Elam Storm, the Wolfer: or, The Lost Nugget

"You ought not to have given that man so much water," said one of the cowboys. "But after all it's our own fault, Hank. One of us ought to have stayed here with him."

Tom Mason did not know what to say, and neither was he able to account for so much forbearance on the part of the cowboys. He looked to see them pull their revolvers; but instead of doing that they drew chairs up beside their sick comrade and waited to see what was going to happen to him, and Tom, filled with remorse, went out on the boiler-deck. Just then the Jennie June's bell rang, the lines and gang-planks were hauled in, and she backed down the river to her moorings. Then the Ivanhoe's bell was struck, and instantly a great hubbub arose among the passengers. Hands were shaken, farewells were said, and in ten minutes more the little boat was ploughing her way up the river. Tom had an opportunity to sit down after that. He pulled a chair up to the railing and sat there for ten minutes awaiting the arrival of the clerk, and wondering how calomel would operate on that man after he had drank ice-water on top of it; and consequently he did not feel very safe when he saw the two cowboys approaching him. He had left them to watch over the sick man, and he did not like to have them follow him up.

"Look here, pard," said the foremost. "You've got the only lower bunk there is in the cabin, and we want to see if you won't give it up to that sick boss of ours. The man now occupying the upper bunk has offered to give it up, but we don't want it."

"You can have it and welcome," said Tom. "I assure you that my giving him a drink was all a mistake. I offered him a glass of water, but he wouldn't take it."

Having given up his bed, Tom considered that he had done all that a boy could do to make amends for what he had done. He gave the clerk his money to lock in the safe, and when night came found a pallet made up for him in a remote corner of the cabin. All the report he could get regarding the sick man was that he was sleeping soundly, and had fought his attendants so hard that it was all they could do to take his clothes off.

"I really believe he is coming around all right," said one of the cowboys. "When he gets mad and reaches for his revolver, it's a mighty good sign."

"Did he draw it on either of you?" asked Tom, in alarm.

"Oh, no; for we took good pains to keep it out of his way."

When Tom got up the next morning (there was no barber shop on this boat, and so he had to comb his hair in the wash-room), and went out on the boiler-deck to get his breath of fresh air, he found three men out there sitting in their chairs, and paying no heed to the cold wind that was blowing. The men who slept there had gone into a warmer climate, down in the neighborhood of the boilers, but their baggage was scattered around just as they had left it. Tom took just one look around, and, seeing how desolate things were, was about to retreat to the cabin, when one of the men happened to spy him.

"My gracious, there's my doctor!" said he cheerfully. "Come here, old man, and give us your flipper."

"Why, I didn't expect to find you out here to-day," said Tom, walking up and taking the outstretched hand of his sick man. "My medicine did you some good, didn't it? But you ought not to sit out here without something around you. You will take cold."

The sick man laughed heartily.

"Why, doctor, I am as sound as a dollar. That water you gave me hit the spot, for it set me to perspiring like a trip-hammer. I knew I was all right as soon as I could sleep. Draw a chair up and sit down. You won't take cold while you have that overcoat on."

Tom drew a chair up alongside the sick man, one of the cowboys moving aside to make room for him, and deposited his feet on the railing. The wind cut severely, and he would have felt a good deal more cheerful beside the cabin fire.

"Where be you a-travelling to, doctor?" said the sick man; for Tom didn't know what else to call him. "If you are going out our way, we may be able to be of some use to you."

"I am going to Fort Hamilton," said Tom. "How much farther I don't know until I have seen Black Dan."

It was curious what a sensation that name occasioned in that little company. They simply looked at each other and smiled, and then settled down and sought new places for their feet on the railing. It was evident that they took Black Dan for a relative of his.

"Have you got much to do with him?" asked one of the cowboys.

"I never saw him," Tom hastened to say. "I got his name from a Mr. Bolton, who gave me a very valuable pin to return to him. He got into a fight once and had some diamonds torn out of it."

"Yes, Dan has been in a good many fights," said the sick man. "He aint the fellow he used to be."

"I – I hope he didn't get the worst of any of them."

