THE GUARDIAN OF THE SILVER LODE.
As has been mentioned before, Thad had a plan in view when he left the
camp in company with Aleck, somewhere about midnight. Though for
certain reasons which he considered good, he had not seen fit to take
a single one of his comrades into his confidence, the scoutmaster
believed that the only way for Aleck to win his own game was to find
the long-lost mine, and take possession of the same in the name of
his father, who had been the original discoverer of the lode.
Scores of hungry prospectors, besides Kracker, had done everything in
their power to locate the mine; though none had descended to his last
unworthy methods of trying to torture Jerry Rawson's son, in the hope
of profiting thereby. As the claim of the original discoverer rested
only on a scant foundation, of course the man lucky enough to find the
silver lode again would have a right to hold possession, in the eye of
the law. He might choose to pay the widow something, but even that was
a matter resting solely upon his conscience.
Thad had a reason for carrying the only lantern belonging to the
scouts; and he hoped that if they were so lucky as to find that
Aleck's rude little chart told the truth, they might utilize that
means of illumination when entering the mine.
Of course both of them carried their guns, for there was no telling when
they could return to camp. An arrangement had been with Allan, so that
day and night there would be a sign shown, calculated to tell the absent
ones whether the coast were clear, or the lawyer and sheriff still
hovered near by, waiting to entrap the Rawson boy, should he show up.
They had moved along for some time, when Aleck broke the silence by
saying, with considerable feeling in his voice:
"It makes me glad to know you believed what I told you, Thad, about
that business of my uncle. If you could only meet up with him once,
I'm sure you'd know the tricky kind of man he is, just from his looks,
and the smooth way he talks. But no matter what they all do and say,
I'm just bound to carry my plans out. My mother approves of what I am
doing; and she is thinking of me, and praying all the time I'm up
here, trying to take dad's place."
"Don't mention it," said Thad, quickly. "Of course we all believe
every word you told us, no matter whether we've met this rascally
uncle of yours or not. Our chum Step Hen did, and I reckon he wasn't
much impressed with him, from the way he talked. And as you belong to
the scouts, our first duty is to stand by you through thick and thin."
"Only as long as you believe in my word, Thad," added the other.
"That's true," returned the other, quickly; "even a scout has no
business sticking up for a comrade when he knows the other is in the
wrong; but we believe in you, Aleck. And if only you could find that
mine, I feel sure all of this funny business would stop. Once you had
put in a claim, with the proper witnesses, and hurried to file it
before the court, nobody could steal it away. And that's going to be
just where the Boy Scouts can help you."
"Well, we'll know more than we do now, before a great many hours,"
asserted the miner's son; "unless this little map is all wrong, and
poor dad only believed he had found a rich lode. But remember, he
brought home specimens that were nearly pure silver; and every one who
saw them said they beat the world for richness. I can remember my dad
saying that there were tons and tons without end of that same sort, in
_his_ mine. And then he was suddenly taken down sick, and died with
the secret untold. All these long years, when we've been poor and
wanting many things, there that secret lay in my hand, oh! hundreds of
times, and I never dreamed of it still accident showed me the paper,
back of the glass in the little pocket mirror that dad had carried
with him a long time."
They relapsed into silence again for a long time, each busy with his
thoughts. Aleck knew what few simple directions his rude chart
carried; he had gazed at it so many times that it was photographed on
his mind, and there had been no need for him to rip the seam of his
coat, and take the slip of faded paper out. Kracker had not dreamed
how near the coveted clue had been to his hands, at the time he
actually held the boy, and closely examined all his pockets.
"It's lucky," remarked Thad, after fully an hour more had passed, with
both boys pushing forward steadily all the time, over rugged ways that
severely tried their abilities--"it's lucky, I say, that we are
heading exactly away from the direction where that Sheriff, and your
uncle, must be coming from."
"Yes, but I knew we'd do that before we ever started out," replied
Aleck.
"You've been sizing up the region all day in camp, and laying your
plans, if the chance ever came to try them out; isn't that so, Aleck?"
"You never said truer words in your life, Thad," answered the other.
"I found a pretty high rock on which I could perch; and that gave me a
chance to look over in this region with those fine glasses of yours.
And I tell you now, it gave me a great thrill when I recognized
something dad had marked on that little chart. It seemed just as if I
could hear his voice calling me from the grave, and telling me I was
doing the right thing--to go ahead, no matter who tried to stop me."
"What sort of a land-mark was it you saw?" asked the other scout.
"Why, you see, he made a rough sketch of a rock that looks a whole lot
like a human head," Aleck went on to say, earnestly.
