After that Tom did not sleep very soundly, for at times it seemed to him that some of the fierce animals had come to the door, which stood wide open all this while, and were about to come in. Once he was sure he heard them on top of the cabin, but the others slept on and paid no attention to it, and finally Tom became somewhat accustomed to it. He did not think he had closed his eyes at all in slumber, but when he awoke to a full sense of what was going on, he found that there were only two men left in the cabin, Mr. Parsons and his cook. The former sat on the edge of his bunk pulling on his boots, and the cook was busy with his frying-pan.

"Hallo, youngster!" said Mr. Parsons cheerfully. "You'll have to get up earlier than this if you're going to strike a gold mine. Why, it must be close on to six o'clock."

"I was awfully tired last night, and the wolves kept me awake," said Tom. "I don't see how anybody can sleep with such a din in his ears."

"The time may come when you will be glad to hear them. If there are any Indians around, you won't hear them; just the minute the Indians break loose the wolves all seem to go into their holes; but when the Indians are whipped, they are out in full force."

Tom noticed that the men seemed to be in a hurry, and he lost no time in packing his outfit. He ate breakfast when Mr. Parsons did, sitting down to it without any invitation from anybody, swallowed his coffee and pancakes scalding hot, saddled his horse, and rode away, leaving the cook to straighten affairs in the dugout; and all the while it seemed to him that he hadn't had any breakfast at all. He couldn't see anything of the cattle; but Mr. Parsons put his horse into a lope and proceeded to fill his pipe as he went.

"I suppose you know your cattle have gone this way, don't you?" said Tom.

"Of course I do," answered Mr. Parsons, taking a long pull at his pipe to make sure it was well lighted. "They are ten miles on the way nearer home than we are, and we have got to make that up."

"Do you always drive your cattle into the mountains in winter?"

"Yes, sir. We have had some blizzards here that would make your eyes bung out if you could have seen them, and I would be penniless to-day if my cattle had been caught in them. Some of the cattle ahead of us have been driven forty miles by a blizzard that struck us last fall, and I have just succeeded in finding them. If my neighbor hadn't been as honest as they make them, I wouldn't have got them at all. It would be very easy for him to round them up and brand them over again, and then tell me that if I could find an arrow brand in his herd I could have them."

"How far does your nearest neighbor live from you?"

"Just a jump--fifteen or twenty miles, maybe."

Fifteen or twenty miles! None nearer than that! Tom had found out by experience that distances didn't count for anything on the prairie.

"You said last night, in speaking of your gold find, that, unfortunately for you, you got it," Tom reminded him. "I would like to know what you meant by that. Were you cheated out of it?"

Mr. Parsons replied, with a laugh, that he was not cheated out of it, but, on the whole, it didn't much matter. He took a party of experts up there, and, after working over the mine for a week or more, they gave him twenty thousand dollars for it, of which five thousand went to him and the balance to his employer. That made him lazy--too lazy to go to work. He spent three thousand dollars in grub-staking men to look up claims for him until the end of the year, when he found out that he wasn't making anything by it, so he took the balance of his money and went into the cattle business.

"That gave me my start," said Mr. Parsons in conclusion. "In four years I had made up the money I had spent, and vowed I never would go into it again; but here I am talking of sending you to the mountains."

"Do you think you are not going to make anything by it?"

"Well, yes," said Mr. Parsons, with another laugh. "But I have got to do something to help you. You ride pretty well, and I should think you ought to go into the cattle business."

"Who will take me? Will you?"

"Well, no; I can't. I have had to discharge some parties, not having work for them to attend to, and I don't know how I could use you. I will tell you this much: when you come back in the spring, I will give you a show."

"Thank you," replied Tom. "That's the first encouragement I have had.

But you say it took you four years to make up the money you had spent.

I'm not going to stay here four years."

"You aint? What are you going to do?"

"I am going to look for that nugget that Elam Storm has lost."

"Oh, ah!" said Mr. Parsons, the expression on his face giving way to one of intense disgust. "Well, you'll never find it."

"Why not? The edge of Death Valley is just crowded with men who haven't given up all hopes of finding it."

"Crowded! Young man, I wonder if you know how big Death Valley is?

Crowded! Now and then you'll find a man who still has that nugget on the brain, but if the man who hid it himself, not more than two years ago, can't find it, I think it is useless for others to try. There have been landslides in all the canyons that run through there till you can't rest. I'll tell you what I'll do: if you will find that nugget, I will give you ten thousand dollars for it. That's a better offer than I made you a while ago. And you may keep the nugget besides. If you are around when anybody else digs it up, I will give you five thousand dollars."