"Well – yes. He rather got the worst of the last fight he was in. He got into a row with three fellows, – cowboys, I knew them well, – and although he managed to get away with all of them, one shot him through the arm above the elbow, and it had to be taken off."

"Amputated?" said Tom.

"Yes, I suppose that's what you call it. Then Dan took to drink and lost everything he had."

"Why should the loss of his arm send him to drink?"

"He couldn't shuffle the cards any more. He doesn't do anything now but get drunk in the morning and then crawl into some hole and sleep it off; and he has seen the time when he was worth a million."

Tom Mason was sorry to hear all this. He did not know what he was going to do now that Black Dan was in no condition to help him. Who was he going to get to grub-stake him and send him into the mountains to find a gold mine? He knew that things were pretty high in Fort Hamilton, and his two hundred dollars would not last him a great while.

"For a fellow who has never seen Black Dan you appear to take his downfall very much to heart," said the sick man.

"Yes, I do. I was depending on him to see me through. I have a very nice pin which is his own private property, and which I have been commissioned to give into his keeping."

"Have you got it with you?"

Tom replied that the pin was in his baggage, and arose and went after it. In a few minutes he returned with it in his hand, and was not a little surprised at the exclamations of astonishment that arose from his three friends when they handled the ornament, and passed it from one to the other and speculated upon its merits.

"Five hundred dollars!" said "Boss" Kelley, who by virtue of his position took it upon himself to act as judge when matters came before them that were somewhat hard to be decided. Tom had noticed one thing: that his word was law to the two cowboys, and that when he spoke the other two remained silent. "That's a heap of money to go into Dan's hands. How long do you suppose it will last him?"

"Until he can get to Cale's bar," said Hank Monroe.

"And no longer," chimed in Frank Stanley.

"It's his and he ought to have it, if we can find him when he is sober," said Kelley. "Now, doctor, how came you by it in the first place?"

"I am plain Tom Mason, and I don't like to answer to any other name," said the latter; and with the words he settled back in his chair and told the history of his meeting with Mr. Bolton. He kept back nothing. He knew he could tell it just as it happened, for these men had more or less to do with gamblers, and knew the motives which influenced them. When he got through, he found that he had them very much interested.

"Why, you haven't done anything," said Stanley. "Go home and tell your uncle just what you have told us, and take the racket."

"Boys, I know my uncle," said Tom, shaking his head.

"Perhaps he had better go on," said Kelley. "His uncle will throw things at him whenever he gets mad, and it's better to go away and let him get over that. Now, Tom, if you are willing to take help from us – "

"I am willing to take help from anybody," said Tom. "I am a stranger in a strange place, and don't know what move to make first."

"Very good," said Kelley, extending his hand to be shaken by Tom, a proceeding in which he was imitated by both his friends. "That is a cowboy's grip, and whenever you get it out here, you may know that you are among friends. Tom is one of our party now."

Tom Mason told himself that never had a runaway been blessed with such luck. No sooner did one man on whom he was depending for assistance turn out to be unreliable than another one came to take his place. For once he had forgotten himself and told the truth, and the truth was mighty and would prevail. After that he had nothing to do during the rest of his trip but sit alongside one of his companions and talk of cattle-herding and speculate concerning the future of Black Dan. All he could learn regarding the latter was that he was going to the bad as rapidly as he could.

"All gamblers come to that sooner or later," said Kelley. "All the money I have got was made honestly. I don't know one card from another."

All this was very encouraging. If a man of Kelley's stamp – Tom knew he was well off, for he had heard him talk of the thousand head of cattle which he was holding fast to until the government came up to his price – could live all these years on the prairie and never learn one card from another, it was certain that another might do so.

At last, after innumerable discouragements, during which her spars had been used until they were all mud, and it seemed impossible for her to proceed a foot farther, the Ivanhoe whistled for Fort Hamilton. Then Tom saw what had given it that name. A short distance above the little circle of houses that always spring up around a fortification, crowning a hill, was a stockade from which floated the Stars and Stripes, and among the crowd of loungers who assembled to see the boat come in were several men dressed in the uniform of the army.

