ON THE COLONEL'S TRAIL AGAIN.
The day after the conversation recorded in the last chapter happened to
be Sunday--a day which at Antler differed very little from any other
day, except that a few tenderfeet, mostly Britishers, struck work on
that day, and indulged in what some of their friends called a "good
square loaf." Ned Corbett was one of these Sunday loafers. Of course
there was no church at Antler, nor any parson except upon very rare
occasions. But Ned had an ear for the anthems which the mountain breezes
are always singing, and an eye for nature's attitude of reverence
towards her Creator.
Every Sunday it was Ned's wont to go out by himself, and lie on a rock
in the sun out of hearing of the noise of the great mining-camp, saying
nothing at all himself, but thinking a good deal, and keeping quite
quiet to hear what nature had to say to him.
As he was coming away from such a loaf as this, he met Lilla wandering
up the banks of a mountain stream, gathering berries and wild flowers.
Ned thought that his little friend had never looked prettier than she
did at that moment--her soft yellow hair blown out by the breeze, her
little figure moving gracefully amongst the boulders, the colour of wild
roses in her cheeks, and a deep strong light in her blue eyes, like the
light of the stars when there is frost in the northern sky.
For a little while he watched her, as she hummed a song amongst the
flowers and added fresh treasures to the already overgrown bouquet in
her hand.
"If she would take a man just as he is, she would make a sweet little
wife for a Cariboo miner," thought the young man; "that is, if he meant
always to remain a Cariboo miner. But, poor child! I'm afraid she'd find
a Shropshire welcome rather chilly even after Cariboo. Ah! well," he
added to himself as he went jumping over the boulders to meet her,
"luckily I don't want a wife, and Lilla doesn't want a husband."
The next moment Lilla and he stood face to face.
"Did I frighten you, Lilla?" he asked, picking up some flowers which the
girl had dropped. "Did you think I was a grizzly?"
"Not so bad as that, Ned. But what do you up here?"
"I'm taking a 'cultus coolee,'" replied he, using the Indian phrase in
use among the miners for a walk which has no object. "You are doing the
same, I fancy. Let us do it together."
"What! you wish to come with me? Well, come then," replied Lilla. "You
can help me carry these."
Ned took the bouquet, and after a while said, "I have been wanting to
have a good talk with you, Lilla, for some time."
"So, Ned! what is it about?" She tried hard to speak in an unconcerned
off-hand way, but in spite of her, her colour rose and then paled, and
her voice had an unnatural ring in it. Ned looked at her. Could there be
anything in what Steve suggested the other night? he asked himself, and
then almost in the same second he repented him of the thought. Ned
Corbett was not one of those men who twist their moustaches
complacently, and conclude that every woman they meet must fall in love
with them.
"I want you to tell me about Pete and his creek again," he said. "Steve
Chance is awfully keen to go prospecting, and to go and look for this
gold-mine of yours."
"And why not, Ned? I wish you would, for my sake."
"I would do a good deal for your sake, Lilla," he answered; "but I can't
believe in this creek, you know."
"Not believe in it! Why not, Ned?"
"There was too much gold in it; the whole story is too much like a fairy
tale. And then, you know, when you took him in, Pete was as penniless as
I was."
"Penniless! What's that?"
"Hadn't a cent to his name, I mean, and you fed him and took care of
him."
"Ach, so. Well, what has that to do with the creek?"
"People who find gold-mines ought not to be dependent upon good little
girls like you for their bread and cheese. It's not natural, you know."
"Ach, now you make me to understand. But you yourself, you don't know
Cariboo ways. Pete had plenty of dust, oh, lots and lots of dust, when
he came down; but, of course, he blew it all in before I saw him."
To anyone not conversant with mining life that "of course" of Lilla's
was delicious. To the steady-going collector of hard-earned copper and
silver it seems anything but a matter of course to "blow in" a fortune
in a fortnight; but then things were not done in an ordinary jog-trot
fashion either in California in '49 or in Cariboo in '62.
"Oh! of course, of course!" returned Ned with a smile which he could not
hide. "I beg your pardon, Lilla. I had forgotten for a moment that I was
in Cariboo, and thought as if I were at home again. Well, and what was
the matter with your beggared Croesus when you found him?"
"If you mean what was the matter with Pete, I have before told you. He
drink too much one night, and then he fall asleep in the snow, and when
he wake in the morning he have the pleurisy, I think you call him."
It was a long sentence for Lilla, who was getting a little bit roused by
the young scoffer at her side; and, moreover, her English was always
best when produced in small quantities.
"And why did they bring him to you?"
"Where else could they take him? The boys can't leave their claims to
nurse sick men, and at night they are too tired to nurse anyone. And
besides--"
"And besides," interrupted her companion, "Lilla is never tired. Oh,
dear, no! Her eyes never want sleep, nor her limbs rest after dancing
with all those roughs on a floor like a ploughed field."
