TOM CATCHES THE "NEVADA FEVER"
Two nights passed without adventure. On each of these nights
the three campers---for Alf didn't "count" divided the hours
of darkness into three watches, each standing guard in his turn.
On the third morning after the departure of the Bright Hope
group the campers were seated at breakfast around the packing
case that served as table.
"I feel as though we ought to be at work," suggested Hazelton.
"Good!" mocked Tom. "You've been riding every day lately, and
I have remained in camp, testing samples of ore that I've picked
up on my strolls."
"You take the horse today," proposed Harry, "and I'll stay in
camp and work."
"Suppose both of us stay in and work," proposed Reade.
"That'll be all right, too," nodded Harry, pleasantly. "May I
ask, Tom, what you're up to, anyway?"
"Yes," Reade smiled. "If the Bright Hope is a real mine there
must be other good property in this region. I've been looking
about, and making an assay every now and then. Jim, you've prospected
a bit, haven't you?"
"Yes," nodded the guide. "And, gentlemen, in my day I've been
sole owner of three claims, each one of which panned out a fortune."
"Great!" glowed Harry. "But how did you lose your money, Jim!"
"I never got a cent out of any of the mines," rejoined the guide
grimly.
"How did that happen?"
"Did you ever hear of 'square gamblers'?" inquired Ferrers.
"Some," Tom admitted with a grimace. "We ran up against one of
that brood in Arizona, eh, Harry?"
"You didn't play against him, I hope, hinted Jim soberly.
"Yes, we did," admitted Tom. "Not with his own marked cards,
though, nor with any kind of cards. We met him with men's weapons,
and it is necessary to add that our 'square gambler' lost."
"The 'square gamblers' that I met didn't lose," sighed Jim Ferrers.
"They won, and that's why all three of my mines passed out of my
hands before they began to pay."
"You must know something about ore and croppings, and the like,
Jim?", Tom continued.
"In a prospector's way, yes," Ferrers admitted.
"Then we'll take a walk, now. Alf can wash up the dishes."
"It's all the little wretch is fit for," muttered Ferrers
contemptuously.
Jim looked carefully into the magazine of his repeating ride, then
saw to it that his ammunition belt was filled.
"Ready when you gentlemen are," he announced.
"Say, won't you take me with you?" pleaded Alf.
"You wouldn't be of any use to us," Reade answered.
"But I---I am afraid to stay here alone."
"Do you believe yourself to be so valuable that any one will want
to steal you?" Tom laughed.
Alf made a wry face and watched the others depart. Then, filled
with needless alarm, he crawled out into a thicket and hid himself.
He didn't mean to be trapped by prowlers!
Tom led the way for nearly a mile. At last the trio climbed a
slight ascent, halting at the top of the ridge.
"You see, Jim," Tom explained, "this ridge runs southwesterly
from here."
"I see it does?" nodded the guide.
"Now, to the northeastward I don't believe there are any croppings
that look good enough. But just keep along to the southeast,
picking up a specimen here and there. Some of the rock looks
good to me."
Jim Ferrers didn't answer in words, though his eyes gleamed with the
old fever that he had known before.
"Here's a pretty piece of stone," called the guide in a low tone.
He stood holding a fragment about as big as his two fists.
"It's streaked" pretty well with yellow, you see, gentlemen,"
he remarked;
"It is," Tom agreed, taking the specimen.
"Does the vein run with the top of the ridge?" demanded Harry
eagerly.
"It runs a little more to eastward, from this point, I think,"
Tom made answer. "But let us walk along, in three parallel lines,
and see who finds the best indications."
By noon all three were fairly tired out by the steep climbing
over the rocky ground. Each had as many specimens as he could
carry. The result of the exploration had tended to confirm Tom's
notion as to where the vein lay.
"Now, let's see about where we'd stake the claim," Tom proposed.
"Of course, we want to get the best rock obtainable. We don't
want to leave the best part of this slope for some one else to
stake out. It seems to me that the claim ought to start up by
that blasted tree. What do you say, Jim?"
"Well, I don't like to make mistakes where you young gentleman
are concerned," Ferrers answered, taking off his felt hat and
scratching his head. "You see, it isn't my claim."
"The dickens it isn't!" Reade retorted.
"Why, you---you gentlemen didn't plan to take me in, did you,"
asked Ferrers, opening his eyes very wide in his amazement over
the idea. "You see I---I can't contribute my share of the brains,
along with a pair like you," continued the guide. "Look at you
two---engineers already! Then look at me---more'n twice as old
as either of you, and yet I'm only a cook."
