THE SECRET OF THE HILL
It was the morning following the great storm, a perfect day of
cloudless sunshine, and the Padre and Buck were on their way from the
fur fort to the camp. Their mission was to learn the decision of its
inhabitants as to their abandonment of the valley; and in the Padre's
pocket was a large amount of money for distribution.
The elder man's spirits were quietly buoyant. Nor did there seem to be
much reason why they should be. But the Padre's moods, even to his
friends, were difficult to account for. Buck, on the contrary, seemed
lost in a reverie which held him closely, and even tended to make his
manner brusque.
But his friend, in the midst of his own cheerful feelings, would not
allow this to disturb him. Besides, he was a far shrewder man than his
simple manner suggested.
"It's well to be doing, lad," he said, after some considerable
silence. "Makes you feel good. Makes you feel life's worth a bigger
price than we mostly set it at."
His quiet eyes took the other in in a quick, sidelong glance. He saw
that Buck was steadily, but unseeingly, contemplating the black slopes
of Devil's Hill, which now lay directly ahead.
"Guess you aren't feeling so good, boy?" he went on after a moment's
thoughtful pause.
The direct challenge brought a slow smile to Buck's face, and he
answered with surprising energy--
"Good? Why, I'm feelin' that good I don't guess even--even Beasley
could rile me this mornin'."
The Padre nodded with a responsive smile.
"And Beasley can generally manage to rile you."
"Yes, he's got that way, surely," laughed Buck frankly. "Y' see
he's--he's pretty mean."
"I s'pose he is," admitted the other. Then he turned his snow-white
head and glanced down at the lean flanks of Caesar as the horse walked
easily beside his mare.
"And that boy, Kid, was out in all that storm on your Caesar," he went
on, changing the subject quickly from the man whom he knew bore him an
absurd animosity. "A pretty great horse, Caesar. He's looking none the
worse for fetching that whisky either. Guess the boys'll be getting
over their drunk by now. And it's probably done 'em a heap of good.
You did right to encourage 'em. Maybe there's folks would think
differently. But then they don't just understand, eh?"
"No."
Buck had once more returned to his reverie, and the Padre smiled. He
thought he understood. He had listened overnight to a full account of
the arrival of the new owner of their farm, and had gleaned some
details of her attractiveness and youth. He knew well enough how
surely the isolated mountain life Buck lived must have left him open
to strong impressions.
They set their horses at a canter down the long declining trail which
ran straight into the valley above which Devil's Hill reared its ugly
head. And as they went the signs of the storm lay everywhere about
them. Their path was strewn with debris. The havoc was stupendous.
Tree trunks were lying about like scattered nine-pins. Riven trunks,
split like match-wood by the lightning, stood beside the trail, gaunt
and hopeless. Partially-severed limbs hung drooping, their weeping
foliage appealing to the stricken world about them for a sympathy
which none could give. Even the hard, sun-baked trail, hammered and
beaten to an iron consistency under a hundred suns of summer, was
scored with now dry water-courses nearly a foot deep. With all his
knowledge and long experience of the mountains even the Padre was
filled with awe at the memory of what he had witnessed.
"Makes you think, Buck, doesn't it?" he said, pointing at a stately
forest giant stretched prone along the edge of the trail, its proud
head biting deeply into the earth, and its vast roots lifting twenty
and more feet into the air. "I was out in the worst of it, too," he
went on thoughtfully. Then he smiled at the recollection of his puny
affairs while the elements had waged their merciless war. "I was
taking a golden fox out of a trap, 'way back there on the side of the
third ridge. While I was doing it the first two crashes came. A
hundred and more yards away two pines, big fellers, guess they were
planted before the flood, were standing out solitary on a big rock
overhanging the valley below. They were there when I first bent over
the trap. When I stood up they were gone--rock and all. It made me
think then. Guess it makes me think more now."
"It surely was a storm," agreed Buck absently.
They reached the open valley, and here the signs were less, so, taking
advantage of the clearing, they set their horses at a fast gallop.
Their way took them skirting the great slope of the hill-base, and
every moment was bearing them on toward the old farm, for that way,
some distance beyond, lay the ford which they must cross to reach the
camp.
