Johnny Starleigh found himself again late for school. It was always
happening. It seemed to be inevitable with the process of going to
school at all. And it was no fault “o' his.” Something was always
occurring,--some eccentricity of Nature or circumstance was invariably
starting up in his daily path to the schoolroom. He may not have been
“thinkin' of squirrels,” and yet the rarest and most evasive of that
species were always crossing his trail; he may not have been “huntin'
honey,” and yet a wild bees' nest in the hollow of an oak absolutely
obtruded itself before him; he wasn't “bird-catchin',” and yet there was
a yellow-hammer always within stone's throw. He had heard how grown men
hunters always saw the most wonderful animals when they “hadn't got
a gun with 'em,” and it seemed to be his lot to meet them in his
restricted possibilities on the way to school. If Nature was thus
capricious with his elders, why should folk think it strange if she was
as mischievous with a small boy?
On this particular morning Johnny had been beguiled by the unmistakable
footprints--so like his own!--of a bear's cub. What chances he had of
ever coming up with them, or what he would have done if he had, he did
not know. He only knew that at the end of an hour and a half he found
himself two miles from the schoolhouse, and, from the position of the
sun, at least an hour too late for school. He knew that nobody would
believe him. The punishment for complete truancy was little worse than
for being late. He resolved to accept it, and by way of irrevocability
at once burnt his ships behind him--in devouring part of his dinner.
Thus fortified in his outlawry, he began to look about him. He was on a
thickly wooded terrace with a blank wall of “outcrop” on one side nearly
as high as the pines which pressed close against it. He had never seen
it before; it was two or three miles from the highroad and seemed to be
a virgin wilderness. But on close examination he could see, with the
eye of a boy bred in a mining district, that the wall of outcrop had not
escaped the attention of the mining prospector. There were marks of his
pick in some attractive quartz seams of the wall, and farther on, a more
ambitious attempt, evidently by a party of miners, to begin a tunnel,
shown in an abandoned excavation and the heap of debris before it. It
had evidently been abandoned for some time, as ferns already forced
their green fronds through the stones and gravel, and the yerba buena
vine was beginning to mat the surface of the heap. But the boy's fancy
was quickly taken by the traces of a singular accident, and one which
had perhaps arrested the progress of the excavators. The roots of a
large pine-tree growing close to the wall had been evidently loosened by
the excavators, and the tree had fallen, with one of its largest roots
still in the opening the miners had made, and apparently blocking the
entrance. The large tree lay, as it fell--midway across another but much
smaller outcrop of rock which stood sharply about fifteen feet above
the level of the terrace--with its gaunt, dead limbs in the air at a low
angle. To Johnny's boyish fancy it seemed so easily balanced on the rock
that but for its imprisoned root it would have made a capital see-saw.
This he felt must be looked to hereafter. But here his attention was
arrested by something more alarming. His quick ear, attuned like an
animal's to all woodland sounds, detected the crackling of underwood
in the distance. His equally sharp eye saw the figures of two men
approaching. But as he recognized the features of one of them he drew
back with a beating heart, a hushed breath, and hurriedly hid himself in
the shadow. For he had seen that figure once before--flying before
the sheriff and an armed posse--and had never forgotten it! It was the
figure of Spanish Pete, a notorious desperado and sluice robber!
Finding he had been unobserved, the boy took courage, and his
small faculties became actively alive. The two men came on together
cautiously, and at a little distance the second man, whom Johnny did not
know, parted from his companion and began to loiter up and down, looking
around as if acting as a sentinel for the desperado, who advanced
directly to the fallen tree. Suddenly the sentinel uttered an
exclamation, and Spanish Pete paused. The sentinel was examining the
ground near the heap of debris.
“What's up?” growled the desperado.
“Foot tracks! Weren't here before. And fresh ones, too.”
Johnny's heart sank. It was where he had just passed.
Spanish Pete hurriedly joined his companion.
“Foot tracks be ----!” he said scornfully. “What fool would be crawlin'
round here barefooted? It's a young b'ar!”
