When Thomson Tuttle and Nick Ellhorn reached the little canyon in the
Oro Fino mountains they saw that the two would-be kidnappers must have
been there since Wellesly's departure for three of the four horses
were quietly grazing, with hobbled feet, beside the rivulet. They
speculated upon what the absence of the fourth horse might mean while
they staked their own beasts and started on the trail of the two men.
Up the larger canyon a little way they saw buzzards flying low and
heavily.
"That looks as if one of 'em was dead," said Nick.
"It would be just like the scrubs," Tom grumbled, "for both of 'em to
go and die before we get a pop at 'em. I want to see the color of
their hair just once. Confound their measly skins, they might have got
Emerson into a worse scrape than this Whittaker business."
They were both silent for some moments, watching the buzzards as they
swooped low over some dark object on the floor of the canyon. As they
came nearer they saw that the dead thing on which the birds were
feeding was the missing horse.
"They killed it for meat," said Nick, pointing to a clean cut which
had severed one hind leg from the body.
"Yes, and not so very long ago, either," Tom assented, "or the
buzzards wouldn't have left this much flesh on it, and it would be
dried up more."
"Say, Tom, they brought this beast up here to kill it, and they sure
wouldn't have brought it so far away if they had wanted the meat down
there in that canyon. They must have changed camp."
"Then there's water higher up. They're in here yet, Nick, and we'll
find 'em. We must keep our eyes and ears peeled, so they can't get the
first pop."
They picked their way carefully up the canyon, watching the gorge that
lengthened beyond them and the walls that towered above their heads,
listening constantly for the faintest sounds of human voice or foot,
speaking rarely and always in a whisper. The floor of the canyon was
strewn with boulders large and small, and its sides rose above them in
rugged, barren, precipitous cliffs. Nowhere did they see the slightest
sign of vegetation to relieve the wilderness of sand and rock and
barren walls. Not even a single grass blade thrust a brave green head
between forbidding stones. Above them was a sky of pure, brilliant
blue, and around them was the gray of the everlasting granite. Except
for the sound of their own footsteps, the canyon was absolutely
silent. There was no call of animals one to another, or twitter of
birds, or whirr of feathered wings, or piping of insects. Now and
then a slender, graceful lizard darted silently out of the sunshine
to hide beneath a stone, and far behind them in the canyon the
buzzards wheeled in low, awkward flights above the carcass of the dead
horse. But aside from these no living creature was to be seen.
The sun shone squarely down upon the canyon and the baking heat
between its narrow walls would have dazed the brains and shaken the
knees of men less hardy and less accustomed to the fierce, pounding
sunshine of the southwest. Tuttle stole several inquiring glances at
Nick's face. Then he stopped and cast a searching look all about them,
carefully scanning the canyon before and behind them and its walls
above their heads. He looked at Nick again and then threw another
careful glance all about. He coughed a little, came close to Nick's
side, wiped the sweat from his face, and finally spoke, hesitatingly,
in a half whisper:
"Say, Nick, what do you-all think about Will Whittaker? Do you reckon
Emerson killed him?"
Ellhorn shut one eye at the jagged peak which seemed to bore into the
blue above them, considered a moment, and replied: "Well, I reckon if
he did Will needed killin' almighty bad."
"You bet he did," was Tom's emphatic response.
They trudged on to the head of the canyon and explored most of the
smaller ones opening into it. But no trace of human presence, either
recent or remote, did they find anywhere. When night came on they
returned to their camp somewhat disappointed that they had seen no
sign of the two men. Early the next morning they started out again,
and searched carefully through the remaining canyons that were
tributary to the large one, climbed again to its head, and clambered
over the ridge at its source. There they looked down the other side of
the mountain, over a barren wilderness of jagged cliffs and yawning
chasms, with here and there a little clump of scrub pines or cedars
clinging and crawling along the mountain side. They examined the
summit of the peak and walked a little way down the eastern slope,
looking into the gorges and searching the scrub-dotted slopes until
the sinking sun drove them back to their camp. But they found neither
water, save some strongly alkaline springs, nor any trace of human
beings. As they discussed the day's adventures over their supper, Tom
said:
"There must have been some reason why they killed that horse just
where they did."
"Yes," said Nick, "if they had moved their camp to some other canyon
higher up, or on the other side of the mountain, they might just as
well have driven the beast farther up before they killed it."
"If they had wanted the meat down here," added Tom, "they wouldn't
have driven it so far away. They must have wanted it right there."