There was something in this offer that completely shut off all discussion of the finding of Elam Storm's nugget. Mr. Parsons did not refer to the matter again, and neither did Tom; but the latter still clung to the hope of finding the gold. The nugget was there, or why should so large a number of men be on the lookout for it? And if he _should_ happen to strike it, he would be a rich man. During all his rides he kept that one thought in his mind, and nothing could shake it out. There was one thing that ought to have opened Tom's eyes, and that was that no nugget of gold had been struck in that country for miles around. The nearest place at which any had been found was at Pike's Peak, and that was over two hundred miles away. But Tom didn't know that, and the only thing that kept the cowboys from telling him of it was the fact that when he was in the mountains he would think he was doing something, but if he knew there was no gold to reward his search, he would give up in despair.

It took our party five days to make the journey between the dugout and headquarters, for the cattle were slow of movement, and, besides, they were allowed to graze on the way. About ten o'clock a fierce winter wind, which made Tom bundle his overcoat closer about him and pull his collar up about his ears, sprung up from over the prairie, and the cattle ceased feeding and struck out for a canyon about a mile wide which opened close in front of them. Along this they held their way for five miles and better, until it finally emerged into a broad natural prairie, large enough, Tom thought, to pasture all the cattle in the country, and went to feeding with one of the herds. The air was soft and balmy, and Tom's overcoat was resting across the horn of his saddle. Mr.

Parsons pulled up his horse and gazed around him with a smile of satisfaction.

"These cattle are all mine, Tom," said he. "Every horn and hoof you see here has been paid for, and if you want to get in the same way, I will give you a chance when you come back to me in the spring. Monroe, you and Stanley might as well go out and see if you can find anything of that bronco. Tom wants to go away, and we must fit him out early in the morning."

This was bringing the matter squarely home to Tom. He was to go away in the morning! He looked up at the mountains, and they seemed so large and he so small by comparison that he shuddered while he thought of getting bewildered in some of those canyons, and lying down and dying there and nobody would know what had become of him. But Mr. Parsons didn't discourage him. He was made of sterner stuff. He looked up and said with an air of determination:

"Yes, I want to get off. The sooner I get to work the sooner I shall be doing something to earn my living."

"That's the idea," said Mr. Parsons. "Stick to that and you will come out all right. Now, let's go home."

Tom waved his hand to the two cowboys, who galloped away in one direction, while he and Mr. Parsons held down the valley, making a wide circuit to get out of reach of the grazing cattle. After going in a lope Mr. Parsons drew up his horse and began to talk seriously to Tom. He told him plainly of the dangers and sufferings which would fall to his lot if he endeavored to carry out his plan, but he did not try to turn him from his purpose. On the contrary, he tried to warn him so that when the dangers came he would be prepared to meet them half-way. He kept this up until the home ranch appeared in view, and then he stopped, for he didn't want the cowboys to hear what he was saying.

This home ranch was not a dugout. There was a neat cabin to take the place of it, and Tom thought some of the cowboys had used an axe pretty well by the way they fashioned the logs and put them together. There were half a dozen hay-racks out behind the house, protected from wandering cattle by rail fences, and there wasn't a thing on the porch, no saddles, bridles, and riding whips, all such things having been put into a cubby-hole in the rear of the house. But it so happened that the cook, who had got there first, had peeled off his coat, and was engaged in straightening things out.

"I never did see such a mess as these fellows leave when I go away for five minutes," said he. "I can't find a thing where it ought to be, though I have hunted high and low for that carving-knife."

Tom took his seat at Mr. Parsons' side while he filled up preparatory to a smoke. There were one or two little things that he wanted to speak to him about.

CHAPTER IX.

LOST IN THE MOUNTAINS.

When Mr. Parsons had fairly settled himself, filled his pipe, lighted it, and fell to nursing his leg as a man might who felt at peace with himself and all the world, Tom said:

"You didn't say anything about my horse in telling me what I should have to get through with. Did you mean that I should leave him at home, and go on foot?"

"I did, certainly," said Mr. Parsons. "You will find that the bronco will go through some places that you will not care to ride, and, besides, you will have one horse less to take care of, and one less to watch."

"Have I got to watch him all the time?"

"Well, yes. You must keep the halter on him all the time, and tie him fast to a tree when you go into camp. If you don't, he will run away and leave you. He'll turn around and take the back track as soon as your pack grows light, and you had better come, too."

"That's what one of the cowboys told me," said Tom. "Now, I have got some money here. I don't suppose it will be of the least use to me in the mountains, and I should like to leave it with somebody."

"All right. Leave your horse and your money with me, and I will take care of them."

"If I don't come back, they are yours," continued Tom. "Now, I should like to have a gun of some sort."

Without saying a word Mr. Parsons went into the house and brought out a rifle and a revolver. Tom took them and examined them, and the way he drew the rifle to his face rather astonished Mr. Parsons. He remarked that he had handled guns before in his day, and Tom told him that he could not remember the time when he did not have a horse and shotgun for his own. His uncle furnished him with all these things.