CHAPTER XI.
THE IRRESISTIBLE BAIT.
The band of gold grabbers, whose prisoner Miss Maclan had become, hadmet the snowstorm supinely. They had, besides, obeyed their prudentleader by remaining buried in its protective mantle until the day wasbroken. The ravine crest had quickly been banked up, so that shieldedthem; and the marshland, offering no poor resistance to the tempest,had turned no gusts back. They had suffered the least of any exposedin that time of anguish. The danger over, they set to cleaning thecamp with coarse jokes, and thronged to breakfast at a bugle call,after having worked on a cup of coffee alone with the wolfish appetiteof sojourners in that high latitude. They were well provisioned, noneof the wormy "crackers," rank pork, and burnt horse bean coffee ofcommerce, but good flour bread, deer and bear meat, and honest saltpork. Captain Kidd would have lost half the troop in this onerouswintry expedition with an inferior table.
For the leaders a marquee had been erected, raised of the canvas thatsheltered them nightly, in which a folding table stood on picket pinsfor legs, so that the guests could squat around. Well loaded withhearty fare and various liquors, it was the article of furniture mostprominent.
The captain and his lieutenants were received by a youth of eighteen,who took their rifles with the address of an experienced servant, and aNegro.
As soon as he arrived Kidd bade the latter withdraw.
"_iVamos!_ 'moosey!" he cried, "For your big ears are not wanted. _TheDrudge_ will do the waiting. Tell the senora to breakfast with her newtoy! I have a business conference to make with my partners. Mind, noneof your sneaking curiosity, or I'll sell you to the Blackfeet for aslave. They are swarming out there!"
The Negro dived under a flap of canvas with a terrified face, as muchafraid of his threat as of his master, thus evading a tin plate thatwas wantonly skimmed after him, and might have cut his head.
"Sit to it, gentlemen," said Kidd, rubbing his hands, "and don't letthe good things get cold."
They had not waited for this apology for grace to begin the meal likeso many carnivora. For about a quarter of an hour no one uttered aword except "Pass the mustard," "Don't let that bottle go to sleepthar!" and so on, whilst "Drudge" was kept on the trot.
He was only about eighteen, we repeat; but he appeared older from beingtall, large in the joints, muscular, and especially from the resolutionon his manly countenance; he was sallow, and his restless eyes dark.He seemed a prey to incurable melancholy. Though he was too crafty tolet his true sentiments be exposed, it was clear that he served theseruffians with inward repugnance, not to say hatred. Two of them inparticular filled him with disgust, and they always spoke in a scornfuland threatening tone; they even struck him and kicked him, as if theyconsidered him their thrall. These were "Quarry Dick" and "LotteryPaul," Kidd's next men, of whom Mr. Filditch has made an unflatteringmention. Their more intimate acquaintance is about to be given.
The chief was the first to break the silence with a remark that summedup the prevailing sentiment, no doubt, as all growled or grinnedapprovingly.
"The storm was no feather," he said, "but it has blown over nicely. OldNick has taken first-rate care of his chicks."
"I don't think anything less would have pulled us through so far," saidhis right hand neighbour sarcastically.
"And so he ought. We work mighty hard for him, you bet!" said hisopposite, emphatically.
"To say nothing of what we are going to do pretty soon 'on,'" concludedthe one facing the captain, upon which all four laughed.
"Yes, it's blown over, and our old friends in Texas are catching itabout this time. I hope it will wash the slate of some of my unpaidscores in barrooms I could tell you of! But care killed a cat; I'llhave none of that in my tumbler. There's only one thing kept me awakelast night, and that was not the thought of the storm."
"What, my friend Corky Joe?" inquired the captain, who seemed to feelpeculiar affection for this lieutenant.
This singular, or even comic title, that of the wolverine, otherwise_carcajieu_ of the Canadian trappers, the wickedest wild beast ofNorthwest American _fauna_, seemed no misnomer for a daredevil,spirited, malicious, alert, quick to whip out a knife or draw a pistolto back his impudent and defiant speech. The finest shot with eitherhand was he, the best horseman and the most tireless and reliablesentinel of the band.
"I only would like to know who cut off our friends in the narrow ways."
"Oh, as for that, the girl whom we brought in alone knows; but Iam sure they knew we were 'no good settlers,' to have laid ourrepresentatives low. I am reserving the questioning of that girl tillour more important 'talk' is over. Light your pipes, gentlemen, if youare done polishing your eyeteeth, and let us hold the council."
"There's one thing sure," observed the Frenchman, "the more I lookon this forsaken country, through smoke or with a clear eye, whitherthe Cap. has brought us, the more firmly I wish I had it well behindme. It's enough to make a man wish he was a grizzly; nothing else canthrive here."
