CHAPTER XXVI
THE CATASTROPHE
"Now, the question is, what shall we do with our captives?" and Mr.Conroyal glanced a little anxiously around the circle of faces that hadgathered about him, a short time after all the robbers had been safelybound. "We cannot hang them, as they deserve, and we have not foodenough to keep them, and it will be hardly safe to turn them loose. Whatdo you think we had better do, Ham?" and he turned to Hammer Jones.
"First off," answered Ham, "we'd better make a raid on their camp an'git all their hosses an' supplies. Maybe that'll answer th' foodquestion; for, I reckon, they must have come well supplied, seein' thatUgger an' Quinley would have plenty of gold-dust tew buy with."
"Good," promptly declared Mr. Conroyal. "You and Rex and Dill andDickson make that raid at once on their camp, which, I fancy, you willfind somewhere near the Devil's Slide."
Ham proved to be right; for, when he and the men who went with him,returned from the raid, some two hours later, they had with them fifteenhorses, ten of which were heavily laden with food and other campsupplies, and one prisoner, the man who had been left to guard the camp.
"Now, I reckon, we've got them all, twenty-tew livin' an' tew dead," Hamdeclared, as he bound his prisoner and placed him with the othercaptives: "an' right whar we can keep them out of mischief. Thar'splenty of food for all, Con," and he turned to Conroyal, "leastwise fora few days, so th' food problem is settled. Now, what are you proposin'of dewin'? We want tew git th' gold an' git out of here as soon as wecan," and he lowered his voice.
"I can't see but one thing for us to do, Ham," Mr. Conroyal answered,"and that is to keep a guard over the prisoners, while the rest of usget the gold out; and then, when we've got the gold, to turn them loosein the mountains, without weapons or horses, and make for home as fastas we can. We've been considering the problem, while you were after thehorses and camp supplies, and that is the conclusion that we have cometo. How does it strike you?"
"'Bout right, under th' circumstances," answered Ham. "An' th' sooner wegit things a-goin' ag'in th' better. I'm gettin' some anxious tew gitback intew that cave."
"We'll get busy at once," declared Mr. Conroyal. "But first, I reckon,we ought to bury them two corpses. 'Twouldn't be Christian to leave themto rot a-top the ground or to be ate up by wolves."
"Shore," agreed Ham. "Come on, Rex. We're th' responsible fellers, an',I reckon, it's up tew us tew dig th' grave. We'll put 'em both in onegrave," and he picked up a pick and shovel and started to where the bodyof Quinley lay.
In a short time the two men had the grave dug.
"Now for the bodies," and Ham caught hold of Quinley and turned the bodyover. "Wal, I swun!" and he stared down at the left hand. The littlefinger had been recently shot away and the wound was still roughlybandaged. "So y'ur th' feller that I owe a finger tew. Wal, here it is,"and he thrust his hand into his pocket and pulled out the littlebuckskin-wrapped parcel, containing the little finger that he had shotfrom the unknown hand the night they were encamped on the shore of GooseNeck Lake, and laid it down on the corpse.
"Now, I reckon, we'll have to see if you have any of that stolengold-dust left," and Ham began a search of the body, which resulted inthe finding of a heavily laden gold-belt buckled around the waist, nextto the skin.
Ham at once appropriated this; and then the two men lowered the bodyinto the grave. A similar belt, also well-filled with gold-dust, wasfound around the body of Bill Ugger. Ham unbuckled this belt and placedit with the other. Then he and Rex lifted the body of Ugger and carriedit to the grave and lowered it down on top of the body of Quinley; andthen filled the grave with broken pieces of rocks and dirt, to preventthe wolves from digging up the bodies.
"Th' way of th' transgresser is hard, accordin' tew th' good book," andHam's eyes rested thoughtfully on that lonely new-made grave. "An' shoreth' end of them tew 'pears tew bear out th' good book. Wal, th' dead isdead, an' that's all thar is tew it. Now, for th' livin'," and he turnedfrom the grave and walked up to where Mr. and Mrs. Dickson werestanding, the two confiscated gold-belts in his hand.
"Here, Dick, I reckon, is a part of th' gold them skunks got from you,"and he handed the two belts to Dickson. "Leastwise we got them fromtheir bodies."
But Mr. and Mrs. Dickson refused to take the gold and insisted that itbe placed in the common fund, to be shared by all alike, so Ham turnedthe two gold-belts over to Mr. Conroyal.
The camp was now placed under the strictest discipline. Ten of theprisoners were compelled to assist in getting the gold from the cave.The others were kept bound and under constant guard, night and day, allexcept Pedro, who, during the day, was forced to do the cooking and thecamp work for all, while at night he was securely bound and returned tohis place with the other prisoners.
Thus the work of getting the gold out of the cave went steadily on forfive days, every one, even Mrs. Dickson, working to the very limit ofhis or her endurance. Then came the night of the catastrophe.
The gold, as fast as it was taken out of the cave, was carried, in sacksmade from blankets, to the opening in the wall of rock that gaveentrance to Crooked Arm Gulch, and from there lowered to the ground withropes. Each night all the workers returned to the camp under the BigTree. On this night, the sixth night from the day of the finding of theCave of Gold, about midnight, there suddenly swept through the air abovethem one of those rare, for that time of the year, but often veryviolent, mountain storms.
