CHAPTER XV
O'BRIEN'S CANS OF GOLD
When Connie Morgan and Waseche Bill awoke, the morning after theirmidnight escape from the village of the strange Indians, they foundO'Brien busily engaged in the preparation of breakfast.
The tunnel of the ancient mine, that had been the abode of Carlson andPete Mateese, was merely a rude entry which followed the slant of anoutcropping mass of native copper. The entry was approximately five feethigh and six feet wide, and led obliquely into the face of a rock-clifffor a distance of a hundred feet where it widened into a chamber, orroom, perhaps twenty feet in diameter and seven or eight feet in height.Three walls of the room were formed by the copper ore which showedplainly the marks of the primitive tools of the forgotten miners. Thefourth wall was of solid rock--the wall of the fissure that containedthe vein of ore. At the angle formed by the roof and the rock wall, awide crack, or cleavage cleft, slanted sharply upward and outward to apoint on the face of the rock-cliff high above the mouth of the tunnel,and thus formed a natural chimney for the rude fireplace that had beenbuilt directly beneath it.
The odour of boiling coffee was in the air and by the fireplace squattedO'Brien, prodding tentatively at the caribou steaks that sizzled noisilyin the long-handled frying pan. Upon a flat stone that had evidentlyserved for a table, an ancient lamp which consisted of a rudely hammeredcopper pan containing blubber grease and a bit of moss wicking, flaredits smoky illumination.
"Good marnin' to yez," greeted the Irishman, as the two partners slippedfrom their sleeping bags and drew up close to the fire. "Sure,bhreakfasht'll be riddy in wan minit--an' a good job ut is, to besettin' wanst mor-re amongst Christians, an' aytin' whoite man's grub,inshtead av suckin' a shtrip av blubber, along av th' flat-faced Injuns,yondher."
Connie laughed:
"Yes, but you nearly spilled the beans when you tumbled off the sled."
"Ahroo! Dar-rlint! Ut's a gr-rand lad ye ar-re! Ye shud av seen um!" hecried, turning to Waseche Bill. "Oi wanted to git jist th' wan swoipef'r um to remimber me by, but Oi mished um fair an' square, an' over Oiwint loike a frog off a log in a bog. An' jist phwin Annunduk wuz aboutto presint his soide av th' case wid a bit av a club th' heft av a pickhandle, crack! goes th' b'y's whiplash fair in th' face av um, an' phwinth' other goes to jump on me back, Whirra! They's a roar loike th' Zootur-rned loose f'r recess, an' th' wolf-dog's a-top av um, fang an'claw! Ye shud av seen ut! 'Twuz a gr-rand soight!"
Waseche smiled proudly as he listened to the Irishman's account of theaccident on the trail.
"Yo' say, they won't follow us in heah?" he asked.
"Niver a wan av thim. They think this valley is th' counthry av th' evilspirits. We're safe now--an' hooray, f'r Flor-ridy, an' th' land avsunshine!"
"We-all ain't out of the woods yet. I'm sho' glad to be shet of themInjuns, though. How many times did yo' say they'd brung yo' back?"
"Twinty-wan toimes. But, Oi hadn't no dogs--an' thim two tomatty cans isheavy!"
"Where are the cans?" asked Connie, who had only half believed theIrishman's tale of gold.
"Set by now an' ate, an' Oi'll show ye thim--the two av moine, an' th'twilve av Car-rlson's an' Pete Mateese's."
The meal over, O'Brien loosened a cleverly concealed wedge that held inplace a stone which served as a door to a small compartment, abouteighteen inches square and three feet deep, that had been chiselled intothe copper on a level with the floor.
"'Tis th' safe," he grinned. "Foire proof, an' bhurglar proof, too, avye don't know th' combynation, fer wid th' little wedge in place, th'more ye pryze on th' rock th' toighter ut shticks."
Pushing the stone aside, the man reached into the interior and, one at atime, removed fourteen tin cans, which he carefully deposited upon thefloor. Over the top of each, serving as a cover, and concealing thecontents from view, was bound a piece of caribou skin, smoke-dried, withthe hair on.
