[Cover Illustration]
=B O N A N Z A=
=A STORY OF THE GOLD TRAIL=
=BY=
=WILLIAM MacLEOD RAINE=
=AUTHOR OF=
=A MAN FOUR SQUARE,=
=CROOKED TRAILS AND STRAIGHT,=
=TROUBLED WATERS, Etc.=
=G R O S S E T & D U N L A P=
=P U B L I S H E R S N E W Y O R K=
COPYRIGHT, 1921, 1926, BY WILLIAM MACLEOD RAINE. ALL RIGHTS
RESERVED. PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES AT THE COUNTRY LIFE
PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y.
The giants with hopes audacious; the giants of iron limb;
The giants who journeyed westward when the trails were new and dim;
The giants who felled the forests, made pathways o’er the snows,
And planted the vine and fig tree where the manzanita grows;
Who swept the mountain gorges, and painted their endless night,
With their cabins rudely fashioned and their camp-fires’ ruddy light;
Who builded great towns and cities, who swung the Golden Gate,
And hewed from the mighty ashlar the form of a sovereign state.
I drink alone in silence to the builders of the West—
“Long life to the hearts still beating, and peace to the hearts at rest.”
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. The Pony Express Rider............................ 1
II. “Hurrah for Washoe!”.............................. 8
III. The Night Ride.................................... 15
IV. Scot McClintock Introduces Himself................ 27
V. Scot Passes the Hat............................... 39
VI. Hugh Sits in...................................... 53
VII. Vicky Tells Secrets............................... 65
VIII. Scot Offers Health Hints.......................... 75
IX. Scot Talks on Mother Love......................... 80
X. Till Tapping...................................... 90
XI. “Twenty-Four Hours to Get Out”.................... 99
XII. “Git Out de Way, Ole Dan Tucker”.................. 106
XIII. The “Stranglers”.................................. 121
XIV. Colonel McClintock Agrees with Vicky.............. 130
XV. Hugh Learns Old Grimes Is Still Dead.............. 139
XVI. In the Pit of Night............................... 150
XVII. A Knife with Fourteen Notches..................... 159
XVIII. Apply to Hugh McClintock.......................... 165
XIX. McClintock Bills the Town......................... 171
XX. “Little Vicky”.................................... 179
XXI. In the Blizzard................................... 187
XXII. A Haven of Refuge................................. 196
XXIII. Two Plus One Makes Three.......................... 208
XXIV. Old Dog Tray Barks................................ 221
XXV. The Killer Strikes................................ 229
XXVI. Hugh Hits the Trail............................... 238
XXVII. Trapped........................................... 244
XXVIII. “As Good as the Wheat”............................ 252
XXIX. Vicky Finds a Way................................. 261
XXX. At Bell’s Camp.................................... 270
XXXI. Hugh Takes the Stump.............................. 277
XXXII. Father Marston Prophesies......................... 283
XXXIII. The Booming of the Forty-Fives.................... 293
XXXIV. The Bald Knob Strike.............................. 298
XXXV. McClintock Reads Tennyson......................... 310
XXXVI. Signed by William Thornton........................ 316
XXXVII. Hugh Explains..................................... 324
XXXVIII. The Battle of Bald Knob........................... 329
XXXIX. Sleuthing......................................... 338
XL. In the Mesh of His Own Net........................ 344
XLI. From the Junipers................................. 350
XLII. Hugh Rides to an Appointment...................... 357
XLIII. The Sacrifice..................................... 363
XLIV. Under the Stars................................... 367
BONANZA
B O N A N Z A
CHAPTER I
THE PONY EXPRESS RIDER
Far as the eye could see lay a rough and broken desert of sage. It
stretched to the edge of a flat and arid world.
In front of the long one-story adobe station a man waited, eyes turned
to the west. His hand rested on the flat straight back of a spirited
chestnut horse. Byers was small and wiry, hard as nails. His high-heeled
boots, buckskin breeches, flannel shirt, and skull cap had all been
chosen for utility and not for looks. He wasted no energy in useless
protest, but the fat station keeper who leaned against the door jamb and
chewed tobacco knew he was seething with impatience. The wrangler
holding a second saddled horse knew it, too. For the pony express rider
from Carson was late and his delay was keeping Byers from starting on
the next lap of the transcontinental journey.
The fat man sang lugubriously and tunelessly in a voice that had been
created solely for his own amusement.
“Old Grimes is dead, that good old man,
We ne’er shall see him more.
He wore a single-breasted coat,
All buttoned down before.”
The wrangler looked at him reproachfully and murmured, “Durned if he
wouldn’t sing at a wake and spoil everybody’s enjoyment.”
“His heart was open as the day,
His feelin’s all were true.
His hair it was inclined to gray,
He wore it in a queue,”
intoned the vocalist.
“Not news,” the wrangler told himself bitterly. “I done heard all them
interestin’ details two hundred and seventy-three times.” Aloud, he
attempted a diversion. “Len’ me a loan of a chew of tobacco, Jim.”
The station keeper dived into his left hip pocket, produced a ragged
plug, and offered it to his helper. Meanwhile he gave further
information about the wearing apparel and physical idiosyncrasies of one
Grimes, defunct.
“Wonder what’s holdin’ Tim,” the stableman interposed at the end of
another stanza.
“He ain’t been late before in a blue moon. I don’t recollect as he ever
was late,” answered the fat man, drawn momentarily from his rhymed
epitaph.