"Come, come, Frenchy," remonstrated the leader, "we are no moredelighted than you. It is not here I mean to lay out Kiddville! Butthere is no other way to the port whereto I steer."
"Port! More like alkali water; there's not an ounce of anything wortha man's stooping to pick up over all the tracks we've crossed. Thefact is, the hangers round Varina have 'stuffed' you with yarns of thewonderland which gets farther away the nearer you come to it! Gammonabout the valley covered with surface gold! I know what gold bearingearth is, having been in Californy in the good old years!" with a smackof the lips. "This volcanic tract is burnt out. Any metal has longsince melted and run away miles below. Either you have swallowed theold trapper's drunken mouthings for gospel, or you have let Corky Joehere get you in a coil! The bigger lies he tells, the more you likehim, I believe! I wouldn't copper his layout one _sou!_ You hear me!"
"You keep my name out of it!" cried the individual alluded to, with anunfriendly tone.
"I'll kick you out of it if you lead us astray! I am not to be bluffedoff by you, ugly face! This is a free country, ain't it? And my opinionis that you fawn on the chief to have the longest pull at his bottle ofselect brandy!"
Scarcely were the words spoken before the Wolverine reached across thelow board with a gleaming bowie knife. Luckily, the Frenchman knew theman he had taunted, and threw himself back, which gave Kidd time toshove himself between.
"Put up your knives," he roared. "What do you friends want to waste astab and a cut for when we are literally surrounded by the enemy? It'sonly when we have eaten the last round of horseflesh that we shouldcarve one another, and we have not come to that corner yet. Come, come,don't rile _me_ with your snarling!"
"All right, old man, that's past now," returned the Parisian, "onlywe'll come to a settlement before we come to the settlement, or I ammuch mistaken--"
"Still at it, confound you!" cried the captain, laying his hand on hisrevolver butt.
"Oh, no, that's only a leetle friendly caution. Here's his health! AllI have to say is that if you had listened to Dick and me, who wanted to'clean up' the new mines at Deadman, Wyoming, instead of this uncombedsavage, the _carcajieu_, who bolsters you up in your obstinate fit tokeep on going ahead, we should not be where snowstorms rage. Why, youknew us down south, but the Wolverine was no acquaintance of yours amonth before you gathered the gang; my pile on that for a fact!"
"That's so, Paul," returned the leader, dreamily.
"Why not even have gone through the Mormon country? We all know theyare 'temperance folk'; but, bless you! It's next door to a teetotaltown that one drinks the best tarantula juice."
"That's true!" said Dick.
"I daresay," replied the chief bandit, "that I have gone a trifle outof my way, but you ought to know that I was bound to leave no 'pointer'on my path as to my true aim. Things were getting too hot for us onthe border--we are well out of sheriffs' and vigilance committees'curiosity. I do not like there being so many folks afoot just where Ibelieved we should find a dese
rt, but perhaps last night's blizzard hasscattered them like so many loose pebbles. What do you think of ourscrape?" he demanded of Corky Joe.
"About as bad as they make 'em," was the unhesitating answer.
"What's your opinion, Dick?"
The English ex-convict shook his head sulkily.
"It's a beast of a country," he grumbled. "There's more snow falls inan hour here than would fill St. James' Park for a week! It will bealmost a treat to be a roast at a redskin's torture fire."
"I concur," added Lottery Paul, laughing. "All right, Quarryman, we aretwo of a pair, and I'll stick to you when you say we must claw out ofthis trap."
"What's the use of this bullying bounce?" cried the captain, "We areall in the same box, aren't we?"
"I don't know so much about that. Paul and me are new to this wildtramping business, and never came to such passes as these deucedmountain passes before. The Californian Sierra is molehills to it!"
"In short," took up the Frenchman, "we believe your gold mine is afraud. Your course so far tends to take us over the Rockies, where manya better man has left his bones, and though a solid chunk of gold asbig as a house awaits me yonder, I have my reasons not to go over tothe Pacific coast."
"Same here," subjoined the English felon, scowling.
"What I go on to say is, every step forward means harder fare--thetracts you assured us were desolate are growing Injins, your gold minedoes not show up, and so, give us a couple of hundred dollars apiecefor having escorted you so far, and we'll march off on our own hooks."
"That's my say, too," coincided Dick, delighted with the Parisian'seloquence.