As soon as the landing was made Tom went to the clerk to get the money he had locked in the safe, and made his way down the stairs to find Kelley and Stanley waiting for him. They all had horses, with their extra wardrobe tied up in ponchos behind their saddles, but they had given them over to one of their number with orders to take them to the Eldorado, the hotel which all the best men in that country patronized.

"Now, we want to find out what's left of Black Dan," said Kelley. "I think we will get on his trail somewhere up here."

CHAPTER VII.

A TEMPERANCE LECTURE

It was a muddy, miry place in which Tom Mason now found himself, for it had been raining some there and Fort Hamilton was not blessed with a system of drainage. There were no sidewalks except in front of the various saloons and stores they passed, and half the way they walked through mud that was more than ankle deep. It was astonishing to him to notice how many people there were on the streets who recognized his companions. It was "Howdy, Mr. Kelley?" and "Hello, Stanley!" or "Hello, Arrow-foot!" until Tom might be pardoned for thinking that his two friends were raised right in town instead of coming from a country a hundred miles away.

"Arrow-foot?" said he. "That's one thing I do not understand."

"Well, you see that when my employer first came to this country and wanted a name for his cattle, he picked up on his piece of land, close by the spot where his dugout is now located, a small piece of clay plainly marked with an arrow-foot. There was the stem of the arrow all complete, and so he named his cattle 'Arrow-foot.' Almost everybody out here is known by the brand his cattle wears."

"But how do they come to call you 'Mr.' Kelley?"

"I don't know, unless it is because I don't drink or gamble with them, and have a happy faculty for settling all the rows."

Presently Mr. Kelley made his way into a spacious saloon that occupied one end of the block. It had evidently been built by someone who had an idea of refinement about him, for its verandas were spacious, the windows came down to the floor, and there was a gilded sign over the door. Inside the room was large and airy, with a bar on one side and a number of tables extending away to the other end. It was quiet enough now in the daytime, but when Tom heard the noise that came from it after the lamps were lighted, he thought pandemonium had broken loose.

"Howdy, Mr. Kelley? Denominate your poison," said the man behind the counter, extending a bottle toward him with one hand and reaching out the other to be shaken. "Got back safe and sound, didn't you?"

"I don't take any of that stuff, and you ought to know better than to ask me. I got back all right with the exception of the dumb ague, which took me just as I got ready to leave Fort Gibson. Have you seen Black Dan lately?"

"You're right, I have," said the man, frowning fiercely. "Do you see that?" he added, taking out from under his counter a revolver which was cocked and ready to be used when it was drawn. "I am going to keep that just as it is and show it to him when he wakes up. Because he used to own this house is no reason why he should pull a pistol on me!"

"Did he draw it on you?" asked Tom, forgetting where he was in the excitement of the moment.

"I should say he did, kid, and Mose, there, was just in time to stop him. I hope you have come to take him East, for I don't want him around here any longer. It is all I can do to keep him from getting into a fight with somebody, and the first thing you know he will pick up the wrong man. You took him out, Mose. Do you know where he is?"

"Yes; he's out there," said Mose, motioning one way with his thumb and another way with his head. "I can find him."

Mose made an effort to get on his feet, but reeled considerably, and would have fallen back in his chair if Mr. Kelley had not caught him and placed him steadily on his feet. When he was fairly up, he was all right, and made his way out of the house and around the corner, closely followed by Mr. Kelley and Tom. Presently he stopped, and curled up behind a water-butt, the mud spattered thick on his torn clothing, his empty holster and the stump of his crippled arm thrown out recklessly by his side, lay all that was left of Black Dan. Tom saw in a minute where he had got his cognomen. His complexion was swarthy and his hair and whiskers were as black as midnight, but for all that he had been a very handsome man. He was dead drunk, and Mr. Kelley saw that all attempts to arouse him would be useless.

"Why didn't you put him in a bed?" asked Tom, in accents of disgust.

"He wouldn't stay there," replied Mose. "That is the only place he will stay, and there is where we take him as soon as he shows any desire to go to sleep."

