THE MINER’S STORY
“Well, you got here at last, did you?” called Jim Nestor, as he came
forward to greet the boys and the professor as they alighted from the
airship. “We’ve been sort of sightin’ for ye the last few hours. I
calculated you’d be along about now, but Sledge Hammer Tod, here, he
allowed as how you wouldn’t show up for a week, and maybe not at all,
for he don’t believe in airships; do you, Tod?” and Jim looked at an
old miner who shuffled up with him.
“Never havin’ seen one, I put ’em in the same class with Santa Claus,”
answered the miner. “But I believe in ’em now.”
He glanced with wondering eyes at the big airship, which had settled
down on a level spot in front of the group of buildings that were
around the shaft of the boys’ gold mine.
“Boys, let me introduce to you my friend, Mr. Embury Tod--Sledge Hammer
Tod, I call him, for he hammers away at things, and there isn’t a
better miner going. Tod, these are the boys I was telling you of.”
“Pleased to meet you,” spoke the old miner, with a friendly nod. “And
so that’s the airship, eh?”
“Airship or motor ship, as we sometimes call it,” replied Jerry. “We
came all the way from the East in it.”
“You don’t say so!” exclaimed Sledge Hammer Tod. “That’s going some.”
“Have you seen anything of Noddy Nixon or his gang?” asked Ned.
“No, and I don’t want to,” replied Jim Nestor. “I received your letters
and telegrams, saying he might make trouble, but he hasn’t showed up
here yet, but when he does, why, Tod and I are ready for him, aren’t
we, Sledge Hammer?”
“That’s what,” and the old miner, who was several years the senior of
Nestor, clenched a brawny fist.
“Tod’s my new foreman,” went on Jim. “The work got so heavy I had to
have help.”
“Then the mine’s doing well?” inquired Jerry.
“Couldn’t be better.”
Jerry’s face showed the relief he felt. “Well, what kind of a trip did
you have?” went on Nestor. “Land sakes, I never see such boys! First
you come all the way out here in an auto, and locate a mine I thought
was as good as gone. Then you come in an airship. Next I s’pose you’ll
be growing wings, and flying without any apparatus whatever.”
“Hardly, yet awhile,” commented Jerry, who then went into detail about
the trip, telling of Noddy’s theft of the airship, and how they had
stopped on their way to carry the cable across the river.
“But the funny part of it was,” went on Jerry, “that when Noddy stole
our airship, we have every reason to believe that there was with him an
old man, who you will remember, Jim. He was Jackson----”
At that moment Professor Snodgrass fairly jumped toward Tod.
“Excuse me!” exclaimed the scientist. “Don’t move an inch, I beg of
you! It’s very important. Don’t stir!”
“If it’s a rattlesnake, jest stomp on its head,” said the miner,
coolly. “I’m not afraid of ’em. Where is it?” and he prepared to turn
around.
“Quiet! Quiet!” begged the little bald-headed man. “I will have it in
a second,” and he made a dive for the miner’s boot. “There!” exclaimed
the professor, “I have it!”
He arose, holding something tightly in his hand, and he quickly
transferred it to his green specimen box, at the same time remarking:
“That certainly was a beauty; worth at least fifty dollars at the
lowest calculation!”
The old miner looked at the professor, and then at the boys. Then he
pointed significantly to his head. The scientist did not see him.
“What did you capture that time?” asked Bob.
“A rare specimen of a jumping fly,” was the answer. “It is the first
one I have ever seen,” and the scientist began to jot down in his book
some notes concerning it.
“He isn’t crazy, Sledge Hammer,” declared Jim Nestor, in a whisper, for
he knew what his foreman thought. “He jest collects bugs, that’s all,”
and, while Professor Snodgrass moved off to one side, to look for more
jumping flies, the boys explained the fad of their friend.
“But you started to say something about a Mr. Jackson,” remarked Jim
Nestor, to Jerry.
“Not Mr. Jackson, but Jackson Bell, the old hermit,” was the answer,
and Jerry proceeded to explain as much of the mystery as he knew; how
he believed that Mr. Bell had come East to get aid in rescuing some
of his friends from a mysterious valley, how he had been deceived
by Noddy, taken in the airship, and how he disappeared, leaving the
fragments of a letter behind him.
“I wish we could find him,” went on Jerry, “and aid his friends. But,
after thinkin’ it all over, I am sometimes inclined to believe that Mr.
Bell’s mind may have become weakened, and that he imagined all that
about his friends being in danger in some valley.”
“Very likely,” assented Nestor. “I guess there’s not much stock to be
taken in it.”
“Yes, there is!” suddenly exclaimed the old miner.
“Is what?” asked Nestor.
“Stock to be taken in that story,” answered Tod. “I don’t know this
Mr. Jackson Bell, but I do happen to know that somewhere in the Rocky
Mountains is a mysterious valley, where there is supposed to be a party
of whites--men, women and children--who have been lost for years.”
“You know something like that, and never told me?” asked Nestor,
somewhat reproachfully.
“Well, you never asked me,” went on Tod, “and, for that matter, the
story is an old one.”
“Tell it to us,” begged Jerry, eagerly, believing that they had
unexpectedly gotten on the track of the mystery.
“Well, there isn’t much to tell, or, rather, I don’t know an awful lot
about it,” resumed Tod. “It happened a number of years ago. A party
of Easterners who got tired of the life in cities decided to come out
West. They heard of a place where some good gold claims could be had,
nothing remarkable, you know, but sufficient to attract them. They
planned to come together, take up claims, build a little settlement and
live there the rest of their lives.
“Well, they started out, and they got to the mountains. Men I’ve
known, who have been prospecting since forty-nine remember to have met
the party on their travels. As I said, they had nearly reached their
diggings when they suddenly disappeared.”
“Where to?” asked Bob, who, like his companions, was greatly interested.
“That’s the mystery of it,” answered Tod. “No one knew where they went
to. The last seen of them was that they were being led up into the
Uncompahgre mountains in Colorado, and an Indian was their guide. Some
old prospectors seen ’em, and they thought it was rather risky for to
trust an Indian, but they didn’t say nothin’, for folks out here get
in the habit of mindin’ their own business. Anyway, that was the last
seen of the party of white folks. As I said, there were men, women and
children, though the children must be growed up now.”
“How many of them were there?” asked Bob softly.
“About two score, I reckon, though if they’re alive now I don’t s’pose
there’s so many, for some must have died, as they were old men. Anyhow
that’s the story of the missing party. They were called the ‘Deering
Band,’ as they were led by a man named Deering. I don’t s’pose they
will ever be located, but it’s true, what your friend Jackson Bell
intimated, that there is a mystery about them. Though how Bell came
to know of them, and why he started to rescue them is more than I can
figure. But Deering and his crowd seem to have disappeared from the
face of the earth. Maybe the Indians killed them all.”
“That’s what we always thought,” spoke a voice at the side of Sledge
Hammer Tod. It came so suddenly that everyone gave a start, until it
was seen that it was Professor Snodgrass who had made the remark.
“Do you know the story of the missing Deering Band?” asked Jerry. “We
did not speak to you about this mystery, Professor, as we did not want
to take your mind off your work.”
“Know about it? Of course, I know about it,” was the unexpected reply.
“Amos Deering, the leader, was my cousin!”