"Why, hello! I remember noticing that very same rock, the time I went
up to take a look, and see if I could get a glimpse of our hunter
squad. While about it, I turned the glasses around, to see if there
were any sheep on the sides of the mountains to the south. And it was
right then I saw that outline of a face, cut in the rock, just like
somebody had used a giant chisel and made it--nose, mouth, chin,
forehead, all complete. It startled me a little at first, Aleck."
"I should guess it would, Thad; but think what it meant to _me_, when
I had seen it on dad's little chart; and knew that the entrance to his
hidden mine lay almost in the shadow of that face! I think he looked
on it as the rock guardian to his silver lode."
"Is that a fact?" ejaculated Thad, partaking in a measure of the
excitement that shook the frame of his companion; "Well, that's more
than you've seen fit to tell me before, Aleck; and it's some
interesting, I own up."
"I meant to tell you everything, Thad, believe me," declared the
other, quickly, and with some emotion. "After the fine way you and
your chums rescued me from that shelf up on the face of the cliff, and
said you'd stand by me, no matter what happened, why, I made up my
mind that I would keep nothing back from you. By to-morrow I expected
to take the map out from the lining of my coat, where it was sewed in
by my mother's own dear hands, so that nobody would ever think things
had been disturbed at all. And now, I'm surely hoping that we'll both
set eyes on dad's mine before another dawn breaks."
"For your sake, Aleck, I hope that will come true. You deserve all
the luck in the world, and that's what every one of our fellows say.
But only for this moonlight I'm afraid we'd have had a hard job of it,
coming all this distance; because the way is mighty rough, and both of
us have stumbled lots of times as it is. We might have used the
lantern, of course, but that would have put it out of business later,
when we wanted it bad; and besides, it's flickering might have told
our enemies where we were."
Aleck felt a thrill of pleasure at the way the other used that word
"our;" why, it was just as though the Silver Fox Patrol had adopted
him into the troop; and meant to make his cause their own. For a boy
who had seldom had a friend to give him even words of encouragement,
this was a glorious happening indeed. He felt that it had been the
luckiest hour of his whole life when, in the midst of his bitter
dejection, left alone on that high and isolated rocky ledge, he had
discovered the strange movements of that fiery pencil, that seemed to
be making all sorts of extravagant figures and circles in the air,
which he knew stood for the means of communication between scouts.
"Let us work our way around this spur," he said, a while later, after
they had continued to advance further into the depths of the mountains.
"I can guess what you are thinking," Thad went on to remark; "you
believe that we must even now be in the neighborhood of that rock face."
"Well, I've tried to judge the distance, and how we got along; and it
seems to me we ought to be nearly there. What do you think, Thad?"
asked the other; and from his manner it was evident that he laid
considerable importance on the opinion of his companion.
"Just what you do, which is, that we must be getting close to where we
saw that great head outlined just as if some scupltor had chiseled it
from the solid rock. But even if we fail to find it, Aleck, that may
be because of the formation of the mountain. Besides, this moonlight
is awfully deceptive, you know."
"Wait, and we'll soon learn," was the confident answer. "I sat there,
and looked for nearly an hour. I guess I got every rock fixed on my
mind."
"Well, I've had a few of the same impressed on my knees and shins,"
chuckled the scoutmaster, drily. "But we've no need to complain,
because, considering all the things we've had to fight against, I
reckon we've escaped pretty slick. See anything yet, Aleck?"
"No, I own that I don't; but then, that may come from lots of causes,"
the other boy replied, trying not to let his disappointment show in
his manner or speech; for he knew that Thad did not believe in a
display of weakness in scouts. "Perhaps, when we've pushed on a
little further, we may be able to glimpse the face again."
"Wait right here," said Thad, suddenly.
"Oh! did you hear anything? Wouldn't it be too unbearably hard if we
learned that some one, perhaps that cruel prospector, Colonel Kracker,
had been ahead of us, and located the hidden mine? He could hurry to
enter his claim, and my poor mother would not stand a ghost of a show.
Was it a voice you heard, Thad?"
"I didn't hear anything to bother me," came the reply, accompanied
with a low chuckle. "I was only thinking how often we strain ourselves
to see something away off, when all we have to do is to turn our eyes
up and look."
Aleck instantly "caught on" to what his companion meant. He bent his
head back, and gave utterance to a low cry of satisfaction.
"Well, if that doesn't beat anything?" he ejaculated, apparently highly
pleased; "it's the head, as sure as I live, and towering right above us,
almost. No wonder I couldn't see it, looking away off, and thinking it
lay further on. We've found the land-mark dad set down in his little
map, Thad. And now to discover the crack in the wall, hidden by the
hanging vines, where he followed a fox in, just out of curiosity, and
discovered the richest silver lode he ever knew about. Oh! I'm just
shaking all over with excitement. And I sure hope my mother's thinking
about me right now, thinking, and praying for me to succeed!"