They looked at each other with a sudden flash of intelligence in their
puzzled eyes and Nick thwacked his knee resoundingly. Then he spoke
the thought that had burst into each mind:
"There must be a trail up the canyon wall!"
[Illustration: "YOU'VE NOTHING TO FEAR FROM ME. I'LL BE DEAD IN TEN
MINUTES."--_p. 206_]
Early the next morning they were examining more closely than they had
done before the walls of the canyon near the carcass. On the right
hand side, the same side on which was the canyon where they had their
camp, they found a narrow ledge beginning several feet above the
boulders which strewed the floor of the canyon at the base of the
wall. They found that with care they could walk along it, although in
some places it was so narrow that there was scarcely room for Tuttle's
big bulk. Nick was in constant fear lest his friend might topple over,
and finally insisted that Tom should go back and wait until he reached
the top of the wall or the end of the ledge. Tuttle blankly refused to
do anything of the sort.
They were then in the narrowest place they had found, and it was only
by flattening their bodies against the rock and clinging with all the
strength in their fingers to the little knobs and crevices which
roughened the wall that they could keep their footing. Nick, standing
flat against the precipice with a hand stretched out on each side,
looked over his shoulder at Tom, who was a few feet in the rear. He
also was facing the wall, clinging with both hands and shuffling his
feet along sidewise, a few inches at each step. Beyond, the ledge rose
in a gradual incline to the top of the cliff, perhaps six hundred
feet farther on. Below, the wall dropped abruptly a hundred feet to
the boulder covered floor of the canyon.
"Tommy," said Nick, "you-all better go back. It ain't safe for a man
of your size."
"Go back! Not much!"
"Well, I shan't go any farther until you do!"
"Then you'll have to hang on by your eyelids till I get past you!"
"Tom, don't be a fool!"
"Don't you, neither."
"Tom, you're the darnedest obstinate cuss I ever saw in my life.
You'll tip over backwards first thing you know."
"Nick, if Emerson was here it would sure be his judgment that we-all
can get to the top of this cliff. So you shut up and go on."
"I tell you I won't do it till you go back! Darn your skin, I wouldn't
be as pig-headed as you are for a hundred dollars a minute!"
"Well, I wouldn't be as big a fool as you are for a thousand!"
"Tommy, if you-all don't go back, I'll be no friend of yours after
this day!"
"Well, if you don't go on and shut up that fool talk I don't want to
be friends any longer with any such hen-headed, white-livered--"
"Tom!"
"Well, then, shut up and go on, or I'll call you worse names than
that!"
"You obstinate son of a sea-cook, I tell you I won't go on unless you
go back!"
"Nick, it will take me just about half a minute to get near enough to
push you off. And I'm goin' to do it, too, if you don't hold your
jackass jaw and go on."
There was silence for the space of full twenty seconds while Ellhorn
watched Tuttle edging his way carefully along the narrow shelf. Then
he spoke:
"Well, anyway, Tom, don't you try to take a deep breath or that belly
of yours will tip the mountain over and make it mash somebody on the
other side!" Then he turned his head and shuffled along toward the top
of the cliff.
The shelf widened again presently and they found the rest of it
comparatively easy traveling. At one place there were some drops of
dried blood on the ledge and in another a bloody stain on the wall at
about the height of a man's shoulders. This confirmed their belief
that Haney and Jim had found and climbed this narrow ledge with the
meat and camp supplies on their backs. When they reached the top Nick
held out his hand and said:
"Say, old man, I reckon we-all didn't mean anything we said back
there."
Tom took the proffered hand and held it a moment:
"No, I guess not. I sure reckon Emerson would say we didn't. Nick,
what made you get that fool notion in your head that I didn't have
sand to get through?"
"I didn't think you didn't have sand, Tommy. I thought--the trail was
so narrow, I thought you'd tumble off." A broad grin sent the curling
ends of his mustache up toward his eyes and he went on: "Tom, you sure
looked plumb ridiculous!"
Shaking hands again, they turned to their work. They stood on the
steep, sloping side of the mountain, which was cracked and seamed with
a network of chasms and gulches. A ridge ran slantingly down the
mountain and the intricate, irregular network of narrow, steep-sided
cracks and gulches which filled the slope finally gave, on the right
hand, into the deep, gaping canyon which had been their thoroughfare,
and on their left into another, apparently similar, some distance to
the south. Farther up, toward the backbone of the ridge, there seemed
to be a narrow stretch, unbroken by the gulches, which extended to the
next canyon. They made their way thither and walked slowly along,
stopping now and then to scan the mountain side or to sweep with their
eyes the visible portions of the canyons below and behind them. They
had covered more than half the distance between the two canyons when
Tom, who had been studying one particular spot far down the mountain,
exclaimed:
"Nick, there's water down there! See where the top of that pine tree
comes up above the rocks, away down there, nearly to the divide?"