"You're an honest man, aren't you, Jim?" demanded Reade.
"Why, there's some folks who say I am," Ferrers slowly admitted.
"And we're among those who believe that way," Tom continued.
"Now, Jim, you're with us, and you've every right to be a partner
if we find anything worth taking up in the mine line."
"But there ain't no sense in it," protested the guide, his voice
shaking with emotion. "You don't need me."
"We need a man of your kind, Jim," Tom rejoined, resting a very
friendly hand on the guide's shoulder. "Listen to me. Hazelton
and I are engineers first of all. We'd sooner be engineers than
kings. Now, the lure of gold is all well enough, and we're human
enough to like money. Yet a really big engineering chance would
take us away from a gold mine almost any day in the year. Eh,
Harry!"
"I'm afraid it would," confirmed Hazelton.
"If we left a paying mine, Jim, what would we want?" Tom continued.
"We'd want an honest partner, wouldn't we---one whom we could
leave for six months or a year and still be able to depend on
getting our share of the profits of the mine. You've gambled
in the past, Jim, but you stopped that years ago. Now you're
honest and safe. Do you begin to see, Jim Ferrers, where you
come in? Another point. How old do you take us to be?"
"Well, you're more than twenty-one, each of you," replied Ferrers.
"Not quite, as yet," Tom answered. "So, you see, in order to
take out a claim we'd need a guardian, and one whom we could depend
upon not to rob us. Jim, if we're to take up a mine we must have
a third man in with us. Do you know a man anywhere who'd use
us more honestly than you would?"
"I don't," exclaimed Jim Ferrers. "At the same time, gentlemen,
I know your kind well enough. Both of you talk of fighting as
though you dreaded it, but I'll tell you, gentlemen, that I wouldn't
_dare_ to try any nasty tricks on either of you."
"We understand each other, then," Tom nodded. "Now, then, let
us try to make up our minds just where we would want to stake
off this claim if the gold assays as well as it looks."
At the beginning Tom and Harry built a little pile of stones.
Then, by mere pacing they laid off what they judged to be the
fifteen hundred feet of length which the government allows to
a single mining claim.
"We can attend to the proper width later," suggested Tom. "Now,
what do you say if we make for camp at once. I'm not hungry;
still, I think I could eat my half of a baked ox."
The instant that the trio reached camp, Jim Ferrers, with an unwonted
mist in his eyes, began to juggle the cooking utensils. Tom busied
himself with building the best fire that he could under the chamber
of the assaying furnace, while Harry Hazelton, rolling up his
sleeves, began to demonstrate his muscle by pulverizing little
piles of ore in a hand-mill.
"Be careful not to mix the lots, Harry," advised Tom, glancing
over from his station by the furnace.
"Thanks for the caution," smiled Hazelton. "But I have just enough
intelligence left to understand the value of knowing from what
section of the slope each particular lot of rock comes."
Dinner was eaten in silence. For one thing the campers were
ravenously hungry. In the second place, though each kept as quiet
as possible, he was deep in the thrall of the fever to dig up
hidden gold.
The meal was nearly over when Alf Drew came into camp.
"Are you leaving anything to eat?" he asked.
"Maybe," said Jim Ferrers grimly, "but you were left to wash the
breakfast dishes, and you haven't done it yet. Now, you'll wash the
breakfast things, and then the dinner things, before you get even a
cold bite to eat."
Alf didn't protest. Now that he was back safe in camp he felt
much ashamed of himself for having run away and left the camp
unwatched.
As soon as he had eaten his dinner Tom Reade went back to the
assay furnace to improve the fire.
"Now, Harry, we'll get the powdered stuff ready to roast," Reade
remarked. "We've a lot of it to rush through this afternoon."
"And we want to be sure to finish it at least two hours before
dark, too," Larry nodded. "If we decide to file a claim Jim ought
to be riding for Dugout City by dark, ready to file the papers
the first thing in the morning."
"And Jim can bring back half a dozen men to help us sink the first
shaft," proposed Tom.
"That's where I feel like a fool," muttered Ferrers. "I haven't
a blessed dollar to put in as capital."
"We'll take your honesty for a good deal in the way of capital,
Jim," Tom hinted cheerfully.
"Harry, you might get out the transit, the tape, markers and other
things. If we stake out a claim we'll do it so accurately that there
can be no fight, afterward, as to the real boundaries of our claim."
