"We met your party back yonder," said their leader. "They asked us to look out for you as we went by. Glad to see the Indians haven't got you yet."

"Oh!" exclaimed Felix, sitting up and rubbing his eyes, "Have you--have you been in California?"

The man nodded. He drew out of his pocket a greasy little buckskin bag, opened the strings, and poured a stream of something yellow into the boy's hand.

"Ever see gold dust before?" he asked.

It was Felix's first sight of the odd, flattened flakes of metal that shine dully in your hand, that are no two alike, so that you can turn them over and over, always seeing different shapes and sizes, different gleams and lights upon their changing surfaces.

"There's a lot of it back there where we've been," the man said, grinning slowly as he saw Felix's excited face. "We left it there for you and those like you."

"And did you find all you wanted? Are you going home now to be rich and comfortable all your days?" the boy inquired.

The man's grin grew broader still.

"You don't know gold miners, sonny," he said. "We've been at work on the American River diggings, where your folks ahead there are going, and we found it good enough, but we've heard of something better. Over to the southward of that valley there's another one deeper, wilder, hard to get into but with the richest pay dirt you ever dreamed of. We staked out our claims and left one man to hold it, while we go back to the States for supplies and better equipment. The gold's harder to get out, but it's there all right. It makes American River look like nothing at all."

He turned in the saddle and looked up the little stream bed where the water lay in shallow pools below the overhanging bushes. The black mare had at last struggled to her feet and was now grazing on the spa.r.s.e gra.s.s that bordered the river.

"It is none too safe for you to be here alone, young fellow," the man observed. "There's a band of Indians have been doing considerable mischief around this neighborhood just lately. We've been hearing of them from every party as we came along."

"I'm not afraid," returned Felix stoutly. "One boy and one horse would be hard to find in this great wide prairie. Aren't you afraid you will meet the Indians yourselves?"

"Afraid!" The other laughed aloud. "Why, we're looking for them and it will be a sorry day for them when we find them." He sobered and went on earnestly: "The woman in that party you left called out a message for you as we came by. 'Tell him,' she said to us, 'that the horse is his and that he is to go back with you to the States. Tell him, G.o.d bless him,' she said. We'll be glad enough to have you if you care to come with us," he concluded.

Felix looked at the long, empty trail before him; he looked up at the prospector's hard brown face, and then at the little heap of gold dust in his hand.

"I'll not go back--just yet," he said. "There are things I must see first."

They rode jingling away, the sun glinting on their gun barrels and pistol b.u.t.ts until they disappeared in the shimmering hot distance of the dusty trail. Felix, as the heat of the day increased, led the mare up the watercourse to where the bushes were tall enough to afford a little shade. He, himself, crawled under a rock beside one of the pools and lay there very quietly, waiting for the long, sleepy day to pa.s.s. It was noontime, with the world so still that he could actually hear the water of the stream filtering through the sand as it ran sluggishly from pool to pool, when a new sound caught his attention.

There was a shuffling of m.u.f.fled feet, a stone dislodged from the bank above, the click of metal against metal, but every noise so stealthy and quiet that he could hardly believe he heard.

He did not dare to move, but peered through the branches of the bush beside him and saw a strange cavalcade pa.s.sing on the high bank above, little brown and buckskin and piebald Indian ponies, their unshod hoofs stepping lightly and quietly over the dry gra.s.s, each with a painted, red-skinned rider, armed and decorated with all of an Indian's trappings of war. The feathered war bonnets that crowned their heads and reached to their heels were of every gay color, their fierce faces were daubed with red and ocher, they carried, some of them, guns, more of them rude lances and bows and arrows. Felix was so near that he could make out the strings of beads and claws of wild animals about their necks, could see their red skins glisten, and could watch the muscles of their slim thighs move and ripple as they guided their wise little horses more by pressure of the knee than by use of the rude Indian bridles. Not one of them spoke, once a pony snorted in the dust, but that was the only sound as they moved past him and turned into the trail with their faces eastward. The whole procession might have been a vision--a mirage of the high, hot noontide and of the boy's tired brain. But after the men were gone and he had crawled out from his hiding place he could see the horses'

footprints in the dust and could a.s.sure himself that they were real.

After a long time he heard shots, very faint and far away, lasting for an hour or more before the hush of the prairie fell again. The cool night came at last, and the little mare, visibly strengthened by the rest and grazing, came trotting to him, splashing happily through the water of the pool. Those gray enemies of the night before did not come near, nor, though he waited two days, watchful and alert, did any of the Indians return. He thought of that band of men he had talked with, hard, seasoned, and well armed for the struggle. From the very first he had felt little doubt as to what the issue of such a battle would be.