"You're sure right," said Nick, looking carefully over the ground
which Tom indicated. A moment later he went on: "That's the head of
the spring in the canyon where our camp is! You can follow the course
of the gulch right along. I reckon that's where we'll find what we're
looking for!"
They turned to retrace their steps, their faces eager and alert and
their feet quickening beneath them, when through the silence came the
dull, far-away thud of a pistol shot. It was behind them and seemed to
come from the canyon toward which they had been walking. With one
glance at each other they drew their pistols and ran toward its head.
They clambered over the boulders and, with reckless leaps and swings,
let themselves down to its floor. Pausing only a moment to
reconnoiter, they hurried down the gulch, casting quick glances all
about them for the first sign of a living being. After a little they
stopped and listened intently, each holding a cocked revolver, but not
the faintest sound broke the midday stillness.
"Do you reckon it was in this canyon?" said Tom in a hoarse whisper.
"Got to be," Nick replied, poking out his lower jaw. "We've been
sniffing the trail long enough. We'll give them a bait now."
He raised his revolver to shoot into the air, but even before his
finger touched the trigger, a pistol shot resounded from down the
canyon and its echoes rolled and rumbled between the walls. An instant
later they saw the smoke curling upward and dissolving in the still,
clear air, perhaps half way toward the canyon's mouth. But they could
see no sign of man, nor of any moving thing in its vicinity. They
hurried on, cautiously watching the walls and the canyon in front of
them, and now and then turning for a quick backward glance, to guard
against attack in the rear. As they neared the point from which the
smoke had risen, they saw that one of the narrow, deep chasms in the
mountain side opened there, with a wide, gaping mouth, into the
canyon. A mound of debris was heaped in front. Stepping softly, they
peered around the pile of rocks and saw, lying in the mouth of the
chasm, a man with a revolver gripped in his right hand. Blood stained
his clothing and ran out over the rocks and sand. He was a tall man
with a short, bushy, iron-gray beard covering his face. Tuttle and
Ellhorn covered him with their revolvers and walked to his side. He
put up a feeble, protesting hand.
"It's all right, strangers. You've nothing to fear from me. I'll be
dead in ten minutes."
"Who killed you?"
"Was it the two ornery scrubs we're after?"
"I've put the last shot in myself. If you'd been half an hour earlier
I might have had a chance."
"What's the matter? What's happened? Tom, give him a drink out of the
flask."
"No, give me water," said the man. "I emptied my canteen this
morning."
Nick lifted his head and Tom held their canteen to his lips. He drank
deeply, and as he lay down again he looked at Tom curiously.
"Two days ago I had a fight with two men, and I've been lying here
ever since. They did me up, so that I knew I'd got to die if no help
came. And I knew that was just about as likely as a snowstorm, but I
couldn't help bankin' on the possibility. So I laid here two days and
threw rocks at the coyote that came and sat on that heap of stones and
waited for me to die. This morning I drank the last of the water and I
said to myself that if nobody came by the time the sun was straight
above that peak yonder I'd put a bullet into my heart. I had two left,
and I used one on the coyote that had been a-settin' on that rock
watchin' me the whole morning. I was bound he shouldn't pick my bones,
he'd been so sassy and so sure about it. You'll find his carcass down
the canyon a ways. That tired my arm and I waited and rested a spell
before I tried it on myself. But I was weaker than I thought and I
couldn't hold the gun steady, and the bullet didn't go where I meant
it to. But I'm bleedin' to death."
"The two men--what became of them? I reckon they're the ones we're
lookin' for!" exclaimed Nick.
"Are you? Well, I guess you'll find 'em scattered down the canyon, or
else up there," and he pointed to the mountain side above. "They
couldn't get very far."
"Did you kill 'em?" asked Tom anxiously. "You've spoiled a job we've
come here for if you did."
The man scanned Tom's face again and a light of recognition broke into
his eyes. "I reckon I did," he replied complacently. "Anyway, I hope
so."
"What was the matter? Did they do you up?"
