TOM MASON AGAIN.
"Well," said Ben interrogatively, "the nugget that Elam had to do with
wasn't any relation to this one, was it?"
"Wait till I tell you. I don't reckon there is any one thing in the
world that has been the cause of so much misery and mischief of all
kinds as that there nugget," continued Uncle Ezra reflectively. "The man
who found it, whose name was Morgan, and who was working with two
pardners, share and share alike, was about as honest as a man ever gets
to be, but the sight of the small fortune which he unearthed one day by
a single stroke of his pick, while working a little apart from the
others, was too much for him. He was as poor as a man ever gets to be,
and, worse than all, he had a sweetheart off in the States who was
waiting for him to raise a stake and come home and marry her. He didn't
like the idea of dividing with his two pardners, who would drop their
roll at the faro table as soon as they got the chance, and so he took
and buried his find and worked on as if nothing had happened. That is to
say, he tried to; but with a big chunk of gold within easy reach of his
hand it don't stand to reason that he could act just as he did before.
He was uneasy all the time, and his pardners noticed it and suspected
something. He took to visiting his nugget's hiding-place every night, to
make sure that no one had dug it up, and his pardners found it out on
him; and when at last he grew desperate and tried to carry it away
secretly, there was some shooting done, and Morgan and one of his
pardners were killed."
"That left the survivor a rich man!" exclaimed Ben, who was deeply
interested.
"Now, just wait till I tell you. That left the survivor a tolerable rich
man, but his sudden accession of wealth scared him so badly that he
buried the nugget in a new place and put for 'Frisco, where he took sick
and died. When the medical sharps warned him that he had not long to
live, he told one of the nurses about the nugget, and gave him a map of
the locality in which it was hidden. A month or so afterward the nurse
organized a small expedition and went to the mountains to hunt for the
treasure; but he hired for a guide a treacherous Greaser, who went
ahead, dug up the nugget, and brought it to Brazos City, a small mining
town in which I was located at the time.
"Pierto--that was the Greaser's name--hadn't any more than got his
nugget into the Gold Dollar saloon, which was kept by a countryman of
hisn, and put it into a glass case and set it up on the table so that
everybody could see and admire it, before he was offered eight thousand
dollars for his find; but Pierto wouldn't sell. He thought he could make
more money by putting it up at a raffle, and when the raffle was over,
he would go back to the mountains and try for another nugget, taking
some of us along if we wanted to go. Three thousand shares at ten
dollars a share was what he thought would be about right, and I put my
name down for ten shares then and there.
"The Gold Dollar did a custom-house business after that. Crowds of
miners from every camp for miles around came there to look at Pierto's
find, take shares in the raffle, and drink forty-rod whiskey. Pierto and
the eight countrymen of hisn whom he employed to guard the nugget night
and day were armed with pepper-boxes and machetes, and were as sassy and
stuck up as so many bantam chickens, and the lordly way in which they
ordered us Gringos to stand back and not crowd the nugget too close was
laughable to see. They were a surly gang and looked able to whip their
weight in wild-cats; but in reality they were the most harmless lot of
cowards that Pierto could have got together.
"Like all mining towns, Brazos City could boast of some tough citizens,
and among them was Red Jimmy Murphy, a noted desperado, and as smart a
rough as ever pulled a gun. He and two of his pals were in the Gold
Dollar every day and night, and after looking the ground over they
concluded that the plant could be raised. No sooner had this been
settled to their satisfaction than they set to work to get things ready.
"The night before the raffle was to come off the Gold Dollar was packed
as full as it could hold,--so full that there was scarcely room for the
fiddlers to work their elbows,--and Pierto's guard had to use some
little muscular strength to keep the crowd from pushing over the table
on which lay the nugget in its glass case. Red Jimmy's gang was there,
ready to grab the chunk at the critical moment, and finally Jimmy
himself rode into the saloon on a kicking, plunging bronco. The closely
packed men cursed and threatened and ordered him out, but gave way all
the same, and when the bronco heard the squawking of the fiddles and
felt the jab of his rider's spurs, he slewed around and backed toward
the table. Pierto saw the danger, and made a desperate rush to save his
nugget, but was just a second too late. Jimmy raised a yell to put his
pals on the watch, and spurred up the bronco, which at once sent his
heels into the air as high as the ceiling. Down went the table, and the
glass flew into a thousand pieces. The nugget went sailing over the
heads of the crowd and into the hands of one of the gang, who, in spite
of every effort that was made to stop him, succeeded in tossing it to
Jimmy; and Jimmy he headed for the door, riding over everybody that got
in his way. Then there was fun, I tell you. I never saw lead fly so
thickly before nor since. Everybody had a gun out, and Red Jimmy ought
by rights to have been riddled like a sieve."
"Uncle Ezra, did you shoot?" asked Ben.
"I presume to say that I made as much noise as the rest," answered the
old man, with a chuckle. "You know, I held some chances in that chunk,
and didn't want to lose them. Of course Pierto had to shell out the
money we paid him for the tickets, for the raffle could not now be
brought off; we kept him right there under our guns till he gave back
the last dollar, but he never set eyes on his nugget, and neither did
we. Red Jimmy, desperately wounded as he was, got away to the mountains
with his prize, and although a strong posse headed by the sheriff
followed on his trail and finished him the next day, they did not find
the nugget. One of his gang made off with it."