Johnny knew the footprints were his own. Yet he recognized the truth
of the resemblance; it was uncomplimentary, but he felt relieved. The
desperado came forward, and to the boy's surprise began to climb the
small ridge of outcrop until he reached the fallen tree. Johnny saw that
he was carrying a heavy stone. “What's the blamed fool goin' to do?” he
said to himself; the man's evident ignorance regarding footprints
had lessened the boy's awe of him. But the stranger's next essay took
Johnny's breath away. Standing on the fallen tree trunk at its axis on
the outcrop, he began to rock it gently. To Johnny's surprise it
began to move. The upper end descended slowly, lifting the root in the
excavation at the lower end, and with it a mass of rock, and revealing a
cavern behind large enough to admit a man. Johnny gasped. The desperado
coolly deposited the heavy stone on the tree beyond its axis on the
rock, so that it would keep the tree in position, leaped from the tree
to the rock, and quickly descended, at which he was joined by the
other man, who was carrying two heavy chamois-leather bags. They both
proceeded to the opening thus miraculously disclosed, and disappeared in
it.
Johnny sat breathless, wondering, expectant, but not daring to move. The
men might come out at any moment; he had seen enough to know that their
enterprise as well as their cave was a secret, and that the desperado
would subject any witness to it, however innocent or unwilling, to
horrible penalties. The time crept slowly by,--he heard every rap of a
woodpecker in a distant tree; a blue jay dipped and lighted on a branch
within his reach, but he dared not extend his hand; his legs were
infested by ants; he even fancied he heard the dry, hollow rattle of a
rattlesnake not a yard from him. And then the entrance of the cave
was darkened, and the two men reappeared. Johnny stared. He would have
rubbed his eyes if he had dared. They were not the same men! Did the
cave contain others who had been all the while shut up in its dark
recesses? Was there a band? Would they all swarm out upon him? Should he
run for his life?
But the illusion was only momentary. A longer look at them convinced
him that they were the same men in new clothes and disguised, and as one
remounted the outcrop Johnny's keen eyes recognized him as Spanish Pete.
He merely kicked away the stone; the root again descended gently over
the opening, and the tree recovered its former angle. The two hurried
away, but Johnny noticed that they were empty-handed. The bags had been
left behind.
The boy waited patiently, listening with his ear to the ground, like an
Indian, for the last rustle of fern and crackle of underbrush, and
then emerged, stiff and cramped from his concealment. But he no longer
thought of flight; curiosity and ambition burned in his small veins. He
quickly climbed up the outcrop, picked up the fallen stone, and in spite
of its weight lifted it to the prostrate tree. Here he paused, and from
his coign of vantage looked and listened. The solitude was profound.
Then mounting the tree and standing over its axis he tried to rock it as
the others had. Alas! Johnny's heart was stout, his courage unlimited,
his perception all-embracing, his ambition boundless; but his actual
avoirdupois was only that of a boy of ten. The tree did not move. But
Johnny had played see-saw before, and quietly moved towards its highest
part. It slowly descended under the changed centre of gravity, and the
root arose, disclosing the opening as before. Yet here the little hero
paused. He waited with his eyes fixed on the opening, ready to fly on
the sallying out of any one who had remained concealed. He then placed
the stone where he had stood, leaped down, and ran to the opening.
The change from the dazzling sunlight to the darkness confused him at
first, and he could see nothing. On entering he stumbled over something
which proved to be a bottle in which a candle was fitted, and a box of
matches evidently used by the two men. Lighting the candle he could now
discern that the cavern was only a few yards long, the beginning of a
tunnel which the accident to the tree had stopped. In one corner lay the
clothes that the men had left, and which for a moment seemed all that
the cavern contained, but on removing them Johnny saw that they were
thrown over a rifle, a revolver, and the two chamois-leather bags
that the men had brought there. They were so heavy that the boy
could scarcely lift them. His face flushed; his hands trembled with
excitement. To a boy whose truant wanderings had given him a fair
knowledge of mining, he knew that weight could have but one meaning!