Connie reached for a can, but to his surprise it remained motionless asif nailed to the floor. It seemed incredible to the boy that such greatweight could be encompassed within so small a space, and it was only atthe expense of considerable effort that he succeeded in raising it tohis lap. Cutting the thongs, he removed the cover and there, showingyellow and dull in the guttering flare of the blubber lamp, was gold!O'Brien spread an empty pack-sack and the boy poured the contents of thecan upon it, and with his fingers levelled the golden pyramid. Beforehim lay nuggets, flat, dark flakes of "float," and bright yellow grainsof "dust"--hand-shovelled, and hand-sluiced from the hot, wet sands ofthe Ignatook. Waseche Bill stared speechless at the row of skin-coveredcans, at the pile of yellow metal, and back to the row of cans. Foryears this man had toiled and mucked among the placers of the goldfields, had sunk deep shafts, and shallow; had tunnelled, and drifted,and sloshed about in ice-cold muddy creek beds, but in all the years oftoil and hardship and peril, he had never gazed upon a sight like this.Even Ten Bow, with its rich drift sands, was a barren desert incomparison with this El Dorado of the frozen waste.
"Nine thousan' dollahs a can--mebbe ten," he estimated, in an awedvoice. "No wondeh Carlson came back!" He turned to O'Brien:
"How deep was his shafts?"
"Shafts!" exclaimed the Irishman, "sure, they ain't no shafts! Ye damoff a puddle av wather phwer uts shallow an' throw in a chunk av oiceto cool ut, an' thin ye wade in an' shovel ut into ye're sluices."
"An' wateh the yeah around!" cried Waseche.
"Aye, an' no dumps to wor-rk out in th' shpring--ye clane up as ye go.Wan shovel is good f'r a can, or a can an' a half a month."
The idea of a man measuring his dust by the forty-pound can, instead ofby the ounce, was new, and Waseche Bill laughed--a short, nervous laughof excitement.
"Come on! Shove them cans back in the hole an' le's go stake ouh claims.Yo' done stoke yo'n, ain't yo', O'Brien?"
"Oi've shtaked nawthin'! Oi jist scooped ut out here an' there, phweretheir claims wasn't. Oi want none av this counthry! Oi've had enough avut as ut is! Oi won't shtay wan minit longer thin Oi've got to--not avOi c'n shovel out pure gold be th' scoopful! Oi want to be war-rm wanstmore, an' live loike a civiloized Christian shud live, wid a pig an' acow, an' a bit av a gar-rden.
"Ye'll not be thinkin' av shtayin' here?" he asked anxiously.
"No, O'Brien," answered Waseche, "not _this_ trip. But we ah goin' tostake ouh claims an' then, lateh, why me an' th' kid heah--we ah comin'back!"
"Come back av ye want to," said O'Brien with a shrug. "But luk out yedon't come back wanst too often. Phwere's Car-rlson, an' Pete Mateese?Thim's min that come back! An' wait till ye see th' skulls an' the bonesalong th' gravel at th' edge av th' wather--thim wuz min, too,wanst--they come back. An' luk at _me_! Four av us come in be way avPeel River--an' three av us is dead--an' many's th' toime Oi've wisht Oiwuz wan av thim." O'Brien replaced the stone, and the three turned theirattention to their surroundings. One side of the room was piled to theceiling with the caribou venison and fish of which O'Brien had spoken.They also found a sled and a complete set of harness for a six-dogteam--Carlson's six dogs that had found their way into the boiling potsof the White Indians. Scattered about the stone floor lay numerouscuriously shaped stone and copper implements, evidently the mining toolsof a primitive race of people, and among these Connie also found ancientweapons of ivory and bone.
Slowly they made their way toward the entrance, pausing now and then toexamine the rough walls of the tunnel which had been laboriously driventhrough the mass of copper ore.
"Wonder who worked this mine?" speculated Connie. "Just think of menworking for years and years, I s'pose, to dig out _copper_--with allthat gold lying free in the gravel."
"Yeh, son, seems queeah to us. But when yo' come to think of it,coppeh's wo'th a heap mo'n gold, when it comes down to usin' it fo'hammehs, an' ha'poons, an' dishes. Gold ain't no real good, nohow--'ceptfo' what it'll buy. An' if they ain't no place to spend it, a man mout aheap sight betteh dig out coppeh."
The sun was shining bri
ghtly on the snow when the three finally stoodat the tunnel-mouth and gazed out into the valley of the Ignatook. Alight wind carried the steam and frozen fog particles toward theopposite bank, whose high cliffs appeared from time to time as islandsin a billowy white sea. Almost at their feet the waters of the creekwound between banks of glittering snow crystals, and above them thegreat bank of frozen mist eddied and rolled. The stakes Carlson haddriven to mark his claim, and that of Pete Mateese, were plainlyvisible, and upon the black gravel at the water's edge were strewn theweather-darkened bones of many men.