"Don't you call the boys roughs, Ned. They are not rough to me. Of
course I had to nurse old Pete. What are women meant for?"
"Something better than camp-life in Cariboo," replied Corbett warmly;
"but it is just as well for me that you don't think so."
"Well, and so I nursed him," continued the girl, disregarding Ned's last
speech altogether; "and sometimes he told me where he had been, and how
much gold he had found, and at last one day when he knew that he must
die he told me of this creek in Chilcotin with gold in the bed of
it--free gold, coarse gold in nuggets and lumps, and as much as ever you
want of it."
"Why did he not bring down more of it, instead of letting you keep him
as you kept me?" asked the doubter.
"_Ach, himmel!_ Keep you! I didn't keep you. You are too proud, and
will pay for every little thing; but old Pete, he understood Cariboo
ways. To-day you strike it rich and I am stone-broke. Very well. I lend
you a handful of dollars and start you again. You don't need to thank
me. Any gambler would do as much. By and by I strike it even rockier
than you struck it. All right, then you 'ante' up for me. That's
Cariboo."
"Is it?" asked Ned, looking into the eager friendly face of this
exponent of a new commercial creed. "Is that Cariboo? Well, Lilla, I
expect Samaria must be somewhere in Cariboo. But finish your story about
Pete."
"Oh, Pete! Well, Pete just died quietly, and he knew it was coming, and
before it came he pulled out this," and the girl drew from her bosom an
old frayed bill-head which we have seen before, "and gave it to me, and
told me that as soon as I found--Ach, what am I saying? I forget." And
Lilla suddenly brought her story to an abrupt conclusion, with stumbling
tongue and flaming cheeks, for as a fact the old man had told her that
this map of his was the key to much gold, and that when she should have
found a man worthy of her, she was to send him to bring it to her, and
it should be to her for a dowry. But this was not quite what the honest
little hurdy girl cared to tell Ned Corbett at present. However, Ned
never noticed her embarrassment. His eyes were busy with the document in
his hand.
"It seems a good clear map, and looks as if the man who made it was
quite sane," he muttered.
"Sane? What is that--'sane?'" asked Lilla.
"Level-headed" answered Ned shortly.
"You bet he was level-headed, Ned. _Ach, mein freund_, how you doubt! I
tell you there are not many men in Cariboo who would not go to look for
that creek, if I would let them."
Again Ned remembered Steve's words, "She'll only trust you because she
has lost her heart to you."
"Did you ever give anyone a hint as to where the creek was, Lilla?"
"No, never. At least no, I didn't tell him, but one man nearly guessed
once."
"Nearly guessed once?"
"Yes. He said he knew more than I thought and I had better trust him,
and wasn't the creek at the head of the Chilcotin? And I said, 'Well,
which side of the Chilcotin?' And then he smiled, and I felt angry. And
when he said on the right bank I was glad, and I cried 'No, it isn't, I
knew you didn't know.' And then he smiled more, and I saw that I had
told him what he wanted to know. But after all that is not much, is it?"
"Who was the man, Lilla?"
"Colonel--Colonel--ach, I forget, there are so many colonels in
America."
"True, but what was he like?" Ned had a queer fancy to know who this
clever cross-examiner might be.
"A thick dark man, stout and smooth."
"With a lot of rings on his fingers?"
"Yes, always lots of rings. Oh, he was a fine man, and such a dancer!"
"Cruickshank."
"That is it--Cruickshank, Colonel Cruickshank. But how did you know,
Ned?"
"Oh, I have seen him before," replied Corbett quietly.
This was indeed news to him, but he felt that he must be very careful
not to frighten Lilla, to whom oddly enough the name of the man who had
robbed Corbett had never yet been mentioned. That he had been robbed of
course she knew, but by one of those strange accidents which often
happen, she had never heard who had robbed him.
"So that is all you can tell me about the creek is it, Lilla?" said Ned
after a long pause. "Well, if you still wish me to go at the end of this
week, I will go for you; if I find it you shall pay me ten dollars a day
for my work, and Phon and Steve the same; and if not,--well, if not, I
shall have earned a right to teaze you if you believe in such
cock-and-bull stories for the future." And Ned gave Lilla her bouquet
and prepared to leave her, for they had by this time reached the door of
her little cottage.
"Oh no, Ned, that is not so at all, at all. If you don't find it, of
course I pay the cost; and if you do, we go shares in the find."
"As you please, Lilla, but we have got to find the creek first," and so
saying he turned and strode off to his own hut.
There were many reasons now why he should go to look for Pete's Creek,
but the belief in Pete's Creek or the hope of finding it was not amongst
them.
Cruickshank knew something of the whereabouts of the creek, Cruickshank
with his insatiable love of gold; and Ned himself had tracked him
towards Soda Creek, where he must cross the Frazer to get to Chilcotin.
Yes, that was it. The tables were turning at last, and if there was such
a place as Pete's Creek, Ned would find Cruickshank there, and shoot him
like a bear over a carcase.