"What shall we call the claim?" inquired Hazelton, as he came
back with the surveying outfit.
"Suppose we wait until the assay is done, and find out whether
the claim is worth anything better than a bad name," laughed Tom.
The crucibles were in the furnace now, and a hot flame going.
Jim Ferrers sat by, puffing reflectively at his pipe as he squatted
on the ground nearby. Alf Drew was smoking, too, somewhere, but
he had taken his offensive cigarettes to some place of concealment.
Harry anxiously watched the course of the sun, while Tom kept
his gaze, most of the time, near the furnace.
"Come on, Harry!" called Tom at last. "We'd rake out the crucibles.
My, but I hope the buttons are going to be worth weighing."
A withering blast of hot air reached the young engineers as the
oven door of the portable assay furnace was thrown open. The
crucibles were raked out and set in the air to cool.
"Would fanning the crucibles with my hat do any good?" asked Hazelton
eagerly.
"Some," yawned Tom, "if you're impatient."
Reade strolled off under the trees, whistling softly to himself.
Jim Ferrers smoked a little faster, the only sign he gave of
the anxiety that was consuming him. Harry frequently sprang to
his feet, walked up and down rapidly, then sat down again. Two
or three times Hazelton burned his fingers, testing to see whether
the crucibles were cool enough to handle. At last Tom strolled
back, his gaze on the dial of his watch.
"Cool enough for a look, now, I think," Reade announced.
Harry bounded eagerly toward the crucibles, feeling them with
his hands.
"Plenty cool enough," he reported. "But how did you guess, Tom?"
"I didn't guess," Reade laughed. "I've timed the crucibles before
this, and I know to a minute how long it ought to take."
"What a chump I am!" growled Harry, in contempt for self. "I
never think of such things as that."
Tom now carefully emptied the crucibles. In the bottom of each
was found a tiny bead of half-lustrous metal, which miners and
assayers term the "button."
"The real stuff!" glowed Hazelton.
"Ye-es," said Tom slowly. "But the next question is whether the
buttons will weigh enough to hint at good-paying ore. Even at
that, these buttons are only from surface ore."
"But the ore underneath is always better than the surface ore,"
contended Hazelton.
"Usually is," Tom corrected. "If we get good enough results from
this assay it will at least be worth while to stake a claim and
work it for a while."
Harry waited with feverish impatience. Tom Reade, on the other
hand, was almost provokingly slow and cool as he carefully adjusted
the sensitive assaying balance and finally weighed the buttons.
Then he did some slow, painstaking calculating. At last he looked up.
"Well, sir?" asked Jim Ferrers.
"From this surface ore," replied Tom calmly, "twenty-eight dollars
in gold to the ton; silver, six dollars."
"That's good enough for me!" cried Ferrers, his eyes brightening.
"Wow! Whoop! Oh---whee!" vented Harry, then ran and snatched
up the surveying transit.
"Yes; I guess we'd better go along and do our staking," assented Tom.
"And I'll be ready at daylight to file the claim at Dugout City,"
promised Jim. "I won't sleep until I've seen our papers filed."
"You'll file the claim in your own name, Jim," Tom suddenly suggested.
"No; I won't," retorted Ferrers. "I'll play squarely."
"That will be doing squarely by us, Jim," Tom continued. "We
don't want to use up our claim privileges on one stretch of Nevada
dirt."
If we can find claims enough we'll stake out three, and then pool
them all together in a gentlemen's agreement."
"That's a good deal of trust you're showing in me, gentlemen," said
Jim huskily.
"Never mind, Jim," returned Reade quietly. "You can show us, you
know, that we didn't waste our confidence."
While they were still talking the three came in sight of the ridge.
"Look there!" gasped Harry suddenly.
"Dolph Gage and his tin-horn crowd!" flared Jim Ferrers, in anger.
"Hang the fellow! This time I'll-----"
"Stop fingering your rifle, Jim," ordered Reade. "Remember, nothing
like fighting! If they haven't filed notice in due form on the claim,
we're safe yet. If they have-----"
"Look!" hissed Ferrers.
At that moment Dolph Gage could be seen nailing a sheet of white
paper to a board driven into the soil.
"We've staked what you want, I reckon!" bellowed Gage laconically.
"Staked it in due form, too, if you want to know."
"I guess we've lost that claim," said Tom slowly.
"Have we?" hissed Jim Ferrers.