*CHAPTER XV*
*A GOOD SAMARITAN*
Out on Buffalo Creek, Blascom, haggard, drawn, gaunt, and throbbing withan excitement which was slowly mastering him, scorning time to properlyprepare and eat his food, drove himself like a madman. The creek bed atthe old sump showed a huge, sloping-sided ditch from bank to bank, theupper side treacherous dry sand, the lower side a great, slanting ridgeof rock, riven through in one place by the force of the dynamite, whichhad blown a great crater on the down-stream side of the natural riffle.In the bottom of the ditch a few inches of water lay, all that had savedhim from fleeing from the claim because of thirst.
For year after weary year the miner had labored over the gold-bearingregions of the West, South, and North, beginning each period full ofthat abiding faith which clings so tenaciously to the gold-hunter andrefuses to accept facts in any but an optimistic manner. A small stakehere, day wages there, grubstakes, and hiring out, he had persistently,stubbornly pursued the will-o'-the-wisp and tracked down many a rainbowof hope, only to find the old disappointment. From laughing,hope-filled youth he had run the gauntlet of the years, through thesobered but still hopeful middle age, scorning thought of the twilightof life when he should be broken in strength and bitter in mind.Teeming, mushroom mining camps, frantic gold rushes, the majestic calmof cool canyons, and the punishing silences of almost unbearable desertwastes had found him an unquestioning worshiper, a trusting devotee ofhis goddess of gold. It was in his blood, it was woven into every fiberof his body, and he could no more cease his pursuit than he could stopthe beating of his heart, or at least he could not cease while the goalremained unattained. Now, after all these years, he had won. He hadproved that his quest had not been in vain.
Before the sun came up, even before dawn streaked the eastern sky, hismeager, ill-cooked breakfast was bolted, and his morning scouting begun.First of all he slipped with coyote cunning down to the lower fork tosee if Jake still kept his drunken stupor. The cold chimney of themiserable hut was the first eagerly sought-for sign, and every furtivevisit awakened dread that a ribbon of smoke would meet his eye. Anearer approach made with the wariness of some hunted creature of thewild, let him sense the unnatural quiet of the little shack. A stealthyglance through a glassless opening, called a window, after the lightmade it possible, showed him morning after morning that his jug had notfailed him. The unshaven, matted, unclean face of the stupefied man laysometimes in a bunk, sometimes on the floor, and once the huge bulk wassprawled out inertly across the rough table amid a disarray of cracked,broken, and unwashed dishes. On the fifth morning the anxious prowler,fearing the lowered contents of the jug, had left a full bottle againstthe door of the hut and, slinking into the scanty cover, had run like ahunted thing back to the riven riffle and its unsightly ditch andcrater.
Feverishly he worked, scorning food, unconscious of the glare of amolten sun rising to the zenith of its scorching heat. Shovel andbucket, trips without end from the ditch to a place above the steep bankwhere the carried sand grew rapidly higher and higher; panting,straining, frantic, worked Blascom. Foot by foot the ditch widened,foot by foot it lengthened, inch by inch it deepened, slide after sandyslide slipping to its bottom to be furiously, madly cursed by theprospector.
Then at last came the instant when the treasure was momentarilyuncovered. Dropping the blunted, ragged-edged shovel, he plunged to allfours and thrust eager, avaricious fingers, bent like the talons of somebird of prey, into the storehouse of gold. Noiselessly responding tothe jar and the impact of the groveling body, the great bank of sand hadcollapsed and slid down upon him, burying him without warning. The masssplit and heaved, and the imprisoned miner, wild-eyed, sobbing forbreath after his spasmodic exertions, burst through it and, raisingquivering fists, cursed it and creation.
Hope had driven him remorselessly, but now that he had seen and felt thetreasure, his efforts became those of a madman. More buckets of sand,jealous of each spilled handful, more punishing trips at a dogtrot, morefrantic digging, and again he stared wildly at the pocket under hisknees. Suddenly leaping erect, he cast anxious glances around him and apanicky fear gripped him and turned him into a wild beast. Yanking hiscoat from the rock riffle he spread it over the treasure and then,running low and swiftly, gun in hand, he scouted through the brush onboth sides of the creek, and then bounded toward the lower fork.Approaching the hut on hands and knees, cruelly cut by rock and thorn,he studied the door and the open window. The bottle was where he hadleft it, the snores arose regularly, and once more he was reassured.Had there been signs of active life he would have murdered with theexultant zeal of a religious fanatic.