"And you lost it all?"
"Cer'n'y," said the old man.
"And never got a chance to raffle for any of it?" asked Ben. "It has
probably been fixed up into ornaments of some description by this time.
An article worth eight thousand dollars isn't going to be left around
loose."
"It wasn't so two years ago."
"Two years?"
"Wait till I tell you. That nugget has travelled as much as five hundred
miles from here, but somehow it always manages to come back. Here it was
born, and right here it is going to stay until it has its rights. Mind
you, that is Elam's way of looking at it, but it aint mine, by a long
shot. We didn't none of us hear of the nugget again for nearly a year,
and then one of the boys happened to strike a pardner who had got
dissatisfied with the money he was making and went off to Pike's Peak,
and there he learned that two of the gang who had stolen it were seen
and killed for the part they had taken in the enterprise; for you will
remember that several miners in the country had knocked off work and
come in to catch a glimpse of Pierto's find, and of course they didn't
feel very friendly toward the robbers.
"Well, everybody for miles around kept open eyes for that nugget for
years, until at last I forgot all about it until I heard that a couple
of worthless Greasers had somehow got hold of it, and had been found
done to death with that nugget by their side. Then I gave up all hopes,
for if the nugget had fallen into the hands of honest men, that was the
last of it; but it seems it hadn't, and that gave me another show," said
Ezra, tipping me another wink, which was as near to a laugh as he ever
got. "The two Greasers were about as tough specimens as you see, and
they finally got into a fight to see which was the better man. When they
were found, the victor had the nugget hugged closely to his breast, as
if he did not want to part with it even in death. Not only that, but
these two had scarcely found the nugget till they got into a row over
who should carry it, and one of them got so badly whipped that he
dropped and fainted right there. The other had strength enough to travel
ten miles nearer the fort, and there he hid the nugget; but where he hid
it he don't know. He raved about it while he was sick, and somebody told
Elam of it (you see, everybody around here knows the history of that
nugget), and every fall and winter he asks for a grub-stake and lights
out, and I don't see any more of him till I drive my sheep down on the
prairie. That happened two years ago, and every fall you'll see three or
four fellows in the edge of Death Valley, saying nothing to each other,
but ostensibly hunting coyotes, and all the while looking for that
nugget, which is the thing they most want to find."
"Then the nugget is really here?" exclaimed Ben.
"It's here or hereabouts. It may be within ten miles of this place or it
may be a hundred; for nobody knows where that fellow hid it. Mind you, I
shouldn't like to be the fellow that finds it."
"Why not?"
"Because Elam will go for him. It's his nugget, and he knows it and he's
bound to have it. Mind you, Elam doesn't say nothing about it, and he
can't imagine what it is that sends the fellows prowling around Death
Valley. But, laws! they may as well give it up. There have been a good
many landslides in the canyon here the last fall, and if the nugget is
under them, we may as well bid it good-by. I don't know that this nugget
is any relation to Elam's, but it looks to me that way; don't it to you?
And it seems so strange that it should come back here when it gets off a
certain distance. The poor fellow is out there now hunting for it, and
he may not show up this trip."
"That won't be anything new for Elam, will it?"
Uncle Ezra thought it would not. He might be a longer or shorter
distance from there, and if he didn't put in an appearance, it was no
matter; and, having got through with his talk, Uncle Ezra knocked the
ashes from his pipe and settled himself in an attitude of rest, while
Ben and I listened to the noise of the storm and thought of Elam's
strange history. The nugget belonged to him, and we hoped from the
bottom of our hearts that he would get it, although we made up our minds
that he would have a strange time in getting back to the fort with it
while there were so many desperate men waiting for him to recover it.
Suddenly Ben thought of something.
"Uncle Ezra, you didn't tell us how Elam's father came into possession
of that nugget in the first place," said he.
"Ask me something hard," replied the old frontiersman.
"Don't you know?"
"Nobody knows. We don't know whether it was hisn or he was just carrying
it for somebody. We only know it was there--at least Elam says so. We
only know that the robbers had it for years. There is a hiatus in the
history of the nugget, and nobody don't seem to know what became of it
in that time. We only know that them two Greasers had it and fought over
it, and that brings it up to two years ago. It's my opinion that there
will be another hiatus lasting for all time. At any rate it is worth
eight thousand dollars, and I believe it is the same one I took ten
chances on."
Uncle Ezra rolled over as if he intended to go to sleep, and once more
silence reigned in the cabin. Presently a deep snore coming from Ben's
way told me that he was fast losing consciousness, and I was left to
keep watch of the fire and listen to the howling of the storm outside.
While I was thinking how foolish Elam was to go on searching for that
nugget, when he might just as well have turned an honest sheep-herder,
and laid out a little of his strength in taking care of his woolly
companions instead of spending it all in wolfing, I, too, passed into
the land of dreams.