Neither seemed inclined for further talk. Buck was looking straight
out ahead in the direction of the farm, and his preoccupation had
given place to a smile of anticipation. The Padre was intent upon the
black slopes of the hill. Farther along, the hill turned away toward
the creek, and the trail bore to the left, passing on the hither side
of a great bluff of woods which stretched right up to the very corrals
of the farm. It was here, too, where the overhang of the suspended
lake came into view, where Yellow Creek poured its swift, shallow
torrent in the shadowed twilight of the single-walled tunnel and the
gold-seekers held their operations in a vain quest of fortune.
They had just come abreast of this point and the Padre was observing
the hill with that never-failing interest with which the scene always
filled him. He believed there was nothing like it in all the world,
and regarded it as a stupendous example of Nature's engineering. But
now, without warning, his interest leapt to a pitch of wonderment that
set his nerves thrilling and filled his thoughtful eyes with an
unaccustomed light of excitement. One arm shot out mechanically,
pointing at the black rocks, and a deep sigh escaped him.
"Mackinaw!" he cried, pulling his horse almost on to its haunches.
"Look at that!"
Buck swung round, while Caesar followed the mare's example so abruptly
that his master was almost flung out of the saddle.
He, too, stared across in the direction indicated. And his whispered
exclamation was an echo of the other's astonishment.
"By the----!"
Then on the instant an almost unconscious movement, simultaneously
executed, set their horses racing across the open in the direction of
the suspended lake.
The powerful Caesar, with his lighter burden, was the first to reach
the spot. He drew up more than two hundred yards from where the domed
roof forming the lake bed hung above the waters of the creek. He could
approach no nearer, and his rider sat gazing in wonder at the
spectacle of fallen rock and soil, and the shattered magnificence of
the acres of crushed and broken pine woods which lay before him.
The whole face of the hill for hundreds and hundreds of feet along
this side had been ruthlessly rent from its place and flung broadcast
everywhere, and, in the chaos he beheld, Buck calculated that hundreds
of thousands of tons of the blackened rock and subsoil had been
dislodged by the tremendous fall.
Just for an instant the word "washout" flashed through his mind. But
he dismissed it without further consideration. How could a washout
sever such rock? Even he doubted the possibility of lightning causing
such destruction. No, his thoughts flew to an earth disturbance of
some sort. But then, what of the lake? He gazed up at where the rocky
arch jutted out from the parent hill, and apprehension made him
involuntarily move his horse aside. But his observation had killed the
theory of an earth disturbance. Anything of that nature must have
brought the lake down. For the dislodgment began under its very
shadow, and had even further deepened the yawning cavern beneath its
bed.
The Padre's voice finally broke his reflections, and its tone
suggested that he was far less awed, and, in consequence, his thoughts
were far more practical.
"Their works are gone," he said regretfully. "I'd say there's not a
sluice-box nor a conduit left. Maybe even their tools are lost. Poor
devils!"
The man's calm words had their effect. Buck at once responded to the
practical suggestion.
"They don't leave their tools," he said. Then he pointed up at the
lake. "Say, what if that had come down? What if the bowels o' that
hill had opened up an' the water been turned loose? What o' the camp?
What o' the women an'--the kiddies?"
His imagination had been stirred again. Again the Padre's practice
brought him back.
"You don't need to worry that way, boy. It hasn't fallen. Guess the
earth don't fancy turning her secrets loose all at once."
Buck sighed.
"Yet I'd say the luck sure seems rotten enough."
There was no answer, and presently the Padre pointed at the face of
the hill.
"It was a washout," he said with quiet assurance. "See that face? It's
softish soil. Some sort of gravelly stuff that the water got at. Sort
of gravel seam in the heart of the rock."
Buck followed the direction indicated and sat staring at it. Then
slowly a curious look of hope crept into his eyes. It was the fanciful
hope of the imaginative.
"Here," he cried suddenly, "let's get a peek at it. Maybe--maybe the
luck ain't as bad as we think." And he laughed.
"What d'you mean?" asked the Padre sharply.
