Elam Storm, the Wolfer: or, The Lost Nugget

"What do you suppose killed him?"

"Don't know. Some people suppose that his mule got away from him, and ran away with his outfit. At any rate, there was nothing near him, and the fellow got desperate and died from exhaustion. Oh, it's one of the things that will happen out here."

"That's a queer way to do," said Tom musingly. "By the way, I haven't got any revolver."

"Oh, the old man will give you a pop. You will get everything you need to last you two or three months. While that lasts, you are expected to do some hunting; when it begins to give out, you want to come home."

"But how will I know the way?"

"The mule will bring you. He will stay there about two months, – that is, if he doesn't get frightened, – and when he gets tired of staying, he will come home, and you had better come, too."

It was by such talks as this that Tom learned a great deal about the business upon which he was soon to embark. It never occurred to him that he was to engage in any other business. Cowboys – or, as they were called in those days, "vaqueros" – were not as plenty as they became a few years later, and if a ranchman could be found who thought him able to make his living by riding for a stake, well and good. He certainly would not run away with his pockets filled with pyrites. He expected to make a good many blunders, but Tom told himself he was used to that. What he thought of more than anything else was that nugget worth eight thousand dollars.

They camped that night with a party of emigrants, and for the first time Tom had the luxury of sleeping out of doors; but the appetite he brought to the breakfast-table with him amply made amends for that. In all the hunting excursions he had enjoyed for a week or more on his uncle's plantation he always had a darky along to build a shelter for him, cook his breakfast for him, and do any other work that happened to be necessary, and all he had to do was to ride to and from his hunting-grounds and shoot the turkeys after he got there. The next night they drew up before a dugout, the first one he had ever seen. The only thing that pointed out its place of location were a couple of hay-racks, which had been torn to pieces by mules. There was not a human being in sight, not even standing in the door to bid them welcome.

"Boys, I am glad my trip is done," said Mr. Kelley, as he threw himself from his horse, relieving him of his bridle as he did so. "Tom, what do you think of your new home?"

"Why, there is nobody around here," said Tom, gazing on all sides of him.

"Oh, they are around here somewhere. It isn't dark yet, and we'll get in and light a fire for them. They are out somewhere, looking for some lost cattle. We left two hundred head here when we went to the mountains."

"To the mountains?" repeated Tom.

"Yes. I tell you we want to get away from here when the blizzards fly, for there isn't a thing to shelter us. I don't expect we shall find more than fifty head of those cattle, if we do that."

"What do you suppose will become of them?"

"They will be dead, of course. You see, when cattle are loose on the prairie and a storm comes up, and they can't stand it any longer, they start and travel in the same way the storm is going; and as the storm lasts from three to four days, you can readily imagine that they must get exhausted before they stop. When the hailstones come down as large as hens' eggs, you can – "

"Haw, haw!" laughed Monroe.

"Well, as large as pigeons' eggs," said Kelley, "and I won't come down another grain in weight. Why, an army officer went by here two years ago hunting for his thirty-five mules that had been stampeded by a storm, and when he found them, there were only four that were able to stand alone. Oh, you get out, Monroe! You haven't seen any blizzard yet. Now, let's go in and get some supper."

"But what makes the mules run so? Why don't they go under shelter?" added Tom, as he picked up his poncho and saddle and followed the man inside the house.

"There was just where they were going – for shelter. There aint a piece of timber within twenty-five miles of this place to shelter a rabbit."

"Then what do you use for fuel?"

"Buffalo chips. There, Tom, put your plunder in there and set down and look around you. You wouldn't think the man who owns this place was worth two hundred thousand, but it is a fact."

"Why doesn't he buy a better piece of ground, then? I wouldn't be so far from shelter if I were in his place."

"Buy it? He doesn't own this property. Every acre of ground that he occupies is Congress land."

"But I'll bet you he wouldn't give it up," said Stanley. "I'd like to see somebody come here and say this is his."

"Then you will never see it. Mr. Parsons says that all this property will be thrown open to settlement some day, and then he and the rest of the squatters will have to go farther West. But, laws! he's got money enough, and he began life, Tom, just as you are going to – by taking a grub-stake and starting for the mountains. But come on, boys, and let's get supper. Stanley, just roll out the rest of that bacon and hard-tack, and, Monroe, you go outside and throw in some buffalo chips."

Tom, weary with his long ride, made up his bunk, then threw himself upon it and looked about him.

CHAPTER VIII.

A HOME RANCH

Tom was surprised at the interior of the dugout. From the outside it didn't look large enough to accommodate more than three or four men, but there were bunks for eight, and there was ample room for the cooking stove, a dilapidated affair which looked as though it might have come from somebody's scrap-pile and left one of its legs behind it. But there was plenty of "draw" to it, as Monroe came in with his arms full of buffalo chips, filled the stove full, and touched a match to them. On each side of the stove was a blanket, which on being raised proved to conceal little cupboards devoted to various odds and ends. One contained books and magazines, a whip or two, and several pairs of spurs, and in the other were to be found the dishes from which the inmates had eaten breakfast, all neatly washed and put away. Tom was surprised at the air of neatness that everywhere prevailed.

"Oh, you won't find all dugouts like this one," said Monroe. "Some of them are so dirty that you can't find a place to spread your blanket. Mr. Parsons' cook did this work, and all the ole man does is to sit outside and smoke."

"Here comes the ole man now," said Stanley, who had ascended to the top of the stairs and was looking out over the prairie. "He has got a small drove of cattle with him, so we shall have some corral duty to do to-night."

