"Great little papoose, ain't he?" said Bud, turning in his saddle before
his starting rush. "Makings of a man there, all right. The boys in town
are dead stuck on him. I'll have to give a complete history when I get
back. I must get a gait on, or I'll have Uncle Sammy on my neck
again--inspector started out with me this morning."
"The devil he did!" cried Jim indignantly, well knowing the hardships and
dangers of the big rider's route.
"Oh, it's all right!" replied Bud with a wave of his hand. "Come out
fine. When the lad first told me he'd been sent out to see why the mails
was so late on this line, I told him I'd show him right on the spot, but
he said there was no use getting hot about it, as he was only doing his
duty, so I quieted down.
"He was a decent sort of feller. I thought to myself before we got under
way, 'Now, there won't nothing happen this day--everything'll go as
smooth and slick as grease, and this feller will report that I'm
sojering,' that's the way it usually works, you know. But this time I
played in luck.
"Two miles out of town we ran into a wild-eyed gang from somewhere, who
was going to make us dance. We didn't dance, and I'll say for that
inspector that he stood by me like a man, but he was awful sick at his
stomach later on from the excitement.
"Next thing, the bridge was down at Squaw Creek, and we swum her. He'd
have gone down the flume, if I hadn't got hold of his bridle. 'Nice mail
route, this,' says he, as he got ashore. 'Oh, you'd like it,' says I, 'if
you got used to it.' I'd begun to wonder what was next myself. Ain't many
people swimming Squaw Creek, as you perhaps know.
"Well, next was about ten mile along, just before you come to the old
Tin-cup Camp. We was passing the bluff there, and all of a sudden, rip,
thump, biff! Down comes what looked like the whole side a-top of us. It
weren't though. It was only a cinnamon had lost his balance, leaning over
too far to see what we was. That bear landed right agin brother
inspector's horse, and brother inspector's horse tried to climb a tree.
Inspector himself fell a-top of the bear. I dassent shoot, for the devil
himself couldn't have told which was inspector and which bear. Finally
bear shakes himself loose and telescopes himself up the canyon, the worst
scared animile in the country. 'If you'll ketch my horse, I'll amble back
again,' says the inspector. 'I've investigated this route pretty
thorough, and find it's just as you say. Lamp-posts'll do me all right
for a while.' Come out fine, didn't it?
"Whish there! Untie yourself, you yaller bone-heap!" And the mail was a
quarter of a mile up the trail.
Jim pondered the information concerning Ches carefully, only to adhere to
his original determination. He could not see any way in which the boy
would be benefited by hearing the news. Still, the miner hated anything
that savored of concealment or deception.
"I wish Anne was here to help me," he thought; "she'd know what to do."
He sat long, looking down, his hands clasped about his knees, drinking
with old Tantalus. But the reverie ended as it always did--in action.
There was nothing for it but the claim. Success there meant success
everywhere.
It was the knowledge that Anne, the boy, and all he wished to do for both
depended on the pay-streak which had urged him to such a fury of effort.
His carelessness of his own life, that led him to slap his timbering up
any way, was born of that same fury. And the consequences came like most
consequences, without a moment's warning.
It was a still and beautiful noon. Ches had pulled out the last car
before dinner, and started for the cabin.
A curious groaning and snapping from the tunnel halted him. It was the
giving of the tortured timbers. On the heels of that came a dull,
crushing roar. A blast of dust shot from the tunnel-mouth, like smoke
from a cannon, preceded by a shock that nearly threw the boy off his
feet.
Then all was still again. The sun shone as brilliantly as before, blazing
down upon the ghastly face of a little boy, who, after one heart-broken
cry of "Jim! Oh, Jim's killed!" sank down upon the ground, chewing the
fingers thrust in his mouth, that the pain might make the black wave keep
its distance.
For Ches knew that he was alone; that there was no human being within
miles to help the man caught in the hand of that mischance but himself,
so frantically willing, but so impotent.