The day waned and passed. Night drew its curtains closer and closer,and yet Blascom labored, the treacherous sand turning him into a raving,frenzied fury. Higher and higher grew the sand pile on the bank, amonument to his mad avarice. With gold in lumps massed at the foot ofthat rock ridge, yet he must save the sand for its paltry yield in dust,pouring out his waning strength in a labor which, to save pence, mightcost him pounds. At last he stumbled more and more, staggering this wayand that, his tortured body all but asleep, forced on and on by hisfevered mind, flogged by a stubborn will. Then came a heavier stumble,following a more unbalanced stagger and his numbed and vague protestsdid not suffice to get him back on his feet. When he awakened, theglaring sun shocked him by its nearness to the meridian, and the shockbrought a momentary sanity; if he scorned the warning he would belost--and another shadowy prompting of his subconscious mind was at lastallowed to direct him. Calmly, but shakily, he weakly crawled andstaggered toward his shack, from which came a thin streamer of smoke,climbing arrow-like into the quiet, heated air.
He stopped and stared at it in amazement, doubting his senses. Had heseen it the day before it would have enraged him to a blind, killingmadness; but now, suspicious as he was, and deadly determined to protecthis secret, the reaction of the high tension of the last six days madehim momentarily apathetic. The abused body, the starved tissues anddulled nerves, now took possession of him and forced him, even though itwas with gun in his hand, to approach the door of his squalid,disordered habitation erect and without hesitation. At the sound of hisslowly dragging steps a well-known, friendly voice called out and awell-known, friendly face appeared at a window.
The marshal was nearly stunned by what he saw and then, surging intoaction, leaped through the door and caught his staggering friend.
The well-cooked, wholesome breakfast out of the way, a breakfast madepossible only by the marshal's forethought in bringing supplies with himfrom town, he refused Blascom's request for a third cup of coffee andsmilingly offered a glass of whiskey, over which he had made a fewmysterious passes.
"Don't want none," objected the weary miner.
"But yo're goin' to overcome yore sudden temperance scruples an' drinkit, for me," persuaded Tex. "A good shock will do you a lot ofgood--an' put new life into you. As you are you ain't worth a cuss."
The prospector held out his hand, smilingly obedient, and downed thefiery draught at a gulp. "Tastes funny," he observed, and then laughed."Wonder I can taste it at all, after th' nightmare I've had since th'smoke of that blast rolled away. Where'd you think I was when youcame?"
Tex chuckled and stretched. "I didn't know, but from th' glimpse I gotof th' crick bed I was shore I wasn't goin' huntin' you, an' mebby getshot accidental. Did you find it, Blascom?"
"My G--d, yes!" came the explosive answer. "There's piles of it, allshapes an' sizes, layin' on a smooth rock floor. When that sand stopsslidin' I can scoop it up with a shovel, like coal out of a bin. Halfof it belongs to you, Jones: go look at it!"
"I don't want any of it," replied Tex with quiet, but unshakable,determination. "If you divide it, no matter how much there is, by th'number of years you've sweat an' slaved and starved, it won't be toomuch to pay you. You set here a little while an' I'll go on a scout inth' brush an' watch it till yo
u come out. Better lay down a fewminutes, say half an hour, an' give that grub a chance to put some lifeinto you. I'll shake you if you fall asleep."
"Feel sleepy now," confessed the prospector, yawning and movingsluggishly toward his bunk. "Seein' as how yo're here, I'll just take afew winks--don't know when I'll get another chance. That sand shore isgallin' an' ornery as th' devil. Go up an' take a look at it--I'llfoller in a little while."
Tex, closing the door behind him, slipped into the brush, where he mademore than a usual amount of noise for Blascom's benefit, and as heworked up toward the ditch he chuckled to himself. There had been noneed for a full dose, he reflected, and he was glad that he had notgiven one. Blascom's drink of whiskey had just enough chloral in it todeaden him and give his worn-out body the chance it sought; besides, hewas not too certain of the effect of a full dose on a constitution asundermined as that of his friend.