"Well, I'll tell you about the whole business. My name's Bill Frank,
and I've been here in the mountains since--well, a long time, huntin'
for the lost Dick Winter's mine. I found it, too. It was right in here
behind me, but he'd worked it clean out. I reckon it was nothin' but a
pocket, but a mighty big, rich one, and then the vein had pinched. So
then I went to work and hunted for the gold he'd taken out. I found it
all, or all he told me about. You see, I knew Dick. I was with him
when he died, and he told me what he'd got. There was a Dutch oven and
a pail and a coffee pot, all full of lumps, and two tomato cans full
of little ones, and a whisky flask full of dust, and a gunny sack full
of ore that was just lousy with gold. Much good it will do me now, or
them other fellows, either, damn their souls! Well, I'd hid the coffee
pot and the pail and the Dutch oven and the whisky flask and one
tomato can down by the spring, where I had my camp. I knew pretty well
where the rest of it was, after I'd found that much, and I came up
here two days ago, in the morning, and looked around till I found the
gunny sack. I brought it here and threw it inside this place, which
poor Dick Winters had blasted out, never dreamin' of such a thing as
that anybody would show up. Then I went away again to find the other
tomato can, and when I came back two men were here packin' out my sack
of ore."
"What did they look like?" Nick exclaimed.
"One was tall and thin and youngish like, with a bad look, and the
other was short and stout and a good deal older, and he had a red,
round face."
"The damned, ornery scrubs! They're the ones we're after," Tom
exclaimed, jumping up. "You didn't kill 'em, stranger?" he added
pleadingly.
"I guess I did. I sure reckon you'll find 'em scattered promiscuous
down the canyon. I drew my gun and told 'em to drop it, that it was
mine. They began to shoot, and so did I, and I backed 'em out, and
made 'em drop the sack, and started 'em on the run. They couldn't
shoot as well as I could, and I know I hit one of 'em in the head and
the other one mighty near the heart. I poked my head out for a last
blaze at 'em, to make sure of my work, and the short one, he let drive
at me and took me in the lung, and that's the one that did me up. But
they'd broken one leg before."
"Can't you-all pull through if we tote you out of here?" asked Nick.
Bill Frank shook his head. His breath was beginning to fail and his
voice sank to a whisper with each sentence.
"No; I'm done for. You can't do nothin' for me." Then he turned to
Tom. "Pardner, I did you a bad trick when I saw you before, though I
had to do it. And when I told you good-bye I said I hoped that if I
ever saw you again I could treat you whiter than I did that time.
Well, I've got the chance now. That tomato can and that gunny sack are
over there behind your pardner, and you and him can have 'em. The
other tomato can and the whisky flask and the coffee pot and the pail
and the Dutch oven are under some big rocks behind a boulder south
from the spring, if them two thieves didn't carry 'em away, and you
and your pardner can have it all. The trail takes you to the spring."
Tom was staring at him in wide-eyed amazement, trying to recall his
face. Nick exclaimed hurriedly:
"Hold on, pard! Ain't you-all got some folks somewhere who ought to
have this? Tell us where they are and we'll see that they get it."
The man shook his head. His breath was labored, and he spoke with
difficulty as he whispered: "There ain't anybody who'd care whether
I'm dead or alive, except to get that gold, and I'd rather you'd have
it. You're white, anyway, and you've treated me white, both of you,
and I've always been sorry I had to play Thomson Tuttle here that mean
trick, because he was a gentleman about it, and sand clean through."
Tom was still staring at him. "Stranger," he said, "you've got the
advantage of me. I can't remember that I've ever set eyes on you
before."
The death glaze was coming in the man's eyes and his failing whisper
struggled to get past his stiffening lips.
"I held you up, and held a gun on you-all one night, last spring, up
near the White Sands."
"Oh, that time!" Tom exclaimed. "That was all right. I reckoned
you-all had good reason for it."
Bill Frank nodded. "Yes," he whispered, "we had to--in the wagon--"
Some of his words were unintelligible, but a sudden flash of
inspiration leaped through Nick's mind.
"Did you have Will Whittaker's body? Who killed him? Tom, the whisky,
quick! We must keep him alive till he can tell!"
The man's lips were moving and Nick put his ear close to them and
thought he caught the word "not," but he was not sure. Bill Frank's
head moved from side to side, but whether he meant to shake it, or
whether it was the death agony, they could not tell. Tom put the flask
to his lips, but he could not swallow, and in another moment the death
rattle sounded in his throat.
They waited beside the dead man's body until every sign of life was
extinct. They closed his eyes, straightened his limbs, and folded his
hands upon his breast. Then said Tom:
"Nick, he was too white a man to leave for the coyotes. We must do
something with him."
