A FATEFUL CROSSING
The remainder of the afternoon was passed in getting their supplies to
the river. This task was accomplished with the greatest care possible.
Sandy led the pack-horse, while Dick and Toma went forward, rifles in
hand, ever on the alert. In dead silence, they scanned the woods to the
right and left for a possible sign of their recent enemy.
One piece of good fortune came with the discovery of a safe crossing
place in the river. Toma had found it after a half hour of
reconnoitring, while Dick and Sandy awaited his return on the steep
slope, near the top of the canyon.
“Mebbe we swim pony across in the morning,” he confided, smiling for the
first time in several hours. “River wide an’ very few rapids. Find ’em
plenty easy for raft.”
With Dick standing guard, the raft was built that same night, and, on
the following morning, supplies and equipment aboard, they were ready
for the crossing.
“The thing to do first,” said Sandy, scratching his head, “is to get our
little playmate, Sir Bucking Broncho, into the water. How do we go about
it, Toma?”
Toma led the pony down to the water’s edge and coaxed and cajoled the
little beast but to no avail. The horse sniffed, snorted, swung around
this way and that, but refused stubbornly to do more than wet his front
fetlocks at the brink of the running stream. He was a good pony, but he
was taking no chances.
Dick laughed in spite of himself, although the delay was irksome.
“I don’t know as I blame him very much. The water does look cold and
it’s a long way across. Perhaps, we’ll have to leave him on this side
after all. Do you suppose the three of us could push him in?”
The pack-horse not only refused to be pushed, but resented the liberty
taken. A glancing blow sent Sandy reeling back and deposited him, none
too gently, in the exact center of a willow copse, where he sat for a
moment with a surprised look on his face. The look of surprise changed
to one of anger as there came to his ears the loud guffaws of Dick and
Toma.
“Laugh if you want to,” said the aggrieved young man, rising and
brushing his clothing. “It may interest you to know that I’m through.
You fellows can do your pushing alone.”
The merriment subsided presently and Dick turned to Toma.
“I guess we’ll have to give up,” he decided, wiping the tears of
laughter from his eyes. “Your friend, has plainly indicated his
intention of remaining on this side. Perhaps he doesn’t like your
company, Sandy.”
“And perhaps he does,” Sandy retorted promptly. “I’m blaming you, not
the pony. Any idiot ought to know that that’s no way to treat a horse.”
“If you like, you can coax him over with a lump of sugar,” Dick grinned.
Sandy turned his back upon his tormenter.
“Go ahead and don’t mind me. Why don’t you put your own vast
intelligence to work in some practical way? I wouldn’t give up if I were
you.”
“I try once more,” Toma suddenly announced. “I think this time I make
pony swim across. You, Dick, Sandy, stand on raft ready push off jes’ so
soon as I get in water.”
“Get in water!” cried Dick in alarm. “Why you’re not going to swim, are
you?”
“Watch!—See!”
Toma walked back, leading the horse. Thirty feet from the shore he
bolted to the pony’s bare back, wheeled the animal abruptly about, and
came forward at a brisk trot. Dick and Sandy jumped aboard the raft,
poles in hand, ready to push off. At the river’s edge the pony
hesitated, but a quick pressure from Toma’s heels sent him plunging into
the water. A second later steed and rider struck out boldly for the
opposite shore.
As the raft came abreast of the two swimmers, Toma released his hold of
the pony’s mane and, lead-rope in hand, scrambled aboard.
“Like clock work,” exulted Sandy, slapping Toma’s dripping shoulders.
“You’re a wonder, Toma, and there’s no mistake about that. Even Dick
would never have dared to pull a stunt like that.”
“You’re right,” Dick returned good-naturedly, “I never would.”
The crossing was made without mishap. As the craft glided up to the
rocky shore, Dick and Sandy cheered lustily.
“Before we do anything more,” said Dick a few minutes later, when they
had unloaded the raft, “I think we had better decide upon some definite
course of action. Unless this map and everything connected with it is a
hoax, we are now within a few miles of the mine.”
“Yes,” said Sandy.
“Well,” Dick continued, “we are all very anxious to find it. From now on
our search must be painstaking and we musn’t waste any more time than is
absolutely necessary.”
“Of course,” Sandy agreed, “but where are we going to look first?”
“That’s a question we’d better decide right away. The place where we’re
standing now,” Dick made a sweeping gesture with his arm, “seems to form
one end of a more or less oval space, which lies between the river on
one side and the dry canyon or ravine on the other.
“The mine,” he went on slowly, “may be located in any one of a number of
likely places. It may be in the oval, stretching away behind us, or in
the ravine, or somewhere on the other side of the ravine. In which of
these places are we going to search first?”
“The ravine,” said Sandy. “I believe we’ll be more apt to find the mine
there.”
“I think ravine too,” Toma agreed with him. “What you say we make camp
here while we look for mine? No use take supplies an’ pony along
everywhere we go.”
“That’s a good suggestion. This will be our base, which we can always
come back to. Anyway, it won’t take more than an hour or two to travel
through the ravine from one end to the other. If the mine’s there, we’ll
be sure to find it in a very short time.”