Byers said nothing.
The habit of the hard-riding pony express messengers of Russell, Majors,
and Waddell was to be ahead of schedule. Each man prided himself on
covering his relay under the assigned number of hours. The mounts
supplied were chosen for speed, stamina, and heart; the men for
gameness, resource, and knowledge of the country. To be late was
contrary to the tradition of the service.
The pony express was a triumph of American pluck and energy. It
stretched from St. Joseph to San Francisco, two thousand miles through
the heart of the Indian country. The enterprise included five hundred
superb horses, nearly two hundred stations, a hundred riders. The men in
the little racing saddles were stripped to the last ounce. For
protection they carried only a knife and a revolver. The mail bags never
weighed more than twenty pounds. Each letter was written on thin tissue
paper. The postage on the smallest was five dollars. Between the
Missouri and Sacramento the time-table called for ten days, but often
the pouches moved two hundred miles toward their destination in
twenty-four hours.
Those in the saddle had to be man size in soul. No weaklings ever
applied for this job. Some of those in the service were outlaws, for
court warrants did not reach into the sage. Many were desperadoes.[1]
But few of them were quitters. They played out the hand that had been
dealt them.
-----
[1] This was more true of the station keepers and the attendants than of
the stage drivers and pony express messengers. Slade, the notorious man
killer, was superintendent of a division at Julesburg, Colorado. He
succeeded Jules, whom he murdered in cold blood. Slade ruled his crew of
wild assistants with an iron fist. He was an able and efficient servant
of the company. Later he was hanged by the vigilantes in Montana.
Legends of the country, probably much exaggerated, credit him with
having killed thirty men.—W. M. R.
-----
“Tim’s sure late,” the wrangler said hurriedly, for he saw signs of a
return to music which did not soothe his savage breast.
“Kid McClintock’s early. Hour ahead of his schedule,” the station keeper
replied.
Far away to the east a small cloud of dust rose from the sage and
greasewood. Almost at the same time a second billow of yellow alkali
appeared in the sunset glow of the opposite horizon.
The fat man grumbled. “Hell’s hinges! That accident to Meighan is liable
to shoot the whole schedule up. Tim’ll have to double back to Carson in
his place. I’ll have him dig us up another man there.”
The rider from the east arrived at the station first. He pulled up
beside the wrangler, leaped to the ground, and at the same time reached
for the tie straps which fastened the flat leather mail pouches to the
saddle. Two minutes was allowed for the change of sacks from one horse
to another, but usually the transfer was made in ten seconds. The
messenger, a long lean boy, swept the pouches deftly from one saddle to
the other.
“Where’s Meighan?” he asked.
“Done bust his laig tryin’ to gentle that sorrel mustang. Tim Keefe will
have to take his run to-night.”
“Where’s Tim?”
“Not in yet. There’s his dust.” The station keeper waved a fat hand
toward the sunset.
Byers had been watching intently the dust cloud moving through the
brush. “Something’s wrong,” he said briefly.
Hugh McClintock looked. The approaching horse was off the trail. Its
gait was peculiar. Plunging unsteadily in spurts, it was weaving from
side to side. Instead of a rider, a sack seemed to be prone in the
saddle.
McClintock ran forward and caught the bridle of the unsteady horse. The
flank of the animal was clotted with a splash of dust and blood.
The sack slid from the saddle as the horse shied. The sack was a man who
had been clinging feebly to the mane of the bay. He groaned.
“Piutes—this side the Silver Mountains,” he whispered, and fainted.
The station manager, the wrangler, and McClintock gave him first aid. An
arrow head, deeply imbedded, projected from the flesh back of the
shoulder. One of the rider’s boots was filled with blood, due to a
bullet which had shattered the ankle.
Byers spent no time in helping with the wounded man. He had other
business. If the Indians got a messenger, that was in the day’s work.
The mails had to go through without delay. He transferred the pouches to
his own saddle, swung on, and galloped into the desert.
Kid McClintock rose. He, too, must be on his way, for there was nobody
else to carry the mail to Carson City.
“I’ll be movin’,” he said briefly.
“Looks like you’re elected,” agreed the fat man, following the boy to a
water olla where the young fellow washed his baked throat, drank deeply,
and filled his canteen. “Not much use wishin’ advice on you. It’s a
gamble, o’ course. Injuns may be anywhere. But I reckon maybe you better
swing to the south and hit the Walker River range. They’re liable to be
watchin’ the trail for you.”
“I reckon.”
The boy moved to the fresh horse, spurs dragging and jingling. He had
done his day’s work. The horse upon which he had ridden in, lathered
with sweat and still breathing deep from a long fast run, was mute
testimony of this. The dry powdery dust of the desert covered every inch
of the young rider. His legs were stiff and his shoulders tired. But the
spring of splendid youth trod in his stride.
He had before him more than another hundred miles of travel, through a
country infested by hostile savages. He might get through alive or he
might not. That was on the knees of the gods. He had to take what came.
More than once he had run a gauntlet of redskins. He had been a target
for their arrows and their slugs. Tim was not the first messenger he had
seen bring in on his person souvenirs of their missiles. The one salient
point was that the mail had to go through. It always had reached its
destination—always but once. On that occasion the messenger offered the
only acceptable excuse for his failure. He lay dead on the trail, his
scalp gone.
McClintock shot westward in a cloud of dust. Half a mile from the
station he swung sharply to the south.