For an hour the water fell out of the skies, as if poured from anenormous bucket. The wind blew, until it seemed almost to shake thesolid mountains themselves, while vivid glares of lightning blinded theeyes and heavy peals of thunder deafened the ears. Then came a lull inthe violence of the storm, as if the elements had paused to gatherthemselves for a last supreme effort, followed almost instantly by aglare of lightning so vivid, that, for the moment, it seemed as if thewhole world was ablaze, and a shock of thunder, so appalling, thateveryone leaped from his blanket and stood staring with blanched faceand frightened eyes around him, not knowing what awful thing washappening. For two or three minutes the dreadful sounds continued, as ifmountains were being torn up by the roots and thrown crashing to theearth again, while the ground shook and trembled beneath their feet, asif the earth had the ague. Then, only the roar of the falling rain andthe rushing of the wind through the limbs of the Big Tree above theirheads, was heard. Fifteen minutes later the rain had ceased, the windhad died down, the clouds had swept by, and the stars were shining againin a clear sky.
The next morning, when our friends, on their way to the Cave of Gold,reached the narrow shelf of rock in Crooked Arm Gulch, from which theyhad had their first view of the Golden Elbow, an astonishing sight mettheir eyes.
The great arch, overhanging the entrance to the Cave of Gold, with itsmillions of tons of superincumbent rocks, had given away, and the wholeof that side of the gulch, nearly a thousand feet high and for a coupleof hundred feet on either side, had split off and fallen in a great massof rocks, hundreds of feet high, where the day before had been theentrance to the dead miner's marvelous Cave of Gold.
For a number of minutes all stood staring at this unexpected andastounding sight in awed silence. No wonder it had sounded the nightbefore as if mountains were being torn up and thrown down again! Nowonder the ground beneath them had shook and trembled from the impact ofthose millions of tons of rocks!
"Gosh! I'm glad I ain't in that Cave of Gold!" and Ham turned an awedface to the others. "If that storm had comed up in th' daytime, some onus might be in thar right now. I reckon we've got all th' gold th' Lordintended us tew git, an' now we'd better git for home."
"Well, if that was the Lord's work, He has been mighty accommodating towait until we got all the gold we need," and Mr. Conroyal smiled. "I wasthinking last night that we had about enough, and had better be startingfor home. Mighty curious place, that Cave of Gold; and I have beenwondering quite a bit how the gold got into it; and this is about theway I figure it out:
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bsp; "Thousands of years ago, how many thousands God alone knows, there musthave been a great river pouring through Lot's Canyon, with its bedhundreds of feet below the present bottom of the canyon; and, at thattime, there must also have been a powerful stream of water flowingthrough this gulch, and emptying into the river in Lot's Canyon, througha great hole worn through the solid wall of rock, which is nowcompletely hidden under the rocks that have fallen down into the gulchduring the ages since both rivers dried up. Now, in making that turn,"and he pointed to where the Golden Elbow had been, "I figure that thewater struck a soft ledge of gold-bearing rock, and gradually scoopedout a big cave right in the point of the turn, and, of course, as thegold was washed out of the rock, it would fall to the bottom of thecave, and, being in quite large chunks, it was too heavy for the actionof the water to carry it out of the cave, while the water would carryout nearly all the other dirt and gravel, thus leaving the bottom of thecave covered with gold nuggets, the way we found it. And, after theriver had dried up, rocks from the arch at the entrance to the cavewould fall off, and little by little fill up the entrance and form thebig arch we found. Now, that's about the way the gold came into thecave, according to my figureing. What's your idea, Rad?" and Mr.Conroyal turned to Rad Randolph.
"I think that you've hit it about right, Con," answered Mr. Randolph."But, now that there is no hope of getting any more gold out of thatcave, I am getting powerful anxious to make a start for home with whatwe have got. Let's go back to the Big Tree at once and get agoinghomeward as soon as we can."
"Hurrah for home!" yelled Thure, starting for the opening out of CrookedArm Gulch. "I'd rather see home now than another Cave of Gold."
In a few minutes all were back in the camp under the Big Tree; andpreparations for the start homeward were begun at once.
In three hours everything was ready for the journey. The gold, there wasfifty bags of it, each weighing about one hundred pounds, was packed onthe fifteen horses they had secured from the robbers. Mrs. Dickson wasgiven one of the other horses to ride, and the food and the campsupplies were packed on the remaining five horses.
The twenty-two prisoners were now all gathered in a bunch under the BigTree, and the hands of each man strongly tied behind his back. Then Mr.Conroyal stepped out in front of them.
"You cowardly pack of scoundrels," he said, "if we could, we wouldgladly take you to where we could deliver you up to the justice you sorichly deserve; but, under existing circumstances, that is impossible;and so we have decided to leave you here, bound as you now are, withoutweapons of any kind, but with food enough to last you three days, whichought to be enough to keep you until you can get to one of themining-camps. Doubtless, by working real hard, you can manage to get thehands of one of you untied in course of the next two or three hours, andthen he can soon untie the hands of the others, and you can start forone of the mining-camps as soon as you please. But," Mr. Conroyal spokeslowly, so that every man could understand every word that he uttered,"do not, if you value your lives, follow our trail. We will shoot, andshoot to kill, on sight. Now, that is all I have to say to you, except,"and he grinned joyously, "to thank you for bringing us those fifteenhorses and for your help in getting out the gold. I do not know what wewould have done without the horses and without your help. Hope this willlearn you to give up trying to steal gold and start you to digging forit," and he turned and led the little company down the canyon, bound, atlast, for home.
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