The next morning's sun (for the storm ceased shortly after midnight)
found us still upon our blankets, for Uncle Ezra did not intend to go
hunting that day, and it was nine o'clock when we got breakfast off our
hands and the dishes washed and put away. We were just settling
ourselves for another long story--a good one we knew it was going to be,
for Uncle Ezra had promised to tell us about the first bear he ever
killed--when a far-away and lonely howl came to our ears. It was so
lonely that it seemed as if a single wolf was left, and that he was
mourning over those who had fallen before the hunter's traps and rifle;
but we knew it was not that. We listened, and when the sound was
repeated, I threw open the door, and stepped out and set up an answering
howl.
"That's Elam," said Ezra, in response to Ben's enquiring look. "It is
his way of announcing his whereabouts. I expect he will come along with
a hoss-back load of peltries, so that I won't have to grub-stake him
again this winter. Elam is pretty sharp, if I did raise him."
The blizzard had swept the mountain free of snow, and it was only in the
valley, where the fury of the storm had spent itself; consequently the
new-comer had little difficulty in making his appearance. In the course
of twenty minutes he came up, and then we knew he was not alone. We
could hear him carrying on a conversation in a loud tone with someone
near him, but could not catch the stranger's reply. Presently he came
out of the scrub oaks leading his horse, followed immediately by a boy
on foot; but where was the horseback load of peltries that Uncle Ezra so
confidently expected?
"Howdy, boys?" said Elam.
"How do you do?" responded Ben. "Where's the rest of your furs?"
"Gone--all gone!" replied Elam cheerfully. "One hundred dollars' worth
of wolf-skins and fifty dollars' worth of other furs all gone up in
smoke."
"Were they burned?"
"Burned? no. Some travelling trappers came to camp while I was absent,
and Tom, here, wasn't man enough to stop 'em. They took everything I had
down to the fort, and although I went there and did some of the best
talking I knew how to do, I came pretty near getting myself in trouble
by it. I want to see Uncle Ezra, though I suppose it is too late to do
anything. This fellow is Tom Mason, and I want you to know him and treat
him right. He got into a little trouble down in Mississippi, where he
used to live, and came out here to get clear of it. Know him, boys."
We shook hands heartily with Tom Mason, and although we were
considerably surprised at Elam's statement that his outfit had been
broken up by thieves, we were a good deal more surprised to learn that
the youth at his side had got into "trouble" in Mississippi. After
hitching their horse where he could graze we went into the cabin with
them, and gathered about them with the idea of hearing an exciting
story; for although I had been in the far West nearly all my life, I had
not got over my fondness for a story yet.
"Howdy, Elam?" said Uncle Ezra, removing his pipe from his mouth with
one hand and extending the other. "You got into trouble, I hear, all on
account of your furs. How did it happen? And you, too, Tommy." You will
remember that the door of the cabin was open, and that Uncle Ezra heard
every word of our conversation. "You didn't steer clear of all trouble
by coming out here, did you? Well, never mind. Troubles will come to
everybody, no matter what they do. Sit down and tell me all about it.
Haven't had any breakfast, have you?"
Elam declared that they had had enough left for breakfast, and produced
his pipe and got ready for a smoke, while Tom sat by with his gaze
fastened on the fire. I will tell both stories together, for Elam did
not touch upon Tom's tale of sorrow at all. But, in the first place, you
remember something about Tom Mason, don't you? You recall that he got
Jerry Lamar into serious trouble by stealing a grip-sack that belonged
to his uncle, General Mason, which contained five thousand dollars, that
Jerry was arrested and put into prison on account of it, and that the
only thing that turned Tom Mason in favor of the boys who were working
to help him was the fact that Luke Redman was going to take the money
across the river into Texas. Mark Coleman came near getting the money,
when his skiff was stranded at Dead Man's Elbow, but had to go away
without it; and from that time the history of the five thousand begins.
Tom Mason fell in with Joe Coleman, who was Mark's twin brother, and he
told him everything he had done; and when the last moment arrived, when
the horns of the settlers announced that they were fast closing in upon
the robbers, he told Joe to take charge of the money and dived into a
canebrake and disappeared. No one would have thought of prosecuting Tom
Mason if he had stayed there, but that was not the thing. He had been
guilty, he had never done such a thing before, and he couldn't bear to
stand up in that community and have people point at him and whisper:
"There goes Tom Mason, the boy that robbed his uncle of five thousand
dollars!"
He would go West, to Texas, and when he had lived over a good portion of
his life, he would write to his uncle and ask him if he might return.
Now, bear in mind that this is what I heard from Tom's lips, after I
became so well acquainted with him that he thought it advisable to tell
me his story. I don't say that I advised him to stay out there in that
lawless country among those lawless folks, for I didn't. I advised him
to go home and "live it down"; but Tom was plucky and wouldn't budge an
inch. Perhaps you will wonder, too, how it came about that a cowboy who
never heard of Mark Coleman, Duke Hampton, and the rest should come upon
Tom Mason in time to write the continuation of his story--a sequel that
the boys in Mississippi knew nothing about until long after it occurred.
All I can say is it just happened so.