THE BULLET'S MESSAGE.
"Wal, those'll maybe make vallible building lots when Williams Creek has
growed as big as 'Frisco, but somehow trade in building lots ain't brisk
here just now."
No one answered old Rampike. Steve and Ned felt rather hurt at the
levity of his remarks. It is poor fun even for a rich man to be robbed
of six thousand dollars, and neither Ned nor Steve were rich men. In
fact, in losing the six thousand dollars they had lost their all except
the pack-train.
"It ain't no manner of good to grizzle over it," continued this
philosopher, "Cruickshank has got the cinch on you to rights this time.
Six thousand dollars cash, the pleasure of your company from Victoria,
and your pack-train to remember you by! Ho! ho!" and although it was
very annoying to Ned, and quite contrary to Rampike's nature to do so,
he laughed aloud at his own grim joke.
The laugh roused Chance. He was a Yankee to the tips of his
finger-nails, one of those strange beings who "bust and boom" by
turns--millionaires to-day, bankrupts to-morrow, equally sanguine,
happy, and go-ahead in either extreme.
"Ned," he said, his face relaxing into a somewhat wintry smile, "I guess
you were right after all. Cruickshank is no Britisher, you bet."
"Glad you think so; hang him!" growled Ned.
"No Britisher could ever have planned so neat a swindle," continued
Steve meditatively. "By Jove, it is a 'way up'!" and this strange young
man really seemed lost in admiration at the smartness from which he
himself had suffered.
"I don't see much to admire in a thief and a liar. We prefer honesty to
smartness in my country, thank God!"
There was no disguising the fact that Ned Corbett was in a very ugly
temper. Not being one of those who look upon the whole struggle for
wealth as a game of chance and skill, in which everything is allowable
except a plain transgression of the written rules of the game, he could
not even simulate any admiration for a successful swindler's smartness.
Old Rampike saw his mood, and laying his hand on his shoulder gave him a
friendly shake. "Never mind, sonny," he said. "It's no good calling
names; and as for being stone-broke, why there isn't a man in Cariboo
to-day, I reckon, who hasn't been stone-broke, aye and most of 'em mor'n
once or twice."
"Oh, yes, I suppose that is so," said Ned a little wearily, but rousing
himself all the same. "What can a man earn here as a digger in another
fellow's claim?"
"Anything he likes to ask almost. Men who are worth anything at all as
workers are scarce around these parts."
"Then we sha'n't starve, that is some consolation. By the way, I have a
note here for you. This confounded business nearly made me forget it;"
and so saying Corbett produced from an inner pocket the little note
given him by Roberts at the Balm-of-Gilead camp.
For a few moments Rampike twisted and turned the note about, trying to
decipher the faint pencil-marks in the dim light. At last he got the
note right side up and began to read. Evidently he hardly understood
what he read at first, for those who were watching him saw that he read
the note through a second time, as if looking for some hidden meaning in
every word. When he had done this a vindictive bitter oath burst from
between his set teeth.
"If Cruickshank ain't dead by now, my old pal Roberts is. You may bet on
that. Look ye here!" and the speaker handed Ned a flattened,
blood-stained bullet which he had taken from Roberts' letter.
"Do you know what that is?" he asked.
"It looks like a revolver bullet," answered Ned.
"And so it is. That's the identical bullet as Dan Cruickshank fired at a
grouse and _hit a cayuse_ with. Pretty shooting, wasn't it?" and Rampike
ground his teeth with anger.
"What the deuce do you mean?" cried Steve in blank astonishment.
"Mean--mean! Why, that if you warn't such a durned tenderfoot you'd have
tumbled to the whole thing long ago! Men like Cruickshank don't leave
horses unhobbled by mistake, don't hit and scare pack-horses on a
stone-slide by mistake, don't get to Williams Creek a day late by
mistake. Oh, curse his mistakes! If he makes one more there'll be the
best pal and the sweetest singer in Cariboo lying dead up among them
pines."
"Do you mean that Cruickshank did these things on purpose?" asked
Corbett slowly, his face growing strangely hard as he spoke.
"Read Rob's letter," said Rampike, and gave Ned the scrap of paper on
which Rob had found time to write a brief record of the journey from
Douglas, ending his story in these words--"Cruickshank means Corbett
mischief, so I am staying instead of the lad. What his game is with the
pack-ponies I am blowed if I know, but if I don't come in with them
inside of a week, do some of you fellows try and get even with the
colonel for the sake of your old pal Roberts."