Gold! He hurriedly untied the nearest bag. But it was not the gold of
the locality, of the tunnel, of the “bed rock”! It was “flake gold,”
the gold of the river! It had been taken from the miners' sluices in
the distant streams. The bags before him were the spoils of the sluice
robber,--spoils that could not be sold or even shown in the district
without danger, spoils kept until they could be taken to Marysville or
Sacramento for disposal. All this might have occurred to the mind of any
boy of the locality who had heard the common gossip of his elders, but
to Johnny's fancy an idea was kindled peculiarly his own! Here was a
cavern like that of the “Forty Thieves” in the story book, and he was
the “Ali Baba” who knew its secret! He was not obliged to say “Open
Sesame,” but he could say it if he liked, if he was showing it off to
anybody!
Yet alas he also knew it was a secret he must keep to himself. He had
nobody to trust it to. His father was a charcoal-burner of small means;
a widower with two children, Johnny and his elder brother Sam. The
latter, a flagrant incorrigible of twenty-two, with a tendency to
dissipation and low company, had lately abandoned his father's roof,
only to reappear at intervals of hilarious or maudlin intoxication.
He had always been held up to Johnny as a warning, or with the gloomy
prognosis that he, Johnny, was already following in his tortuous
footsteps. Even if he were here he was not to be thought of as a
confidant. Still less could he trust his father, who would be sure to
bungle the secret with sheriffs and constables, and end by bringing down
the vengeance of the gang upon the family. As for himself, he could not
dispose of the gold if he were to take it. The exhibition of a single
flake of it to the adult public would arouse suspicion, and as it was
Johnny's hard fate to be always doubted, he might be connected with the
gang. As a truant he knew he had no moral standing, but he also had
the superstition--quite characteristic of childhood--that being in
possession of a secret he was a participant in its criminality--and
bound, as it were, by terrible oaths! And then a new idea seized him.
He carefully put back everything as he had found it, extinguished the
candle, left the cave, remounted the tree, and closed the opening again
as he had seen the others do it, with the addition of murmuring “Shut
Sesame” to himself, and then ran away as fast as his short legs could
carry him.
Well clear of the dangerous vicinity, he proceeded more leisurely for
about a mile, until he came to a low whitewashed fence, inclosing a
small cultivated patch and a neat farmhouse beyond. Here he paused,
and, cowering behind the fence, with extraordinary facial contortions
produced a cry not unlike the scream of a blue jay. Repeating it at
intervals, he was presently relieved by observing the approach of a
nankeen sunbonnet within the inclosure above the line of fence. Stopping
before him, the sun-bonnet revealed a rosy little face, more than
usually plump on one side, and a neck enormously wrapped in a scarf. It
was “Meely” (Amelia) Stryker, a schoolmate, detained at home by “mumps,”
as Johnny was previously aware. For, with the famous indiscretion of
some other great heroes, he was about to intrust his secret and his
destiny to one of the weaker sex. And what were the minor possibilities
of contagion to this?
“Playin' hookey ag'in?” said the young lady, with a cordial and even
expansive smile, exclusively confined to one side of her face.
“Um! So'd you be ef you'd bin whar I hev,” he said with harrowing
mystery.
“No!--say!” said Meely eagerly.
At which Johnny, clutching at the top of the fence, with hurried breath
told his story. But not all. With the instinct of a true artist he
withheld the manner in which the opening of the cave was revealed, said
nothing about the tree, and, I grieve to say, added the words “Open
Sesame” as the important factor to the operation. Neither did he mention
the name of Spanish Pete. For all of which he was afterwards duly
grateful.
“Meet me at the burnt pine down the crossroads at four o'clock,” he said
in conclusion, “and I'll show ye.”
“Why not now?” said Meely impatiently.
“Couldn't. Much as my life is worth! Must keep watching out! You come at
four.”
And with an assuring nod he released the fence and trotted off. He
returned cautiously in the direction of the cave; he was by no means
sure that the robbers might not return that day, and his mysterious
rendezvous with Meely veiled a certain prudence. And it was well! For as
he stealthily crept around the face of the outcrop, hidden in the ferns,
he saw from the altered angle of the tree that the cavern was opened.
He remained motionless, with bated breath. Then he heard the sound of
subdued voices from the cavern, and a figure emerged from the opening.