"I have heard you out," proceeded the captain, smoothing his brow withan effort. "Now, hearken to me. You are green to these parts--verywell. From my youth up I have heard stories of a Wonderland on whosethreshold we now are. The Indians regard it with awe, and only peerinto it from afar; but trapper and hunter have penetrated it by designor hazard, and all their tales cannot be campfire lies. Moreover, theyhave brought palpable evidences to the border. At Santa Fe I gambledwith a trapper, whose jacket was bright with diamond buttons, stonesthat he found in a marvellous garden where the berries were turnedto petrifaction as they grew; the chokecherries were rubies, theblueberries turquoises, the pigeon berries garnets, the Indian pearsflawless crystal. He had collected a pouchful in half an hour, forwhich a Jew at St. Peter's gave him eight hundred dollars as they wereturned over to him in the rough."
"Did you ever meet 'Oregon Ol,'[1] in your rustling about? He's aNor'wester who has traversed this region more than most; he neverwants for gold, and he hardly takes a trap out with him, and oftenbrings back the powder he started with. And Marcellin's ChoctawBoy, and Hopeful Ed., and Simmins the Knifer, all familiar with theYellowstone River to its uppermost forks. They have lined their pocketswithout handling the spade, on surface flakes alone. And Jim Ridge,the father of the Old Birds of the Sierras--with his copper facecompanion the Cherokee!" he went on, with a deep and sudden frown anda baleful glance, "Look at their equipments, at the way they buy thecream of everything, and take two or three trains a year up into thehighlands. What is all that for? Provisioning themselves for stakingout all the best spots in an auriferous region--the motherland of thegold and silver of which mere washings go down thither by driblets!Those mountaineers are leagued with the Yager, and they have foundan enormously rich hole in the Yellowstone Basin. There's enough tomake each of us twenty times, ay, fifty times a millionaire, and thosedozen hunters selfishly stand us off! Go your way, if you are bent onit, without any dollars from me. I will persevere, though I am leftalone, in striving to wrest this secret from that crew. I tell you,boys, I have had enough of a hard life with the prospect of walking offa mule's back till a rope round my neck brings me to a short stop. Iwant, with the worst kind of want, to go see Europe with a big drafton the Bank of England, and have some of these Eye-talian princelingsblack my boots before I die in 'em."
Then, seeing that he had kindled his hearers with cupidity, heconcluded:
"Who loves gold galore, comes along with Mr. Pirate King!"
"I catch on," cried Joe, as if inspirited.
"They do say, though, that the Yellowstone Valley is haunted--spiritsof Injin devils guard the incalculable treasures, spit hot poison atthe invader, smother him in scalding mud, shower rocks upon him fromtall bluffs--so if you are afraid of what hasn't daunted Old Jim andhis band, why, leave me and Joe to have the first chop 'rise' on youwhen we meet in Nevada City, me and Joe regularly bulging out withwhisky, good hotel grub, and gold and diamonds, and you scraping thegutter for the dimes swept out of the stores! Look here! If in ten dayswe are not knee deep in golden sands, in a vale where eternal summerreigns, then lead me out and shoot me!"
There was a pause: the Frenchman's eyes blazed like fanned coals,the Englishman panted noisily and ground his teeth with a bulldog'santicipatory glee.
"We are on a sure soft thing now," pursued the captain, clinchingthe nail which he had driven home. "I don't know how it is, but Iam confident our vein of bad luck has fined out to a hair, and thatfortune is going to do a smile."
"All right," said Dick, after a glance at the Frenchman, who nodded,"we'll tail on for ten days."
"Then another drink round. Joe, pick me out four or five fellowswho can use snowshoes without laying themselves up with the _mal duracquet_ (snowshoe lameness), and let them scout about to see if theIndian sign crops up over the new snows."
The lieutenant having left the tent, the captain pulled out a map onsheepskin, and explained in detail where he surmised the treasure ofthe trappers to be, and where he also hoped to surprise Jim Ridge inhis mountain recess. His enthusiastic promises and the effect of theliquors restored the recalcitrant pair to good-humoured allegiance.
In two hours' time, one of the scouts returned, pleading that hissnowshoes were unable to help him over a snow coated _cienaga_, or badswampy stretch, where he would have sunk and been smothered. But, inthe captain's ear, he whispered a communication which set that worthyto reflection. At the end of it, he directed Lottery Paul to take therackets and go off investigating in a certain direction, ordered Joe tokeep good guard over the camp, and took Dick with him on an explorationof his own.
Installed without any hostile spies at his elbow as provisionalcommander, Corkey Joe smiled to himself, and muttering: "Nothing couldhave been better; hang them all three!" he proceeded towards the rocks,where Drudge was standing on guard over a mysterious doorway.
[Footnote 1: See The Treasure of Pearls in this series.]