The ditch, again slowly filling with sand, showed him nothing, and hestood debating whether he should disturb it for a look at the treasure,when he suddenly thought of Jake and the whiskey jug. He rememberedthat Jake had been almost senselessly drunk when he had left the hotelon the night of the blast and that he had not been seen by anyone since.It would do no harm to go down to the lower fork and see what there wasto be seen. The thought became action, and he was on his way, down themiddle of the creek bed, where the footing was a little more to hisliking.
The hut appeared to be deserted and the bottle of whiskey outside thedoor brought a frown to his face, which deepened as a nearer approachshowed him that the door was fastened shut by rope and wire on theoutside, and that the snoring inmate virtually was a prisoner. Therewas a note in the snores that disturbed him and aroused his vague,half-forgotten professional knowledge. Hastening forward he pushed thebottle aside with an impatient foot and worked rapidly with thefastenings on the door. At last it opened, and gun in hand against anypossible contingency, he entered the hovel and looked at its tenant,sprawled face down near the jumbled bunk. A touch of the drunken man'scheek, a tense counting of his pulse, sent Tex to his feet as though ashot had nicked him. Running back to Blascom's hut, where he had lefthis horse, he leaped into the saddle and sent Omar at top speed towardtown.
His thundering knock on the doctor's door brought no response and, notdaring to pause on the dictates of custom, he threw his shoulder againstthe flimsy barrier and went in on top of it. Scrambling to his feet, hedashed into the rear one of the two rooms and swore in sudden rage anddisgust.
Doctor Horn lay on his back on a miserable cot and his appearancebrought a vivid recollection to his tumultuous caller. Tex turned up asleeve and nodded grimly at the tiny puncture marks and, with an oath,faced around and swept the room with a searching glance. It stopped andrested on a heavy volume on a shelf and in a moment he was hastilyturning the pages. Finding what he sought he read avidly, closed thebook, and hunted among the bottles in a shallow closet. Taking what heneeded, he ran out, leaped into the saddle and loped south to misleadany curious observer, only turning west when hidden from sight of thetown.
When night fell it found a weak and raving patient in the little hovelon the lower fork, roped in his bunk, and watched anxiously by thetwo-gun man at his side. The long dark hours dragged, but dawn found abattle won. Noon came and passed and then Tex, looking critically at hispatient, felt he could safely leave him for a few minutes. Glimpsingthe filled bottle of liquor at the door of the hut he grabbed it andhurled it against a rock.
Blascom was up and around when Tex reached the upper fork, draggingheavy feet by strangely dulled legs.
"Just in time to feed," he drawled. "Didn't sleep as long as Ithought," he said dully, glancing at the sun patch on the floor. "Mustbe near two o'clock--an' I felt like I could sleep th' sun around."
Tex would not correct the mistake and nodded. "You must 'a' slept somelast night," he suggested. "Looked like you had when I saw you from th'window this mornin'."
Blascom nodded heavily. "Near sixteen hours. I feel dead all over."
"A long sleep like that often makes a man feel that way," responded Tex."Th' muscles are stubborn an' th' eyes get a little touchy, too," headded.
They ate the poorly cooked dinner and leaned back for a smoke, Blascomallowing himself to lose the time because he felt so inert.
"Have any visits from friend Jake?" carelessly asked the marshal.
Blascom laughed. "Not one. You see, Jake come home that night about asdrunk as a man can get an' walk at all. I planted th' jug, a fullbottle of gin, an' near half a quart of brandy in his cabin where he'dshore see it. He's been petrified for a week steady. To make shore Iput another bottle of whiskey ag'in' his door."
Tex nodded. "I busted that, just now. You come near killin' him. Ijust about got him through. Don't give him no more. I sat up all lastnight with him, draggin' him back from th' Divide, an' only left him alittle while ago. Get yore gold out quick an' you don't have no call towant him drunk. Cache it, an' then spend a week takin' things easy.You wasn't far behind Jake when I saw you."
Blascom was staring at him in vast surprise. "I never thought goodlikker would hurt an animal like him!"
"I didn't say it was good likker," rejoined Tex. "Even good likker willdo it when drunk by th' barrel; an' there's no good likker in Windsor,if I'm any judge. Well," he said, arising and taking up his hat, "I'lldrift along for another look at Jake an' then head for town. Seein' ashow you got him that way, through my suggestion, I'll admit, you betterlook in at him once in awhile an' see he has what he needs. Take someof yore water with you: his stinks."