It seems too long to tell of how Felix mounted the mare at last and cantered away along the trail, rejoicing in swift motion again after the long wait and the crawling pace of the ox team. Nor can it be fully told how he and his friends toiled forward across the plain, over that dreaded stretch of desert that came at the far edge of it, up the tempest-swept, snow-covered mountains, until that wondrous minute when the endless bleak slopes suddenly fell away before them and they looked down into the wide green wonder of a new land. In less than a week from that day, Felix's long dream had come true; he was standing knee-deep in a rushing stream with a miner's pan in his excited hands, he saw the gravel wash away, the muddy earth dissolve, the black sand settle to the bottom to be dried and blown away, leaving--it did not even then seem believable--the sparkling grains of yellow gold.

They did well, he and Abner Blythe. Though their backs ached at the end of the day and they came home to sleep, worn out, wet, and dirty, their buckskin bags filled slowly with gold dust as the autumn pa.s.sed. Yet Felix could not put from his mind the talk of the man he had met on the prairie, the tale of higher mountains, deeper valleys, and richer diggings over to the southward. When the rains came and there was little work to do, he thought of those words more and more, and when the open weather came once more he gathered supplies, said good-by one day to Abner and Anna, and set forth to seek a further, greater fortune for them all.

It was a toilsome journey over the mountains, for very few had as yet pa.s.sed that way. The deep, shadowy canons, the rushing streams, the smooth faces of granite walls seemed impa.s.sable barriers, but Felix at last pa.s.sed them all and came into the wild, rugged valley of Bear Creek. He staked his claim, put up his little tent, and went down to the river to wash his first pan of gold. Yes, the prospector had been right; here in this bleak, far region the toil was much heavier, but the reward was unbelievably great.

There were not yet many miners who had come so far, but the one whose claim was next to Felix's and whose rough shanty stood almost side by side with his tent had been there among the first. He was a friend of those men from whom the boy had first heard of the place, and he willingly showed the newcomer the best slope for his claim and the easiest way to wash the gold.

"There's room for all, so far," he said. "The others below there on American River haven't had time to get discontented yet, but there will be a rush up here soon. When the place begins to be crowded there will be jumping of claims, and robbery and fights, with knives out and blood shed, just as you have seen it down there. But we will be peaceable and friendly here as long as we can."

The old miner seemed to take a great fancy to Felix and helped him with advice and kindness in unnumbered ways. He had built himself a little hut of pine logs roofed with bark as a better protection than a tent against the mountain storms. Felix sat there with him one night before the rude stone hearth, while the rain fell in deluges outside and the wind went calling and bl.u.s.tering down the valley. The miner piled the fuel high upon the fire and, as the hours pa.s.sed, told story after story of wild adventure, of desperate escape, of bold crime, and of the quick, merciless justice of the frontier. At last his fund of narrative seemed to come to an end and he was silent for a little.

"Yes, these are rich diggings," he said finally, going back to the subject of which they had first been talking, "but--there is more gold even than this somewhere beyond. A man I knew once, a prospector, told me a strange story. He was captured by the Indians and carried off to the south, over beyond the mountains to the edge of the desert. He escaped from them, but he got lost, trying to go back, and wandered for days, nearly dying with thirst, torn and cut by the cactus thorns, blind and nearly crazed by the terrible heat. He came to the foot of a hill that he was too weak to climb and he lay down there to die. But a rain fell and he lay soaking in it all night, drinking what gathered in a rock pool beside him, with rattlesnakes and lizards, he said, crawling up to drink with him and he never cared. In the morning his head was clear and he looked up the hill to see the outcropping of such a gold mine as you never dreamed of. Lying there on the open slope was the gold-bearing quartz in plain sight, to be picked up with your bare hands. He took some with him, but not much, for gold is heavy when you are staggering weak, and he went on and on, lost again and nearly dead, but at last he came to a settlement. He lay in a Mexican's house, raving with fever for weeks, but in the end he got well. But when he tried to go back to his mine he could never find the way."

Felix was listening eagerly, but he did not interrupt or even ask a question when the man paused. The deep voice rasped huskily, for evidently the miner was telling his tale with an intent purpose.