"You're sure right, Tommy. But what can we do? This sand ain't deep
enough to keep 'em from diggin' him up, even if we bury him."
Tom looked about him and considered the situation a moment. "We'll
have to rock him up in here, Nick, in Dick Winters' mine."
At one side of the wide, blasted out mouth of the deep crack in the
mountain from which Dick Winters had taken his gold, and level with
the bottom of the crevice, there was a long, oval hollow, half as wide
as a man's body. The solid rock had cracked out of it after some
giant-powder blast. They laid the body of Bill Frank in this shallow
crypt and began to pile rocks around it. Suddenly Tom stopped, looked
at Nick inquiringly, hesitated and cleared his throat.
"Say, Nick," he blurted out, "it ain't a square deal to put a fellow
away like this. Somebody ought to say something over him."
"No, you bet it ain't a square deal," said Nick. "We wouldn't like it
if it was one of us. But what can we do? There ain't no preacher
here."
"I was thinkin', Nick," Tom hesitated and blushed a deep crimson, "I
was sure thinkin' that maybe--well, I thought--that you-all could say
something. You know you always can say something. You-all better say
it, Nick." And without waiting for denial or protest Tom took off his
hat and bent his head. Nick flashed a surprised look at his companion,
waiting in reverent attitude, hesitated an instant, and then doffed
his hat, bent his head and began. And the good Lord who heard his
prayer did not need to ask his pedigree, for the Irish intonation
with which he rolled the words off his tongue in honey-like waves told
his ancestry:
"Good Lord, sure and Ye'll rest this poor man's soul, for he was white
clean through. Sure, and he was no coward, and no scrub, neither. But
the other two--Ye'd better let them fry in their own fat till they're
cracklin's. You bet, that is what they deserve, and we can prove it.
Amen."
They built a close wall of rock around Bill Frank's resting place high
enough to reach the over-hanging rock, and so heavy and secure that no
prowling coyote could reach the body, or even dislodge a single stone.
After it was all finished they decided that there ought to be
something about the grave to show whose bones rested within it. Nick
Ellhorn tore some blank paper from the bottom of a partly filled sheet
which he found in his pocket and wrote the inscription:
"Here lies the body of Bill Frank, who was white clean
through. He was done up by two of the damnedest scrubs that
ever died lying down. He killed them both before Tom Tuttle
and Nick Ellhorn got sight of the color of their hair, which
is the only thing we can't forgive him.
"P. S. and N. B.--This is the lost Dick Winters' mine, and
there is nothing in it, except Bill Frank's body."
They emptied the nuggets of gold from the tomato can and put them in
their pockets. Then they folded the paper and put it in the can, with
a small stone to hold it in place. Tom found an unused envelope in
his pocket, and Nick printed on it, in big capitals, "Bill Frank," and
they pasted it, by means of the flap, on the front of the can. Then
they made a place for the can midway of the stone wall, and fastened
it in so that it would be held firmly in place by the surrounding
stones.
There was an easy trail down one side of the canyon, which Dick
Winters had made long before by removing the largest stones. A dribble
of blood, dried on the sands, marked it all the way. Perhaps a mile
down the gulch it came to a sudden stop in a great heap of debris, and
a zigzag path started up the side of the canyon. The two men stopped,
following the course of the shelving trail with their eyes, and as
they looked there was a rattle of loose stone and sand, and some dark
body rolled over the side of the gulch from the top of the path. Their
hands flashed to their revolver butts, and stopped there, as they
watched its downward course in wonder. They saw the arms and feet of a
human form flung out aimlessly as the thing rolled from ledge to
ledge, and they tried to catch a glimpse of the face as now and again
the head hung over a rock and disclosed for a second the ghastly
features. Down it came, with the cascade of loose pebbles before it,
and lay still in the hot sand at their feet. It was Jim's lifeless and
mangled body. Nick glanced to the rim of the canyon wall and saw the
head of a coyote peering over.
"There's the beast that tumbled him down," he whispered, and raised
his revolver, but before he could shoot, the thing disappeared.
At this point the canyon walls began to grow less steep, and Dick
Winters had taken advantage of the sloping, shelving side to make a
zigzag trail to the summit, in some places blasting the solid rock,
and in others building out the pathway with great stones. Nick and Tom
followed the path to the mountain side above, where little pools of
dried blood made a trail which showed the way a wounded man had taken.