For answer he had to put up with a curt "Come on." And the next moment
he was following in Caesar's wake as he picked his way rapidly amongst
the trees skirting the side of the wreckage. Their way lay inland from
the creek, for Buck intended to reach the cliff face on the western
side of the fall. It was difficult going, but, at the distance, safe
enough. Not until they drew in toward the broken face of the hill
would the danger really begin. There it was obvious enough to anybody.
The cliff was dangerously overhanging at many points. Doubtless the
saturation which had caused the fall had left many of those great
projections sufficiently loose to dislodge at any moment.
Buck sought out what he considered to be the most available spot and
drew his horse up. The rest must be done on foot. No horse could hope
to struggle over such a chaotic path. At his suggestion both animals
were tethered within the shelter of trees. At least the trees would
afford some slight protection should any more of the cliff give way.
In less than a quarter of an hour they stood a hundred feet from the
actual base of the cliff, and Buck turned to his friend.
"See that patch up there," he said, pointing at a spread of reddish
surface which seemed to be minutely studded with white specks. "Guess
a peek at it won't hurt. Seems to me it's about ten or twelve feet up.
Guess ther' ain't need for two of us climbin' that way. You best wait
right here, an' I'll git around again after a while."
The Padre surveyed the patch, and his eyes twinkled.
"Ten or twelve feet?" he said doubtfully. "Twenty-five."
"May be."
"You think it's----?"
Buck laughed lightly.
"Can't say what it is--from here."
The other sat down on an adjacent rock.
"Get right ahead. I'll wait."
Buck hurried away, and for some moments the Padre watched his slim
figure, as, scrambling, stumbling, clinging, he made his way to where
the real climb was to begin. Nor was it until he saw the tall figure
halt under an overhanging rock, which seemed to jut right out over his
head, and look up for the course he must take in the final climb, that
Buck's actual danger came home to the onlooker. He was very little
more given to realizing personal danger than Buck himself, but now a
sudden apprehension for the climber gripped him sharply.
He stirred uneasily as he saw the strong hands reach up and clutch the
jutting facets. He even opened his mouth to offer a warning as he saw
the heavily-booted feet mount to their first foothold. But he
refrained. He realized it might be disconcerting. A few breathless
moments passed as Buck mounted foot by foot. Then came the thing the
Padre dreaded. The youngster's hold broke, and a rock hurtled by him
from under his hand and very nearly dislodged him altogether.
In an instant the Padre was on his feet with the useless intention of
going to his aid, but, even as he stood up, his own feet shot from
under him, and he fell back heavily upon the rock from which he had
just risen.
With an impatient exclamation he looked down to discover the cause of
his mishap. There it lay, a loose stone of yellowish hue. He stooped
to remove it, and, in a moment, his irritation was forgotten. In a
moment everything else was forgotten. Buck was forgotten. The peril of
the hill. The cliff itself. For the moment he was lifted out of
himself. Years had passed away, his years of life in those hills. And
something of the romantic dreams of his early youth thrilled him once
again.
He stood up bearing the cause of his mishap clasped in his two hands
and stared down at it. Then, after a long while, he looked up at the
climbing man. He stood there quite still, watching his movements with
unseeing eyes. His interest was gone. The danger had somehow become
nothing now. There was no longer any thought of the active figure
moving up the face of the hill with cat-like clinging hands and feet.
There was no longer thought for his success or failure.
Buck reached his goal. He examined the auriferous facet with close
scrutiny and satisfaction. Then he began the descent, and in two
minutes he stood once more beside the Padre.
"It's high-grade quartz," he cried jubilantly as he came up.
The Padre nodded, his mind on other things.
"I'd say the luck's changed," Buck went on, full of his own discovery
and not noticing the other's abstraction. He was enjoying the thought
of the news he had to convey to the starving camp. "I'd say there's
gold in plenty hereabouts and the washout----"
The Padre suddenly thrust out his two hands which were still grasping
the cause of his discomfiture. He thrust them out so that Buck could
not possibly mistake the movement.
"There surely is--right here," he said slowly.
Buck gasped. Then, with shining eyes, he took what the other was
holding into his own two hands.
"Gold!" he cried as he looked down upon the dull yellow mass.
"And sixty ounces if there's a pennyweight," added the Padre
exultantly. "You see I--I fell over it," he explained, his quiet eyes
twinkling.