CHAPTER XXII.
THE GUARDIAN OF THE SILVER LODE.
As has been mentioned before, Thad had a plan in view when he left thecamp in company with Aleck, somewhere about midnight. Though forcertain reasons which he considered good, he had not seen fit to takea single one of his comrades into his confidence, the scoutmasterbelieved that the only way for Aleck to win his own game was to findthe long-lost mine, and take possession of the same in the name ofhis father, who had been the original discoverer of the lode.
Scores of hungry prospectors, besides Kracker, had done everything intheir power to locate the mine; though none had descended to his lastunworthy methods of trying to torture Jerry Rawson's son, in the hopeof profiting thereby. As the claim of the original discoverer restedonly on a scant foundation, of course the man lucky enough to find thesilver lode again would have a right to hold possession, in the eye ofthe law. He might choose to pay the widow something, but even that wasa matter resting solely upon his conscience.
Thad had a reason for carrying the only lantern belonging to thescouts; and he hoped that if they were so lucky as to find thatAleck's rude little chart told the truth, they might utilize thatmeans of illumination when entering the mine.
Of course both of them carried their guns, for there was no telling whenthey could return to camp. An arrangement had been with Allan, so thatday and night there would be a sign shown, calculated to tell the absentones whether the coast were clear, or the lawyer and sheriff stillhovered near by, waiting to entrap the Rawson boy, should he show up.
They had moved along for some time, when Aleck broke the silence bysaying, with considerable feeling in his voice:
"It makes me glad to know you believed what I told you, Thad, aboutthat 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 amdoing; and she is thinking of me, and praying all the time I'm uphere, trying to take dad's place."
"Don't mention it," said Thad, quickly. "Of course we all believeevery word you told us, no matter whether we've met this rascallyuncle of yours or not. Our chum Step Hen did, and I reckon he wasn'tmuch impressed with him, from the way he talked. And as you belong tothe 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 nobusiness sticking up for a comrade when he knows the other is in thewrong; but we believe in you, Aleck. And if only you could find thatmine, I feel sure all of this funny business would stop. Once you hadput in a claim, with the proper witnesses, and hurried to file itbefore the court, nobody could steal it away. And that's going to bejust 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, andpoor dad only believed he had found a rich lode. But remember, hebrought home specimens that were nearly pure silver; and every one whosaw them said they beat the world for richness. I can remember my dadsaying 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 withthe secret untold. All these long years, when we've been poor andwanting many things, there that secret lay in my hand, oh! hundreds oftimes, and I never dreamed of it still accident showed me the paper,back of the glass in the little pocket mirror that dad had carriedwith him a long time."
They relapsed into silence again for a long time, each busy with histhoughts. Aleck knew what few simple directions his rude chartcarried; he had gazed at it so many times that it was photographed onhis mind, and there had been no need for him to rip the seam of hiscoat, and take the slip of faded paper out. Kracker had not dreamedhow near the coveted clue had been to his hands, at the time heactually held the boy, and closely examined all his pockets.
"It's lucky," remarked Thad, after fully an hour more had passed, withboth boys pushing forward steadily all the time, over rugged ways thatseverely tried their abilities--"it's lucky, I say, that we areheading exactly away from the direction where that Sheriff, and youruncle, must be coming from."
"Yes, but I knew we'd do that before we ever started out," repliedAleck.
"You've been sizing up the region all day in camp, and laying yourplans, 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 achance 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 recognizedsomething dad had marked on that little chart. It seemed just as if Icould hear his voice calling me from the grave, and telling me I wasdoing 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 lotlike a human head," Aleck went on to say, earnestly.
"Why, hello! I remember noticing that very same rock, the time I wentup to take a look, and see if I could get a glimpse of our huntersquad. While about it, I turned the glasses around, to see if therewere any sheep on the sides of the mountains to the south. And it wasright then I saw that outline of a face, cut in the rock, just likesomebody 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_, whenI had seen it on dad's little chart; and knew that the entrance to hishidden mine lay almost in the shadow of that face! I think he lookedon it as the rock guardian to his silver lode."
"Is that a fact?" ejaculated Thad, partaking in a measure of theexcitement that shook the frame of his companion; "Well, that's morethan you've seen fit to tell me before, Aleck; and it's someinteresting, I own up."
"I meant to tell you everything, Thad, believe me," declared theother, quickly, and with some emotion. "After the fine way you andyour chums rescued me from that shelf up on the face of the cliff, andsaid you'd stand by me, no matter what happened, why, I made up mymind that I would keep nothing back from you. By to-morrow I expectedto take the map out from the lining of my coat, where it was sewed inby my mother's own dear hands, so that nobody would ever think thingshad been disturbed at all. And now, I'm surely hoping that we'll bothset eyes on dad's mine before another dawn breaks."
"For your sake, Aleck, I hope that will come true. You deserve allthe 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 ofus have stumbled lots of times as it is. We might have used thelantern, of course, but that would have put it out of business later,when we wanted it bad; and besides, it's flickering might have toldour 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 adoptedhim into the troop; and meant to make his cause their own. For a boywho had seldom had a friend to give him even words of encouragement,this was a glorious happening indeed. He felt that it had been theluckiest hour of his whole life when, in the midst of his bitterdejection, left alone on that high and isolated rocky ledge, he haddiscovered the strange movements of that fiery pencil, that seemed tobe 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, afterthey had continued to advance further into the depths of the mountains.
"I can guess what you are thinking," Thad went on to remark; "youbelieve 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 al
ong; and itseems 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 laidconsiderable importance on the opinion of his companion.
"Just what you do, which is, that we must be getting close to where wesaw that great head outlined just as if some scupltor had chiseled itfrom the solid rock. But even if we fail to find it, Aleck, that maybe because of the formation of the mountain. Besides, this moonlightis 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 mymind."
"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, Ireckon 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 inhis manner or speech; for he knew that Thad did not believe in adisplay of weakness in scouts. "Perhaps, when we've pushed on alittle 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 welearned that some one, perhaps that cruel prospector, Colonel Kracker,had been ahead of us, and located the hidden mine? He could hurry toenter 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, accompaniedwith a low chuckle. "I was only thinking how often we strain ourselvesto see something away off, when all we have to do is to turn our eyesup and look."
Aleck instantly "caught on" to what his companion meant. He bent hishead back, and gave utterance to a low cry of satisfaction.
"Well, if that doesn't beat anything?" he ejaculated, apparently highlypleased; "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 itlay further on. We've found the land-mark dad set down in his littlemap, Thad. And now to discover the crack in the wall, hidden by thehanging vines, where he followed a fox in, just out of curiosity, anddiscovered the richest silver lode he ever knew about. Oh! I'm justshaking all over with excitement. And I sure hope my mother's thinkingabout me right now, thinking, and praying for me to succeed!"