"I must git me wits tergedder--I must!" and down came the teeth with all
the strength of the boy's jaw. "Oh, what will I do? What will I do?" The
little head waved from side to side in its agony, and a sudden sob struck
him in the throat.
After that one small weakness rose Ches Felton, hero. To the mouth of the
tunnel he went. Above the tumbled pile of dirt and timber ran a sort of
passage, between it and the roof.
A way along which a boy might crawl and find out if all the frames were
down--to which the silence of the tunnel gave a bitter assent--or if by
some most lucky chance one or two had held, and Jim be safe within.
Ches climbed to the top and thrust his head into the gloom. "Jim!" he
called, "Jim!" No answer.
Before him lay the ruin of his pardner's work. It was over this that his
path lay, as deadly dangerous a path as could be found. The slightest
disturbing of the roof above might bring down a thousand tons of dirt
upon the one who ventured, slowly and hideously to crush his life out,
there in the dark, beyond sight and sound of the cheerful world without.
With this knowledge before him, and his inborn fear of the dark hole, as
daunting as the hand of death itself, he took his soul in his gripe, and
wormed his way within.
Sometimes his back grazed a stone in the roof, and the touch of white-hot
iron could not have been so terrible; sometimes a falling stone near him
would make his heart leap and stop as he waited for the hill above to
follow. Foot by foot he made it, twisting around the end of a post,
scooping out the dirt most cautiously where the hole was too small for
even his slight body.
Once the sharp end of a broken piece of lagging caught in his clothes,
and he could go neither forward nor back. There, for a second, he broke
down. Bracing up again, he managed somehow to get the old knife out of
his pocket and cut himself free.
He could see little.
A gray spectral light filtered in here and there that defined nothing,
even when his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness.
It was an endless journey. In places where the dirt closed in he would be
a full minute progressing a foot, and a minute of such mortal terror as
seldom falls to the lot of man of peace or soldier.
But it ended.
Suddenly the boy's outstretched hand encountered only emptiness below.
That frame had held. He dove into the space head first, and landed on
something soft and warm--the body of his pardner.
He had found him. In a paroxysm of joy, he flung himself upon the
motionless figure and cried his heart out. This, too, he soon conquered.
Jim had just so much show--any delay might wipe it out. He searched the
man's pockets until he found a match. By its light he saw the candle
stuck into the post, and lit it. Then he knelt beside his pardner again.
It was a curious picture within that gloomy chamber underground. The
miner lying stark, stretched to his full great length, appearing enormous
in the flickering candle-light, and the child, white-faced, big-eyed, but
steady as a veteran, wiping the blood from the ragged cut in the man's
head.
Ches realized what had happened the instant before the calamity. Jim,
startled by the noise of the yielding timbers, had made a rush, only to
be struck down by the rock, that now lay within an inch of him; yet
struck into safety for all that. Had he gone a yard farther, the life
would have been smashed out of him instantly.
But now, what? The flowing blood sent a sickening chill through the boy.
Had he done this much only to be able to see his pardner die? He drove
his teeth into his hand again at the thought. What was that? Was it a
trick of the tunnel, his heart sounding in his own ears, or a rhythmic
beat from outside? Hollow and dull fell that "clatter-clum-clatter-clum."
"Bud!" screamed Ches, "T'ank God, dat's Bud!"
After half a dozen efforts he climbed the dirt pile and went back through
the treacherous holes. The rider came so fast! "Oh!" groaned the boy,
"I'll never make it! Bud'll t'ink we're off somewheres an' pull
on!--_Bud_! BUD!" he called at the top of his lungs; but the tunnel
swallowed the little voice.
Desperation made him entirely reckless. It was any way to get out before
the mail-man was beyond call. Glairy with sweat, he pulled, tugged,
squirmed and wriggled along, until a dirty, small bundle rolled down
almost under the mail-rider's feet.