"Let's go away," said Tom. "I'll never drink a drop of whiskey as long as I live."

"It would be useless to try to awake him," said Mr. Kelley. "Mose, you tell him that as soon as he wakes up we want to see him down to the Eldorado, where we are stopping. We want to see him particularly. You can remember that much, can't you?"

"I can, sir," replied Mose, hastily pocketing the dollar which Kelley thrust out to him. "I'll send him down as soon as he comes to himself."

"It always comes hard for one to see a man done up in that style," said Mr. Kelley, as he and Tom bent their steps toward the Eldorado. "It makes me hate whiskey worse than I did before."

Tom had seen so much of the little town of Fort Hamilton that he had some doubts about going to the Eldorado. Their little interview with Black Dan, if such it could be called, had taken all the conversation out of them; but when they entered the living-room of the hotel, and saw no semblance of a bar, and the men who were playing cards were doing it for fun, and not for money, and there was no sign of a drunken man around, his spirits rose wonderfully, and he walked up and placed his valise on the counter.

"Ah! here you are," exclaimed Stanley, coming up at that moment. "I wasn't able to get a room with four beds in it, but I have engaged one end of the dining-room, so that we can all be together to-night."

"Full up to the top notch," said the clerk. "Put it there, Mr. Kelley. How are you, Arrow-foot? This young man I don't remember to have seen before, but all the same I am glad to meet him."

"Yes, he's a tender-foot, and we are taking him out to have the boss grub-stake him."

"Ah! that's your business, is it? Fine business that. You may make a strike some day and come back and buy us all out. You're going right in the country for one, for there's a nugget worth eight thousand dollars for you to pitch on to."

"Yes, Elam Storm's nugget," said Stanley. "I hope to goodness you'll get it, for then we shall quit hearing so much about it."

"Oh, it's there, for one with such a reputation as that – why, man alive, it extends through twenty years! And the Red Ghost, too; you want to steer clear of him."

Tom laughed and said he would do his best to follow the clerk's advice. He had heard of Elam Storm's nugget, had even found himself thinking of it when awake, and dreaming about it when asleep. He knew that his chances for digging it up were rather slim, for he did not suppose that the man who had hid it had any idea that it would be unearthed by anyone save himself; but if he should happen to strike it with one blow of his pick! Wouldn't he be in town? He could then write back to his uncle that he had made more than the sum he had temporarily lost, made it by the sweat of his brow, and he was sure that the next letter he received from his uncle would be one telling him to come back home, and all would be forgiven. But the Red Ghost! Tom did not know what to think about him. He had been seen, never in broad daylight, and he was a terrible thing to look at. He roamed about after nightfall, tearing the mules and trampling the teamsters to death, and the worst of it was he was always to be found somewhere near the place where the nugget was supposed to be hid. Stanley once had a partner that had been done to death, and even Mr. Kelley's face grew solemn whenever he spoke of him. That was the only thing that made Tom doubtful about taking a grub-stake.

The dinner-bell rang while they were talking, and when the meal was ended Tom went out with the two cowboys to look at a horse that Stanley had found for him in the morning. They were gone about two hours, and when they came back, Tom told himself that he was a cowboy at last; a horse, saddle, and bridle were waiting for him at the stable, and the poncho which he carried slung over his arm was roomy enough for his extra baggage. The first thing that attracted Stanley's notice was a strange man talking to Mr. Kelley. The stump of his arm proclaimed who he was.

"It's Black Dan," said he. "Now, Tom, let's see how much your temperance principles will amount to."

Tom was startled, as well he might be, to know that he had it in his power to help a man who, in his palmy days, held an influence in Fort Hamilton second only to the commander of the station. He gazed steadily at him a moment, then threw his poncho on the table, asked the clerk for his valise, and took from it the pin Mr. Bolton had given him, and with this in his hand he approached Black Dan, while with a delicacy of feeling that some people who occupy prouder stations might have envied the cowboys turned toward the window. Hearing from the barkeeper that the man who wanted to see him was a "top-notch fellow," Dan had washed his face and brushed his hair, and made other efforts to improve himself. His holster was filled this time, so it showed that he was in a situation to defend himself. Mr. Kelley introduced Tom, and then moved away.