"I have always meant, some day, to go and look for that mine myself, when I found a comrade I could trust, one who would not be afraid of the hardship and the danger. The way there is a terrible journey, but I believe I know almost to a certainty where the place must be. Will you come, boy--will you come?"

Felix got up and went to the tiny square window to look out. His voice was thick with excitement, but he did not answer directly.

"The storm has pa.s.sed," he said, "and I must go back to my tent. I--I will think about what you say and tell you in the morning."

He went out into the dark, wet night, closing the door with a hand that shook and fumbled against the wooden latch.

The old miner must have slept little, for it was scarcely dawn before he had crossed the muddy slope to Felix's tent. Early as he was, the boy was before him, gathering up his possessions and thrusting them into his pack.

"You're going?" cried the man joyfully, but Felix shook his head.

"I'm going back," he said and beyond that he would tell him nothing.

He could not explain how, in the watches of the night, there had come to him the realization that the fever for finding gold is more consuming than the fever for getting it, that there is always the thirst to go on, to leave what one has and seek some new, dazzling discovery that seems just out of reach. To follow adventure is one thing; but, as the years pa.s.s, to surrender a whole life to a single and selfish desire is quite another. Some indwelling wisdom had told Felix that it was time to turn back, but he had no words by which to make the other understand. The old miner had given up to the dream long ago; he would always be seeking something richer and better, always leaving it for some golden vision that would lure him forward until at last he would disappear in the mountains or the desert and never return.

"I am going to turn over my claim here to Abner Blythe," declared Felix. "It will make him rich and his wife happy, and you had better stay to work it with him, for I am going home."

"I can't stay." The miner seemed to understand also, but he was as brief and inarticulate as was the boy. "I'm one of those that has to go on--and on."

He turned away and walked back to his cabin through the rain-drenched flowers and the dripping green bushes. Who may know what pictures either of dark regret or of golden hope were pa.s.sing before his eyes as vividly as were Felix's memories of the low cottage on the hill, of the apple trees that would be in bloom now all up and down Medford Valley, of the wind talking in the oak tree outside his window. A quarrel with one's only brother looks suddenly very small when so many thousand miles are stretched out between.

Ralph had often said that the hollyhocks were growing too many and should be uprooted, but Barbara's begging for their lives somehow always saved them in the end. They had spread out from the door and advanced down the hill in marching regiments, a glowing ma.s.s of color. The singing, yellow-banded bees were busy all day in the cups of scarlet fading to pink and white, and white shading into yellow.

The afternoon sun was behind them, lighting them to unwonted glory, when Felix came plodding along the lane on each side of which the apple trees were beginning to grow tall. Barbara was in the garden cutting sweet peas into her ap.r.o.n and Ralph, beside her, was standing in silence, watching the bees. A dozen times the girl had read that same thought in his mind, that he would give ten years of life to unsay the words that had driven his brother away and that had taught himself such a bitter lesson. Then suddenly Barbara uttered such a cry of joy that even the bees hummed and hovered lower, and slow old Chloe came hurrying to the door. The old woman smiled, with tears running down her wrinkled face, as she saw who it was that came trudging up the hill.

"There's good luck come back to this house at last," she said aloud an hour later when Felix, as the twilight was falling, sat down upon the doorstep and began to play his violin.

He never grew tired of telling the tale of his adventurous journey, nor did his sister and brother ever grow tired of listening. Ralph Brighton had lost, in that one dreadful hour, his love for dollar signs, and he nodded in wise agreement over Felix's decision to give up the quest for gold. Barbara would hearken in awed fascination to that story of the man lost in the desert, whose eyes looked once upon fabulous wealth but who could never find it again.

Wherever gold mines are, there is to be found such a legend, a tale of greater riches just beyond men's knowledge. No matter how dazzling is the wealth at hand there is always that tantalizing story of the lost mine, sometimes reputed to be far and inaccessible, sometimes only just over the next hill, yet always as difficult to discover as the end of the rainbow. But, as Abner Blythe said, it is so a country grows, and when men cease from following rainbows, then will the world stand still.

CHAPTER X

A MAN OF STRAW

The shower had lifted and was moving away down the valley, a gray mist of rain with a slowly following flood of sunshine. Oliver got up and said without enthusiasm:

"We must go now, we have an errand we must do. Come along, Janet."

She rose to go with him but looked back wistfully several times as she went, with lagging feet, down the hill. She had wished that the story might last forever, so that she need not face Anthony Crawford at the end of it.