“There’s one thing I don’t like about this arrangement,” Sandy pointed
out. “If we make our base here—which seems a pretty good idea—aren’t we
running the chance of losing everything? In our absence the Indians
could easily slip down here and steal it all. Put us in a nice pickle,
wouldn’t it?”
“It would!” Dick declared most emphatically. “One of us will have to
remain here, that’s all.”
“Which one of us?”
The three boys looked at each other. It was quite apparent from the
expression on the face of each, that none of them wished to remain
behind. To go and look for the gold mine was much more interesting and
exciting.
“I guess we’ll have to draw straws,” Dick grinned.
“That’s fair enough,” Sandy broke off a twig as he spoke.
He divided the twig in three small pieces—one shorter than the rest. He
turned his back as he arranged them in his hand.
The unpleasant choice of remaining to guard the camp fell to Dick. For a
moment his face clouded with disappointment as he gazed at the tell-tale
straw.
“O well,” he comforted himself, “I’ll have my chance later on.”
Sandy and Toma rose joyfully to their feet, slung on their
shoulder-packs and otherwise prepared for an immediate departure.
“We’ll be back before lunch time,” Sandy sang out, as the two made their
way across the comparatively level piece of ground, and headed for the
ravine.
“Good luck!” shouted Dick.
A few moments later they had disappeared.
“I hope they find it,” Dick mused, turning away. “Sandy will be
overjoyed.”
He walked back to the packs, his thoughts in a whirl of excitement. A
few feet away the packhorse grazed contentedly. The camp, since the
departure of his two friends, had become strangely quiet. There was only
the sound of the river to break the heavy, all-pervading silence.
Digging down in one of the packs, Dick brought forth presently a hook
and line and afterward, cutting a pole from a clump of bushes and
procuring a small piece of moose meat for bait, he turned his attention
to the river.
Dick loved to fish and on this particular morning luck was with him. The
water swarmed with trout. In less than twenty minutes he had pulled out
a good two-days’ supply of them.
“It doesn’t require a great amount of skill to do this,” he informed
himself, throwing out his line for the last time. “If I had a hay fork,
I believe I could pitch ’em out by the ton. Great Caesar! What’s that!”
A quick splashing in the water on the opposite shore had drawn his
attention, caused him to straighten up in sudden alarm.
“A moose!” he ejaculated, breathing his relief. “I thought maybe it was
something else.”
He stood perfectly still as the majestic swimmer came on.
“I can’t shoot him—I can’t!” decided Dick, his admiring gaze on the
monarch of the northland forests, watching with bated breath as the
splendid beast continued its course across the murky, discolored stream.
“Anyway,” he continued, “it wouldn’t be fair to take an advantage like
that. Our larder is full of meat now.”
He actually turned his back a moment later as he rolled up his line,
picked up the fish he had caught and walked back to the packs. Yet he
swung about again when the moose plunged to shore, scarcely more than a
hundred feet away. Head raised high, the magnificent animal struck out
at a brisk trot and was soon lost to view.
“I’m glad I didn’t take a shot at him,” Dick breathed thankfully. “He
was too wonderful.”
The morning wore on. It was eleven o’clock when Dick consulted his
watch, and only a few minutes after when Toma and Sandy appeared.
Haggard-eyed, faces gray with dust, they loped into camp and threw
themselves down, gasping for breath.
“We’ve got to get out of here quick!” Sandy wheezed, turning a
terror-stricken gaze upon his chum. “I’m fagged out.... Crawled a
hundred yards on our bellies before we dared to get up and run.... We
haven’t a moment to lose.”
“Why, Sandy, what do you mean?”
“They’re coming now!”
Sandy staggered to his feet; Toma raced to get the pony. It was not
until the packs had been lifted and tied into place, that Dick was made
aware of the danger which threatened them.
“Indian encampment over there in the ravine. Ran right into it. Dick,
I’m afraid they saw us.”
Dick’s pulses quickened perceptibly as he received the disconcerting
news.
“We’ll cross the river. Better there. Don’t bother with the pack-horse.”
“No, Toma thinks we’ll be safer among those high rocks behind us.”
As Dick paused for a brief space undecided, Toma seized the lead rope,
motioning frantically.
“I see ’em first fellow already. Look out!”
He raced forward, pressed the lead-rope in Dick’s hands, then fell back
to cover their retreat. His rifle roared intermittently as they made
their way up the slope.
“Our chance is slim, but we may make it,” Sandy breathed in his chum’s
ear. “You see, Dick, there’s the danger of being cut off. We may walk
straight into a trap.”
“You think they may climb up from their side of the ravine and head us
off.”
“Yes,” shuddered Sandy. “It will be sure to happen if we don’t hurry.”
“Encumbered as we are with this pony, I don’t see how we can hurry. The
farther we go, the harder it’s going to be. We’ll never reach that high
point of rocks up there at this rate.”
“Let’s wait here until Toma catches up with us. I think myself we’re
risking our lives needlessly by taking the pony along. He’s too much of
a hindrance.”
Toma came up and the situation was explained to him.
“All right, we unload pony,” he said tersely, suiting the action to the
word. “Sandy, you, Dick stand by ready with guns.”
The task took but a moment. They were off again at a dead run, while the
pack-horse stood gazing reproachfully after them.