"How do you do, sir?" said Dan, gazing hard at Tom's face and trying to recollect where he had seen him before. "You have got the advantage of me."

"I never saw you before, and I am sorry to find you this way," said Tom, trying to keep up his courage. "I want you to look at this pin and tell me if you ever saw it before."

Tom unwrapped the pin and placed it in Dan's hands. The latter took it in surprise, and finally the wondering scowl his face had assumed gave way to an entirely different expression, and he sat for five minutes, turning the pin over in his hand, and doubtless harassed by gloomy reflections. When he gave that pin to the one from whom Tom had received it, he was worth half a million dollars.

"What was Bradshaw doing when he gave you the pin?" said he.

"He told me his name was Bolton," said Tom. "He had been doing some gambling, and, finding out from me that I was coming up here, he gave me the pin with a request that I should give it to you."

"You haven't come out here with any intention of going into this business, have you?"

"What, gambling? Not much I haven't. I think I have seen enough to keep me away from gambling forever. I'm going to get a grub-stake and go into the mountains. I think I can do better there."

"You are an honest boy, and I wish I could give you something for it. One short year ago I could have sent you to the mountains with some prospects of success; but now – " Dan held up his crippled arm.

"I should think that would drive you from gambling forever," said Tom earnestly. "You have taken to drink, and that is just as bad."

"Well, seeing that you are going to preach, I guess I'll go. Shake. So long."

Before Tom could think of another word to say Dan had squeezed his hand and was on his way to the door, walking along with his hat pulled over his eyes, as if he didn't want to see anybody. When he reached the street, he simply touched his forehead to some people he met, and kept on his way to the saloon. Tom stepped to the window and saw him go in at the door.

"Well, what success did you meet with?" said Stanley.

"I didn't meet with any success at all," said Tom, gazing helplessly out at the muddy street. "He said if I was going to preach he'd go. He seemed to think I had come out here to go into his business, but I told him I had seen enough to keep me away from cards forever."

"Well, I declare!" said Mr. Kelley. "It is the greatest wonder in the world he didn't knock you down. He never lets anybody say anything against cards in his hearing. You have had a narrow escape."

As Tom sat there with his three friends and talked over the incidents of Dan's past life he grew more frightened than ever, and thanked his lucky stars that he didn't know more about it before he held his interview with the gambler. Tom had told him that he had taken to drink, which was as bad as gambling, and Dan had been known to floor a man who had said as much to him. That night, while Tom was lying on his bed and trying to go to sleep, he heard something more of the pin. High and loud above all the hubbub that arose on the streets came the chorus of a song in which one voice far outled the others. It was Dan's voice, and proved that the pin had been pawned for something besides water. He looked over toward Monroe, and saw that the latter was wide awake and looking at him.

"They're going it, aint they?" Tom whispered.

"You're right, they are. Poor Dan! You have done what you could for him." And with the words he rolled over and prepared to go to sleep.

The next morning everything was quiet enough. The drunkards had been put into the calaboose by the soldiers, and the others had gone to bed to sleep it off. Tom wanted to know what had become of Dan, but nobody said anything about him, and from that time his name was dropped. They ate their breakfast in haste, paid their bills, and in ten minutes more Tom was on his way in search of a grub-stake.

"Oh, certainly you'll get it," said Monroe, who rode beside him. "That is the way the bosses always treat a tender-foot when they haven't anything in particular for him to do. Some of our best known men have got their start that way."

"I should think that some of the men you trust that way would run off when they find something good," said Tom.

"Why, bless you, they can't take their find with them. They've got to stay and work it. I did hear of a fellow who found a lot of iron pyrites, and filled his pockets with them. He ran away, making the best course he could for Denver, and when he was found, his pockets might just as well have been filled with clay."

"Dead?" said Tom.

"Yes; and he was two hundred miles from where he belonged."

"And his find didn't amount to anything?"

"No. It is a brassy substance and looks very much like the precious metal, but you need a mine to work it."