THE DISAPPEARANCE OF LEW BILLINGS
“Lew Billings has disappeared!” exclaimed Tom Rover.
“Yes, partner. Teetotally and completely vamoosed, and nobody knows
where to,” answered the strange miner.
“Do you think he has been the victim of foul play?” went on the father
of the twins, his face showing his concern.
“I can’t say as to that. He left between two days, as the saying goes.
Nobody saw him go. That is, if they did see him they haven’t mentioned
it,” corrected Hank Butts.
“Did you come here to tell me this?”
“I did. You see, Lew and me have been partners for a good many years.
We went up to the Klondike together, and we also staked out the Blue
Daisy claim. Me and Lew was just like brothers. He told me a little
about what you expected to do when you got here, and told me about
when he expected you to arrive. That’s the reason I’ve been on the
lookout for you.”
“Did you say you’ve been working with Billings?”
“Not exactly. You know the mine is divided into two veins, the north
and the south. Lew always had charge up at the north end while I work
under a man named Haggerty at the south end. But we got together quite
often, just for the sake of old times,” went on Hank Butts.
The boys listened with much interest to this conversation and continued
to listen when Butts explained more in detail concerning the mysterious
disappearance of Lew Billings. He said that Billings and the manager at
the mine, Peter Garrish, had had a hot discussion over certain matters
concerning the way the work was being carried on in the north vein, and
he was afraid Billings had said too much.
“He mentioned you, Mr. Rover, and also a Chicago capitalist named
Renton, and that seemed to make Garrish wild. I understand the two had
it hot and heavy for quite a while, and then Billings went away in
disgust.”
“Was that the night he disappeared?” asked Jack. Tom Rover had
explained to the miner that the boys were his two sons and his two
nephews.
“That’s it. Garrish and Lew had their argument about five o’clock. Then
Lew went down to the bunkhouse, and a little later had his supper.
After that he got some kind of a message and went up the mountainside
where they had reported some kind of a landslide a few days before.
That was the last seen of Lew by any one of our men.”
“Gee! you don’t suppose he was swallowed up by the landslide?”
exclaimed Randy.
“There wasn’t no landslide when Lew went there. That happened several
days before. Besides, me and some other men searched the whole vicinity
and didn’t find no trace of Lew.”
“But he might have been caught in a new slide and buried out of sight,”
said Andy.
“It’s possible, my lad. But I don’t think so. Lew Billings was a very
careful man, and he wouldn’t go prowling around no loose dirt or rocks
unless he knew what he was doing. In all the years he’s been mining and
prospecting, I never knew him to get caught in any such way as that.”
“Well, what’s your idea, Butts? Give it to me straight,” came sharply
from Tom Rover. “We’re both friends of Lew Billings, so there is no use
in beating about the bush.”
“Well, it ain’t for me to say what happened to Lew,” returned the
old miner doggedly. “I told you about the argument he had with Peter
Garrish. Maybe that had something to do with it, and maybe it didn’t.”
“Well, Lew Billings is my friend and Peter Garrish is not,” answered
Tom Rover bluntly. “This looks like some sort of foul play to me.”
“Oh, Dad, you don’t think they would――――” Andy broke off short, hardly
daring to go on.
“I don’t know what to think, Andy,” was his father’s sober reply. “This
is rather a wild country, you know; and I have told you my opinion of
Garrish and his crowd before.”
“Do you think it possible that Billings took a train to Chicago to head
you off?” questioned Jack. “He might have gained some new information
that he wanted to get to you as soon as possible.”
“I don’t think he took no train,” interposed Hank Butts. “Leastwise,
not from this station. I’ve asked the station master, and he named over
everybody who got a ticket and went aboard, both ways. If he took a
train at all, it would have been from some other place.”
“Can’t you figure it out at all, Butts?” questioned the twins’ father.
“No, I can’t. I don’t think Garrish is the man to shoot another
fellow. He’s too much of a coward. But he might play Lew some underhand
trick. I think Lew made a big mistake to mention you and that Mr.
Renton.”
“Maybe that gave this Peter Garrish an idea that Billings knew too much
and ought to be gotten out of the way,” suggested Jack.
“It almost looks like that,” answered his uncle. “But the question just
now is: What did they do with the man?”
The matter was talked over for some time longer, but no one could
suggest a solution of the mystery. Lew Billings, the individual
Tom Rover had depended on in his fight to maintain his rights in
the Rolling Thunder mine, had disappeared, and Tom was almost at a
standstill concerning what to do next.
“Aren’t you going over to Sunset Trail?” demanded Randy anxiously. “You
aren’t going to back out, are you, Dad?”