"Whoa!" shouted Bud with an astonished oath. "What's the--why boy, what's
the matter? Damn it! how you scart me!"
One look at him froze the man; he said no more, but waited, watching the
working face of the child, who was mastering himself once more, in order
to tell a quick, straight story, that no time might be lost.
"Der tunnel's fell in, Bud; Jim's in dere where der frame's held. He's
livin' yet, but he's got a tur'ble cut in his head."
The mail-rider drew out paper and tobacco, and rolled a cigarette. It was
his method of biting his hand. He loved the man inside that dark blotch
on the hill-side with an affection only known where men are few and
strong. And because he loved him, Bud was going to keep his head cool and
clear, to find the right thing to do and do it the right way.
For all his calm outer man the mind within was whirling. He turned to the
tense little face before him for help, and with an admiration that knew
no bounds.
"How far back?" he asked.
"T'ree frames was held--dere was seven, ten foot apart--how much is dat?"
"Forty feet--ten foot apart! No wonder! Oh, Jim! How could you have been
so careless?"
The boy's shoulders shook once. "He worked like er horse--now it's all
gone an' he's in dere--" The face was contorted out of all humanity, but
he held the tears back.
Bud leaped from his horse. "Never you mind, Chessy lad!" he cried,
hugging up the little figure, "we'll get him out of that, by God!--Could
we haul him out the way you went?"
"No, dere ain't room--an' if you touch dat roof hard--" he shuddered.
Bud sucked in his breath. "If you weren't the sandy little man to try
it!" he said. He stood a moment in silence going over it all.
"Ches," he said, "there ain't any time to lose. If Jim's cut like that he
may bleed to death in there when we could save him all right if we had
him outside.
"There's a party of miners down the road eight mile. They was having
their grub as I went by. Chances are they'll be there yet. They've got
four men and a team. I _could_ ride back, but I ought to be here working.
Do you think you could stick on old Buck and ride there?"
"I kin."
"By God! I hate to do it--but there ain't any other way!" The big man
ground his teeth together. "I hate to do it--damned if I'll do it!"
Ches caught his hand. "I kin make it, Bud," he pleaded; "I cuddent do
nothin' if I stayed here, an' you could do a heap. Put me up and let me
try."
"All right," said Bud. "The good Lord kept you from getting hurt in the
tunnel, perhaps He'll see you through again. Shut your eyes and hold on
tight when you strike the high places, and don't touch a rein--leave it
all to old Buck."
He stepped forward and caught the horse by the bit.
"Buck!" he said, as though talking to a human being, "you and me have
been through a heap together--don't fall down on me, now!--Take the kid
safe, old boy!" He caught Ches up and threw him across the saddle.
"You'll only have to tell 'em what's happened--the Lord send nothing
happens to you! Good-by, you brave little devil--we'll win out yet. Go
it, Buck!"
And while one of Jim's friends plied pick and shovel like a mad man, the
other was swaying on top of a galloping horse, gripping the pommel of the
saddle with all the strength he had, and shutting his eyes when he came
to the high places.
Captain Hanrahan's party were miners of substance. They were working
their way out to a new country to suit their inclinations. It had just
been suggested that it was perhaps time to hit the trail again when the
captain saw a figure on a horse flying athwart the mountain side--the
regular road was bad enough, but Bud had short cuts of his own, and Buck
followed his usual way.
"Huh!" said the captain, "that man's drunk or crazy?"
"Holy sufferin'!" gasped the man next him, as the yellow horse slipped on
a turn and sent a shower of gravel a thousand feet below. "That was a
near touch," as the horse caught himself and swept on.
"Looks to me like a case of trouble, Cap," said a third speaker. "That
ain't no man, anyhow--it's only a boy."
"Horse running away with him, probably--his folks ought to be clubbed for
letting him out on such an animal. Well, spread out, boys, and we'll
catch him."