For several minutes after reading this note no one spoke; each man was
thinking out the situation after his own fashion.
"Will you trust me with grub for a fortnight, Rampike?" asked Ned at
last.
"Yes, lad, if you like; but you won't want to borrow. Men like you can
earn all they want here;" and the miner looked appreciatively at the
big-limbed man before him.
"I'll earn it by and by, Rampike. I'm going after Roberts first,"
replied Ned quietly.
"How's that?" demanded Rampike.
"I'm going after Roberts and Cruickshank. Can I have the grub?"
"If that's your style, you can have all the grub you want if I have to
go hungry for a week. When will you start?"
"It will be dark in two hours," replied Ned, "and the moon comes up
about midnight. I shall start as soon as the moon is up."
"Impossible, man!" cried Chance. "I could not drag myself to the top of
that first bluff unless I had had twenty-four hours' solid sleep, if my
life depended upon it."
"I know, old fellow, and I don't want you to; but you see a life may
depend upon it."
"But you aren't going alone, Corbett. I'll not hear of that."
"We will talk about that by and by, Steve. Let us go and turn in for a
little while now. I am dead tired myself." And so saying Corbett turned
on his heel and followed Rampike to his hut, where the old man found
room for all three of them upon the floor.
"If Steve and I go to look for Roberts can you find a job for our
Chinaman until we come back? I should not like the poor beggar to
starve," said Ned, pointing to where Phon lay already fast asleep. The
moment he laid down his head Phon had gone to sleep, and since then not
a muscle had twitched to show that he was alive. Whatever his master
might choose to arrange for his benefit the Chinaman was not likely to
overhear or object to.
"Oh yes, I can fix that easy enough. I'll set him to wash in my own
claim. I can afford to pay him good wages as well as feed him. Men are
scarce at Williams Creek."
Again for a time there was silence in the hut, Corbett and Rampike
puffing away at their pipes, and Steve Chance trying hard to keep his
eyes open as if he suspected mischief. At last nature got the better of
him; the young Yankee's head dropped on his arm, and in another moment
he was as sound asleep as Phon.
Then Ned stood up and went over to sit beside the old miner Rampike,
remarking as he did so:
"Thank heaven Steve is off at last. I thought the fellow never meant to
go to sleep."
"What! Do you mean to leave him behind?" asked Rampike.
"Does he look as if he could do another week's tramping?" retorted Ned,
glancing at the limp, worn-out figure of his friend. "He has pluck
enough to try, but he would only hinder me."
"If that's so, I'll chuck my claim and come along too."
"Nonsense, you can't afford to lose your claim; and, besides, you
couldn't help me."
"Couldn't help you! How's that?" snorted Rampike indignantly.
"A man can always hunt better alone than with another fellow. One makes
less noise than two in the woods."
"But you ain't going hunting?"
"Yes I am,--hunting big game too." And there was a light in Ned
Corbett's eye, as he overhauled his Winchester, that looked bad for an
enemy.
"You ain't afraid of--losing your way?" asked Rampike. He was going to
say "You ain't afraid of Cruickshank, are you?" but a look on Corbett's
face stopped that question.
"No, I'm used to the woods," Ned answered shortly; and then again for a
while the two men smoked on in silence.
Presently Corbett knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and put it away
carefully in his pocket.
"Do you work in the night-shift on your place?" he asked Rampike.
"Either me or my partner is there all the while."
"Shall you be there to-night?"
"I'll be going on at midnight, but I'll fix up a pack with some grub in
it for you before I go."
"Thank you, I'll leave that to you, if I may. Will you call me before
you go? I mean to try to get all the sleep I can before the moon is up."
"Well, lie down right now. I'll call you, you bet. You're a good sort
for a Britisher--give us a shake;" and Rampike held out a hand as hard
and as honest as the pick-handle to which it clung day after day.
Perhaps it was the thought of his old friend's danger which made Rampike
blind and careless, or perhaps it was only his natural clumsiness. In
any case he steered very badly for his own door, so badly indeed that he
tripped over Chance's prostrate form, dealing him a kick that might have
roused a dead man. But Steve only turned over restlessly in his sleep,
like one who dreams, and then lay as still again as ever.
Ned smiled. "No danger of waking him, I think, when I want to go. Poor
old Steve! the loss of the money does not seem to spoil your sleep
much."
Five minutes later, when Rampike had gone out to get together the
provisions which his guest needed, anyone listening to that guest's
regular breathing would have been of opinion that the loss of the
dollars troubled Ned Corbett as little as it troubled Steve Chance.