“No, I’m not going to back out,” was the firm reply. “But I suppose
I’ll have to change my plans somewhat, awaiting the reappearance of
Lew Billings or some word from him. He wrote that he had important
information, but he didn’t give sufficient details for me to go ahead
alone. If Billings doesn’t show up, I suppose all I can do is to wait
until Mr. Renton comes.”
Hank Butts had come over to Maporah on horseback, leading one other
steed, that belonging to Lew Billings.
“And that proves that Lew didn’t go away on horseback,” said Butts,
“because it’s the only nag he owns. I brought him over in case I met up
with you,” and he nodded to Tom Rover.
“Well, I’ve got to find some sort of mounts for the boys,” answered the
twins’ father. “Otherwise, we’ll have to make some arrangement to stay
here.”
“You might get a shakedown over to Gus Terwilliger’s,” answered the old
miner, waving his hand toward the store. “He’s got a kind of bunkhouse
in the back there. It ain’t much of a place, but the miners and cowboys
use it sometimes, when they’ve got to wait for trains.”
“Do you suppose he has any horses?”
“I can’t say. He might have.”
“I don’t suppose they have anything in the way of an auto running up
that way?” came from Fred.
“Not much!” and for the first time since meeting them Hank Butts
grinned. “Pretty good going down here, but once you get in the
mountains, and you couldn’t run an auto a hundred yards. Besides, some
of them trails is so narrow a horse can’t scarcely navigate ’em.”
“In that case, how did they get the mining machinery up there?”
questioned Jack.
“It all had to come in by the lower route, lad. It’s over a hundred
miles more than this way around. But they had to do it, for there ain’t
no other way to reach Gold Hill――that is, by wagon.”
The crowd had walked away from the station and now came back to find
the place deserted and locked up.
“No more trains to stop here until nine o’clock to-morrow morning,”
announced Hank Butts, as he untied the two horses and offered one of
the steeds to Tom Rover. “Each of us might carry one of the boys, but I
don’t see how we could carry two,” he went on.
“We’ll go over to the store and see what we can do,” answered the
twins’ father, and with the boys walking and the men riding they soon
reached the general store which the miner had indicated. Here the last
of the customers had departed, and the proprietor sat in an easy chair
dozing with his pipe hanging from the corner of his mouth.
“Sure! I can give you a shakedown for the night if you want it,” said
Gus Terwilliger, after the situation had been explained to him. “Or,
if you want it, I may be able to fit you out with horses.”
“Didn’t know you had so many animals, Gus!” exclaimed Butts, in
surprise.
“Oh, a general store like this has got to keep everything,” answered
the storekeeper, with a grin, and then went on to explain that six
cowboys had gone away on a vacation and had left their steeds in his
care.
“They said I could hire ’em out to any responsible parties that came
along,” went on Gus Terwilliger. “They’d be mighty glad to get a little
money out of the beasts instead of having ’em eat their heads off in my
corral. Cowboys ain’t any too wealthy, you know.”
The quarters the storekeeper had to offer were clean and fairly
comfortable, and after another talk with Hank Butts Tom Rover decided
to stay at Maporah over night.
“If we went over to Gold Hill with you it might only make more trouble
for you,” he explained to the old miner. “You had better go back and
say nothing about having seen me. We can ride over to-morrow just as
well as not. But I’m going to depend on you as a friend, Butts,” he
added, taking the old miner by the hand. “And if you hear of anything
worth knowing, don’t fail to let me know about it and at once.”
To this the old miner agreed, and a few minutes later set off on
horseback, taking Lew Billings’s mount with him. Then the Rovers
reëntered the general store and asked the proprietor if he could give
them their supper.
“Sure thing! And breakfast, too,” answered Gus Terwilliger. “That’s
what my wife and two daughters are here for――to wait on all customers.”
The boys were shown a place where they could wash, and a little later
they and their uncle were conducted to a small but comfortable dining
room and there treated to a home-cooked meal that, while perhaps not
as elaborate as those served on the train, was entirely satisfactory.
The two Terwilliger girls waited on the table and smiled broadly at the
visitors.
“Going to work in the mine?” questioned one of the girls, a miss of
fifteen.
“No. We came out to hunt elephants,” answered Andy, with a wink, and
thereupon both girls giggled and soon became quite friendly.
After the meal the horses were brought out and examined and Tom Rover,
with the aid of the boys, selected five of the mounts, and also hired
the sixth animal for the purpose of transporting their baggage up to
Sunset Trail.
“Well, Uncle Tom, things don’t look very bright, do they?” questioned
Jack of his uncle when they were ready to turn in.
“They certainly do not, Jack,” was the sober reply. “This unexpected
disappearance of Lew Billings upsets me a good deal. I hardly know what
to expect when I reach the mine.”
“Do you think you’ll have trouble with this Peter Garrish?” questioned
Randy.
“I certainly do! A whole lot of trouble!” answered Tom Rover.