
blew on his hands eagerly. “Gold!”
“How are things at the 8 X 8?” Roy demanded. “How’s Jerry Decker?”
“Better. Your sister is stayin’ there a while, Roy. Me, I think she’s
hipped on the doc. Yea, Jerry’s better. He said if you heard of or seen
a buck-skin bag with the initials G. D. burned in it, to grab it,
because that’s what he had his nuggets in when they were stolen.”
“Any trace of the thieves?” Teddy asked.
“Nary trace. I don’t suppose you boys--”
“Have anything to eat? We have! A buck-skin bag, with his initials in
it?” Roy rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Well, that’s something. We’ll be
on the lookout.”
He did not tell Bug Eye of their adventure on the way to camp, since to
do so would be to involve Silent. Simply he described, as best he could,
the two men who had been seen riding away from the figure on the ground,
who later proved to be Decker. The description was strengthened by the
quick view he had had of the two horsemen the night of the storm.
“Well, I reckon they’ll steer clear of Nugget Camp for a while,” Bug Eye
stated. “It would sure please the old coot if we got his gold back for
him, though. Where’s them eats?”
It was past mid-day, and the miners decided to knock off and return to
the tent. When Teddy suggested to Bug Eye that he lock his flivver or
anchor it to a tree, the puncher replied:
“Boy, Columbus hisself couldn’t move that machine! She’s sot, that’s
what she is! An’ there she’ll stay till I makes a fortune here.”
“Figgerin’ to move it before Christmas?” Nick asked.
“Uh-huh! Long about Thanksgiving I’ll solder on my boots an’ head for
the East, if I can get somebody to help carry my nuggets.”
When Bug Eye was told how Roy had made his “strike,” the cowboy whooped
in amazement.
“Is that the custom here?” he demanded. “You got to be buried before you
hit pay dirt? Then here’s the little man what starts a new system. Me, I
leans down an’ picks ’em up. Yay, bo!”
They were in the tent now, sitting before a meal of Silent’s concoction.
Nick, who was nearest the entrance, suddenly turned, a fork full of
beans half way to his mouth.
“Who is it?” he called.
The tent flap parted and a man stuck his head in. None of them had seen
him before.
“Howdy, gents,” he said. “You new here?”
“Just arrived,” Roy answered. “Come in. Have something to eat?”
The stranger, a tall, big-boned man in rough clothes, entered.
“Not me,” he answered. “Had mine. Say whose flivver is that ’bout
quarter of a mile to the north?”
“She answers to the name of Lizzie, an’ she comes when I call her,” Bug
Eye replied. “Why?”
“Want to sell it?”
“Now, I ain’t thought much about it,” the puncher answered slowly.
“She’s got two flats an’ a busted wheel.”
“Give you seven hundred.”
“Seven hundred!” Silent, sitting on an upturned box, looked at the man
closely. “Is she worth that?”
“She is to me. Well?”
“Certain, you can have it for that price,” Bug Eye declared. He frowned
slightly. Three hundred would have been an exorbitant figure.
“O.K.” The big man nodded. “Here’s the cash.” He drew a roll of bills
from his pocket. “Five hundred, five-fifty, six, seven hundred. Right?”
“Yea, it’s right, all right,” Bug Eye said. “But don’t you want a bill
of sale or somethin’?”
The stranger laughed.
“A bill of sale, out here? No! Then the flivver’s mine? Got a key?”
“Key’s in it. How come you want it so bad?”
“Got to have somethin’ to cart my stuff. I can fix them tires an’ the
wheel. You see, I made a strike ’bout two hours ago. Figger I got near
twelve thousand bucks.”
“Wow!” A look of amazement came to the faces of those listening. “Twelve
thousand bucks! Where’d it happen, stranger?”
“Ah--that I ain’t sayin’. But I’d be much obliged if one of you’d help
me load. Look, I got a wheel that I bought a week ago--an auto wheel, I
mean. I want to get out of this camp as soon as I can an’ get the stuff
to a safe place. If you--”
“I’ll help you,” Nick volunteered. “Want to start now?”
“Yea, I’d like to. My tent’s down the road a piece. You got some tools
in the flivver, I suppose. I can have it fixed up in no time. An’ I’ll
pay you what you want for your trouble,” nodding toward Nick.
“Hey, nothin’ doin’! I don’t want no pay. Come on, let’s go. All right?”
The puncher looked over at Roy.
“Sure, go ahead! See you later.”
Nick followed the man from the tent. When they had gone, Teddy turned to
his brother.
“Well?” he said.
“Uh-huh--that’s the way I feel about it. Seven hundred dollars! I reckon
that isn’t much to him, though. Say, did he strike anybody as
being--sort of queer?”
“He did me,” Silent remarked quietly. “The way he came in an’ how he
told about his strike. Most people wouldn’t do that. An’ how’d he know
where the flivver was?”
“Unless his claim is near yours,” Bug Eye put in.
“It isn’t,” Teddy declared. “Gus told us ours were the only claims that
far up. I wonder--” he stopped, then went on: “I wonder if he could have
been taking a look at ours?”
“What for?”
“Oh, just curiosity,” Teddy said evasively. “But if he’s trying to pull
something funny, he won’t get far with Nick.”
“I’ll tell a maverick he won’t!” Roy arose. “Well, let’s get back to
work. Snakes, suppose you hit pay dirt for twelve thousand dollars!
Would you go into a stranger’s tent and ask for help to cart the
stuff?”
“I would not,” Silent asserted. “The whole thing looks fishy.”
They wandered out of the tent into the open. Gus, who had finished his
meal--he had refused to join them on the plea that there were some
things he had to do in his own tent--was told of the stranger’s offer
and Nick’s accompanying him to help load his gold.
“That waddie is goin’ to get hisself in trouble one of these days, bein’
so kindhearted,” Gus said. “Load the gold! Where to? What for?”
Teddy shrugged his shoulders.
“Can’t say. We’ll know more when Nick comes back. Come on, boys--we have
work ahead of us.”
They mounted their ponies and started again for their claim. But as they
rode they were thinking, not so much about gold, as about the tall
stranger and his request for help.