"The copper miners!" cried Connie, pointing toward the grewsomecollection. Waseche nodded.
"I reckon so," he answered. "I wondeh what ailed 'em."
"Aye, what!" echoed O'Brien. "What but th' Ignatook--that's shpelt deathto iverywan that's come into uts valley. Th' whole Lillimuit's a land avdead min. Av ut ain't th' wan thing, uts another. Phwere's Car-rlson,an' Pete Mateese? Av ye don't dhrink th' pizen wather, ye'll freeze, ershtar-rve, er ye'll go loike Craik an' Greenhow, that come in withme--an' that's th' wor-rst av all. Craik, glum an' sombre, follyin' dayan' noight th' thrail av a monster white moose, that no wan ilse c'diver see, an' that always led into th' Narth. An' Greenhow, yellin' an'laughin' loike foorty fiends, rushin' shtraight into th' mid-noightaurora--an 'nayther come back!
"Ye'd besht moind phwat Oi'm tellin' yez," he croaked, as he sat uponthe bank and watched Waseche and Connie stake adjoining claims.
"Ut's th' same in th' ind," he continued, letting his glance rove overthe tragic relics of a bygone race. "Some comes f'r copper, an' some f'rgold--an' phwere's th' good av ut? Th' metal is left--but th' bones avth' diggers mark th' thrail f'r th' nixt that comes! An' none goesback!"
"We're going back!" said Connie. "You don't know, maybe Pete Mateese gotthrough."
"Mebbe he did--but ut's mebbier he didn't," despaired the man.
"Now, look a heah, O'Brien," cut in Waseche, "yo' be'n up heah so longyo' plumb doleful an' sad-minded. We-all ah goin' to get out of heah,like the kid done told yo'. Come on along now an' stake out yo' claim'long side of ou'n. I've mined, it's goin' on fo'teen yeah, now--an' Ineveh seen no pay streak like this heah--not even Nome, with her thirdbeach line; the Klondike, with its shallow gravel; oah Ten Bow, with itsdeep yellah sand. It's no wondeh yo' expected a stampede."
But the Irishman was obdurate and, despite all persuasion, flatlyrefused to stake a claim.
"Come on, then," said Waseche. "We-all got to locate that map ofCarlson's. He said how he mapped the trail to the Kandik."
"Sure, an' he did!" exclaimed O'Brien. "Oi found th' map six monthsagone. But ivery toime Oi'd thry to folly ut, thim danged haythins uddhrag me back."
"Where is the map? Le's see it," said Waseche. O'Brien stared from oneto the other of his companions, with a foolish, round-eyed stare.Suddenly he leaped to his feet and without a word dashed down the creekin the direction of the river, leaving Waseche and Connie to gaze afterhim in astonishment.
"Where's he going?" asked the boy.
"Sea'ch me!" exclaimed Waseche; "come on--we got to catch him. Me'behe's took a spell. Po' fellow, I'd hate fo' anything to happen to himnow."
O'Brien had obtained a very considerable lead when the others startedand, giving no heed to their cries to halt, he lumbered heavily onward.Connie and Waseche ceased to call and, saving their breath, dashed afterhim as fast as their legs could carry them. The Irishman was in goodmuscle and wind, thanks to his life in the open, but in neither speednor endurance was he a match for his pursuers, who were iron-hard fromthe long snow trail. When O'Brien neared the pass that gave out onto theriver, the two partners redoubled their efforts and, although theygained perceptibly, O'Brien was still ten yards in advance when heplunged between the two upstanding rocks that Connie had named the"gate-posts of the Ignatook."
"As they passed between the pillared rocks the Indiansbroke cover, hurling their copper-tipped harpoons as they ran."]
Without a moment's hesitation, the boy, who had outdistanced Waseche,dashed after him and with a "flying tackle" tripped the fleeing man, sothat both rolled over and over upon the rime-covered ice of the river.And Waseche Bill, bursting upon the scene, saw, approaching silently andswiftly among the rocks and scrub of the river's edge, shadowy,fur-clad forms. The White Indians were guarding well the egress from thecreek of the frozen steam.
Hastening to the two struggling figures, Waseche jerked them to theirfeet, and before the surprised O'Brien knew what was happening, he wasbeing unceremoniously hustled into the narrow valley from which he hadjust emerged--and none too soon, for as they passed between the pillaredrocks, the Indians broke cover and rushed boldly upon them, hurlingtheir copper-tipped harpoons as they ran.