Johnny grasped the ferns rigidly to check the dreadful cry that rose to
his lips at its sight. For that figure was his own brother!
There was no mistaking that weak, wicked face, even then flushed with
liquor! Johnny had seen it too often thus. But never before as a thief's
face! He gave a little gasp, and fell back upon that strange reserve of
apathy and reticence in which children are apt to hide their emotions
from us at such a moment. He watched impassively the two other men who
followed his brother out to give him a small bag and some instructions,
and then returned within their cave, while his brother walked quickly
away. He watched him disappear; he did not move, for even if he had
followed him he could not bear to face him in his shame. And then out of
his sullen despair came a boyish idea of revenge. It was those two men
who had made his brother a thief!
He was very near the tree. He crept stealthily on his hands and knees
through the bracken, and as stealthily climbed the wedge of outcrop,
and then leaped like a wild cat on the tree. With incredible activity he
lifted the balancing stone, and as the tree began to move, in a flash
of perception transferred it to the other side of its axis, and felt
the roots and debris, under that additional weight, descend quickly with
something like a crash over the opening. Then he took to his heels. He
ran so swiftly that all unknowingly he overtook a figure, who, turning,
glanced at him, and then disappeared in the wood. It was his second and
last view of his brother, as he never saw him again!
But now, strange to say, the crucial and most despairing moment of his
day's experience had come. He had to face Meely Stryker under the burnt
pine, and the promise he could not keep, and to tell her that he had
lied to her. It was the only way to save his brother now! His small
wits, and alas! his smaller methods, were equal to the despairing task.
As soon as he saw her waiting under the tree he fell to capering and
dancing with an extravagance in which hysteria had no small part. “Sold!
sold! sold again, and got the money!” he laughed shrilly.
The girl looked at him with astonishment, which changed gradually to
scorn, and then to anger. Johnny's heart sank, but he redoubled his
antics.
“Who's sold?” she said disdainfully.
“You be. You swallered all that stuff about Ali Baba! You wanted to be
Morgy Anna! Ho! ho! And I've made you play hookey--from home!”
“You hateful, horrid, little liar!”
Johnny accepted his punishment meekly--in his heart gratefully. “I
reckoned you'd laugh and not get mad,” he said submissively. The girl
turned, with tears of rage and vexation in her eyes, and walked away.
Johnny followed at a humble distance. Perhaps there was something
instinctively touching in the boy's remorse, for they made it up before
they reached her fence.
Nevertheless Johnny went home miserable. Luckily for him, his father was
absent at a Vigilance Committee called to take cognizance of the late
sluice robberies, and although this temporarily concealed his offense
of truancy, the news of the vigilance meeting determined him to keep
his lips sealed. He lay all night wondering how long it would take the
robbers to dig themselves out of the cave, and whether they suspected
their imprisonment was the work of an enemy or only an accident. For
several days he avoided the locality, and even feared the vengeful
appearance of Spanish Pete some night at his father's house. It was
not until the end of a fortnight that he had the courage to revisit the
spot. The tree was in its normal position, but immovable, and a great
quantity of fresh debris at the mouth of the cave convinced him that the
robbers, after escaping, had abandoned it as unsafe. His brother did not
return, and either the activity of the Vigilance Committee or the lack
of a new place of rendezvous seemed to have dispersed the robbers from
the locality, for they were not heard of again.
The next ten years brought an improvement to Mr. Starleigh's fortunes.
Johnny Starleigh, then a student at San Jose, one morning found a
newspaper clipping in a letter from Miss Amelia Stryker. It read as
follows: “The excavators in the new tunnel in Heavystone Ridge lately
discovered the skeletons of two unknown men, who had evidently been
crushed and entombed some years previously, by the falling of a large
tree over the mouth of their temporary refuge. From some river gold
found with them, they were supposed to be part of the gang of sluice
robbers who infested the locality some years ago, and were hiding from
the Vigilants.”
For a few days thereafter Johnny Starleigh was thoughtful and reserved,
but he did not refer to the paragraph in answering the letter. He
decided to keep it for later confidences, when Miss Stryker should
become Mrs. Starleigh.