A little farther they found the body of Bill Haney, flat on its face,
with arms spread out on either side. A coyote slunk away as they
appeared, dragging its hinder parts uselessly.
"I reckon that's the one Bill Frank thought he killed," said Nick, as
he put a bullet through its head.
They turned the body of Bill Haney over on its back and regarded it
silently for some moments.
"Tommy," said Nick, "we ought to put these poor devils where the
coyotes can't get 'em."
Tom looked away with disfavor in his face. "They might have got
Emerson into a hell of a scrape. Suppose anybody but us had found
Wellesly the other day! Everybody would have believed that Emerson had
ordered these two measly scamps to do what they did!"
"That's so," Nick replied, "but that's all straight now, and they are
past doin' any more harm, and it ain't a square deal to let a fellow
be eat up by coyotes."
Tom looked down into the dead, staring eyes and soberly replied: "I
guess you're right, Nick, and I sure reckon Emerson would say we ought
to do it."
They carried both bodies to the bottom of the canyon and up the bloody
trail until they came to a steep-sided, narrow chasm which yawned into
the wider gulch. There they put their burdens down, side by side, and
decently straightened the limbs, folded the hands, and closed the eyes
of the two dead men.
"Now," said Nick, "we'll pile rocks across the mouth of the gulch, and
then they'll be safe enough, for no coyote is going to jump down from
the top of these walls."
Tom made no answer. He was standing with his hands in his pockets
looking at the two bloody, mangled corpses.
"Nick, don't you-all think we'd better say something over these
fellows, too? It ain't the square deal to put 'em away without a word,
even if they were the worst scrubs in creation. You-all better say
something, Nick, like you did before."
Tom took off his hat, without even a glance at his companion, and bent
his head. Ellhorn also doffed his sombrero and bent forward in
reverent attitude, ready to begin.
"Good Lord," he said, and then he stopped and hesitated so long that
Tuttle looked up to see what was the matter. "Go on, Nick," he urged
in a low tone.
"Good Lord, Ye'd better do as Ye think best about lettin' 'em fry in
their own fat--so long. They were scrubs, that's straight, but they're
dead now, and can't do any more harm. Good Lord, we hope--Ye'll see
Your way to have mercy on their souls. Amen."
They began piling rocks across the mouth of the narrow chasm, and
worked for some moments in silence. Nick glanced inquiringly at Tom
several times, and finally he spoke:
"Say, Tommy, that was all right, I guess, wasn't it?"
"Nick, I sure reckon Emerson would say it was." And Ellhorn knew that
his companion could give no stronger assent.
They built a wall high enough to keep the coyotes away from the two
bodies, and then followed the trail upon the canyon wall and across
the mountain side to the spring. There they found Bill Frank's camping
outfit and the few things that Jim and Haney had transferred from the
canyon below. They found, also, the pan and the hand mortar, rusty and
battered by the storms of many years, with which Dick Winters had
slowly and with infinite toil beaten and washed out the gold he was
never to enjoy. After an hour's search they found the store of nuggets
where Bill Frank had hidden them. Haney and Jim had never guessed how
near they had come to the wealth for which they were searching.
The two men looked over the contents of pail, coffee pot, oven and
cans and talked of the long, wearisome, lonely labor Dick Winters must
have had, carrying the sacks of ore on his back, from his mine down
the canyon, up the trail, and across the mountain side, to this little
spring, where he had then to pound it up in his mortar and wash out
the gold in his pan.
"It's no wonder the desert did him up," said Nick. "He had no strength
left to fight it with. It's likely he was luny before he started."
"Nick, you don't reckon there's a cuss on this gold, do you? Just see
how many people it has killed. Dick Winters and Bill Frank and Jim and
Haney, besides all the prospectors that have died huntin' for it.
You-all don't reckon anything will happen to us, or to Emerson, if we
take it?"
The two big Texans, who had never quailed before man or gun, looked at
each other, their faces full of sudden seriousness, and there was just
a shadow of fear in both blue eyes and black. The silence and the
vastness of an empty earth and sky can bring up undreamed of things
from the bottom of men's minds. Ellhorn's more skeptical nature was
the first to gird itself against the suggestion.
"No, Tommy, I don't reckon anything of the sort. Bill Frank gave it to
us, and Dick Winters gave it to him, or, anyway, wanted him to find it
and have it, and I reckon Dick Winters worked hard enough to get it
to have a better right to it than God himself. It's sure ours, Tom,
and I reckon there won't be any cuss on it as long as we can shoot
straighter than anybody who wants to hold us up for it."