CHAPTER XXIV.
THE GOLDEN HERMIT.
"Some'ne in there?" echoed the others in amazed tones.
"Yes--hark!" said the lad, holding up a finger.
Sure enough, above the moaning of the storm and the roar of the raincame a sound like a faint groaning.
"Well, come on," cried Bart; "no use stopping out here in the rain justfor that. Let's go in."
Reassured by his confident manner, the others crowded in. The interiorof the hut, not overlight at any time, was rendered doubly gloomy by themantle of blackness which the storm had flung over the heavens. It wasnot till Frank had taken out a folding lantern from his pocket and litit with a lucifer from his folding match box that they were able to takein the details of the strange interior in which they stood. Of course,their first task was to look for the human being or animal that Billyhad heard groaning.
This did not take long. The hut was not divided into rooms, and wasunceiled, the rafters being right overhead. The lamp was flashed intoevery corner.
To the boys' amazement, the place was absolutely empty.
"I'm sure I heard somebody groaning or grumbling," said Billy. "I'mpositive of it."
"Well, maybe you are right, lad," replied Bart Witherbee, "and I ratherthink you are, for look here!"
He pointed to a rough sort of bunk formed of a framework of lumber inone corner of the room.
"It's warm," he said, touching it with his hand, "somebody was lyingasleep here when we came up the trail--that's as plain as print--andlook here, too," he went on, pointing to other signs of human occupancythe boys had not noticed when first they came in.
In rapid succession, he showed them some ashes glowing in a huge openfireplace, in front of which was an ample hearthstone. There was also arude table in one corner, on which were the remains of what had been arude meal.
"But where has the man gone who was in here?" demanded Frank.
"Maybe out by the back door," suggested Harry.
"There isn't one," rejoined Billy, "the door in front is the only wayout."
"How about the windows?"
"The two in front are the only ones."
"Well, that's queer."
"It certainly is."
"See if there are any trap doors in the floor," suggested Bart. "Theseold miners are queer old chaps sometimes."
But a close search of the floor did not reveal any trace of a trap door.Much puzzled by the mystery, the boys retired to bed that night preparedfor any sudden alarm. A lamp was left burning, and their guns lay readyto hand. But nothing occurred to mar the monotonous drumming of the rainon the roof, and one by one they dropped off to sleep.
It was soon after midnight that Frank awakened with a strange feeling ofdread.
He looked about the room, but so far as he could see at first everythingwas as it had been left when they went to sleep. All at once, however,his attention was attracted to the fireplace by a slight scratchingsound. He gazed over toward the hearth, and to his unboundedastonishment and no small alarm he saw the hearthstone suddenly begin toswing slowly back, and, through the aperture thus created on the sidenearest the room, he saw human finger tips cautiously poking about.Suddenly an entire hand was thrust through the crack.
Suddenly an entire hand was thrust through the crack.]
What was coming next Frank had no idea, but with a violently beatingheart he lay watching the aperture while a second hand joined the firstand gave the stone a feeble shove upward. It swung back on its invisiblehinges till a space of perhaps three feet yawned between it and thefloor, and then a face made its appearance.
It was the face of a very old man with venerable white beard and mild,timid, blue eyes. Frank almost closed his eyes, and from under theirlashes watched the old man painfully lift himself out of the tunnel intothe room. Once in the room he tiptoed about among the sleepers, gazingat them earnestly to make sure they were all asleep, and then, returningto the hole beneath the hearthstone, reached down and drew out a bagthat seemed to weigh considerably.
But the exertion seemed to exhaust his feeble strength, for with a groanhe fell back into a rough chair, and the sack fell from his tremblinghands with a crash. The sudden sound woke all the adventurers, and theysprang to their feet with their weapons in their hands.
The sight of the feeble old man, however, gasping in the chair, with hishand on his heart as if he was in mortal pain, soon convinced them thatit was no dangerous enemy with whom they had to deal.
"Don't, don't hurt me," cried the old man pitiably, as the boys andtheir elders closed in about him. "I will tell you all, only don't hurtme. Spare a poor old man who has not long to live; let him spend hislast hours in peace."
"We do not wish to hurt you," Frank assured him, "we want to aid you.Are you ill?"
"I am sick unto death. The exertion of carrying that load of ore fromthe mine was too much for me. I do not think I have long to live."
"Who are you?" asked Bart Witherbee gently.
"I am Jared Fogg," replied the old man, closing his eyes as though tooweary to keep them open.
"Jared Fogg!" exclaimed the others in amazed tones.
"Yes; why do you seem so surprised?"
"Why, I am the man who found your lost mine," exclaimed the miner.
"What! The man who staked out his claim there!" cried the old man.
"Yes; I thought you were dead. We all did, and I started out to findyour mysterious mine. As you never filed a claim to it, I thought I hada right to stake it."
"You are right; I never filed a claim to it. I did not want other minersto come to the neighborhood as soon as they found how rich it was. So Iworked it all alone. As I got the good gold out I hid it all away."
"Yes; go on," said Bart Witherbee breathlessly.
"Well, I saw that some day sooner or later someone was bound to discoverit if I worked openly in it, so I started constructing a tunnel. Themouth of it is under that hearthstone, and the other end emerges intothe shaft of the lost mine. For many years I have used it, and no onehas ever suspected that old Jared Fogg, the hermit who lived in thishut, had thousands of dollars in gold. I am rich--ha--ha--I am rich."
The old man's face became convulsed.
"But," he went on, "now that I am dying--ah, I know death when it iscoming on--I have a great wish to right a wrong I did years ago. My namewas not always Jared Fogg. It was once Jack Riggs. I was once a banditand a robber and did many, many wicked things. But one weighs on myconscience more heavily than any of the others. One night we held up theRio Bravo stage. There was fighting, and I shot the stage driver and hiswife, who, when her husband fell from the box, seized the reins andattempted to drive on. With them was their child, a lad of three or fouryears. That disgusted me with crime. I reformed from that night. I tookthe lad and raised him till he was six or seven, when he was stolen fromme by a wandering circus. I have never seen him since. If I could seehim, now that he has grown to man's estate, and tell him that on mydeath bed I beg his forgiveness for my wicked deed, I would die happy.All these years I have thought of him. If I only knew where he was now."
"Would you know him again if you saw him?" Bart Witherbee's voice shookstrangely, and several times during the old man's recital he had passedhis hand across his brow as if striving to recollect something. Now hiseye shone with a strange light, and he bent forward eagerly:
"Yes, among a thousand!"
"How?"
"By a peculiar mark on his arm, where he was shot accidentally by one ofmy gang in the fight following the killing of his father."
Bart rolled up his sleeve, and the old man gave a terrible cry as hiseyes fell on the dark-red scar the boys had often noticed.
"Forgive----," he cried, stumbling to his feet and stretching out hishands as if to keep from falling.
The next moment he had fallen forward with a crash.
He was dead.
The Boy Aviators in Record Flight; Or, The Rival Aeroplane Page 24