"And I believe he has more than twenty-five head with him," said Mr. Kelley, who dropped everything and came to Stanley's side. "He's got fifty if he's got one. Boys, I guess you had better go out there. They are tired most to death, and we might let them come in and get some supper."

Although the two cowboys had ridden all of fifty miles that day, there was no objection raised to this arrangement. Without saying a word they buckled on their belts containing their revolvers, shouldered their saddles and bridles, and went out behind the hay racks. When they came within sight a few minutes later, they were going at full speed to meet their employer and his cattle.

"Now, maybe you are able to see something off there, but I can't," said Tom, after he had run his eyes in vain over the horizon. "I can't see a single thing."

"Can't you see that long line that looks like a pencil-mark off there?" said Mr. Kelley, trying in vain to make Tom see the object at which he was looking. "Well, it's there plain enough. When you have been on the plains as long as I have, you'll notice all little objects like that one, and, furthermore, you will want to know what makes them. It will be two hours before they come up, and you sit down here on the bench and watch it. I will go down and get some supper."

Tom seated himself on the bench beside the door and tried hard to make out the approaching line of cattle, but could not do it. Finally he was called to supper, and went down saying that he would give his eyes a little rest and then maybe he could see them; but he couldn't do it now.

"Supposing you were in a line of march and had a scout out there where those men are, and he should begin riding in a circle, what would you say?" asked Mr. Kelley.

"I wouldn't say anything," exclaimed Tom. "I wouldn't know what he meant."

"He would mean that there was danger close at hand, and you had better be gathering your cattle up," said Mr. Kelley. "And if they were scattered as far apart as those cattle are, you would want a small battalion of men to answer your orders."

"What would be the danger?"

"From Cheyennes, of course."

"Good gracious! Do they ever come out and threaten a whole ranchful of cattle?"

"Certainly they do. But they are all right now. They haven't had any grievance for a long time, and they are as trustworthy as Indians ever get to be. I wouldn't put any faith in them, however. I'd have been worth half a million dollars if it hadn't been for those pesky redskins."

"Did they steal from you?" asked Tom.

"Yes, they stole me flat, but I got away with my life, and that is something to be thankful for. Now, go out and see if you can find those cattle."

Tom obediently went, and whether it was from the long rest his eyes had had or from some other reason, he distinctly made out a long "pencil line" on the horizon. By watching it closely he finally made out that in certain places the line was interrupted, and finally decided that that was the place where some of the cattle had strayed more than they ought to; and he was confirmed in this idea when he saw a solitary figure move up and turn them in toward the centre. As Mr. Kelley, having finished his dishes, came out and sat down on the bench to enjoy his smoke, he finally made out the two horsemen who rode around the outskirts of the herd and gradually disappeared.

"It won't be long now before the old man will be along," said he. "You will see that he won't ride through the drove, but will come around it. If he should try riding through it, he would have a stampede on his hands that would do your heart good to see."

"Are they as wild as that?" asked Tom, who told himself that he was learning something about the cowboy's business the longer he talked with Mr. Kelley.

"You just bet they are. If you should go among them on foot, you would either stampede them or else they would charge upon you and gore you to death. That's the reason we always use horses in tending cattle."

In about half an hour two horsemen were seen riding around the outskirts of the herd. They took a wide circle, so as not to frighten the cattle, and finally drew a bee-line for the dugout. Mr. Kelley remarked that they were the ones he was expecting, dived down the stairs, and in a few minutes the rattling of dishes was heard as he proceeded with his preparations for a second supper. The horsemen were hungry, or else their animals were, for they occupied much less time in coming in than the cowboys who relieved them, and in short order they were near enough for Tom to distinguish their faces. Tom took a long look at the man who was going to befriend him. He knew who he was, for there was the cut of a leader about him; and when the man rode up and swung himself from his horse with a "How are you, Tom?" it proved to him that Stanley and Monroe had told him something about him.

"Howdy?" shouted a voice from the dugout; and Mr. Kelley stuck his head up through the door. "We're still on hand, like a bad dollar bill. How many cattle have you got out there?"

"Sixty-five; and pretty good luck, too, seeing that they have been stampeded more than forty miles. Where did you pick up this youngster?" added Mr. Parsons, giving Tom's hand a hearty squeeze. "I certainly do not remember seeing him before."

"No, he's a tender-foot. As he didn't know what else to do, he came out here for somebody to grub-stake him."

"Ah!"

"Everyone who knows him has gone back on him," continued Mr. Kelley, "and so he has come out here to see if you won't stake him for a gold mine."

"M-m-m!"

"And as he cured me of the dumb ague by giving me a pitcher of ice-water, I thought I would bring him along."

"Aha!" said the ranchman, who had kept a firm hold of Tom while his right-hand man was speaking. "You claim to be a doctor, do you? Well, we must do something for you. I was a little older than you are when I went into the mountains to seek for a gold mine, and, unfortunately for me, I found it. I smell bacon. Is supper ready yet?"

Mr. Kelley made some sort of incoherent reply which Mr. Parsons and his man understood, for they dived down the doorway, leaving Tom standing alone.

"Unfortunately he got it," Tom kept repeating to himself. "I don't see what there was unfortunate about it, unless he was cheated out of it. If I had as many cattle as he has got out there, and as many men to obey my orders, I should look upon myself as remarkably fortunate."

Tom did not have any opportunity to talk further with Mr. Parsons that night, for as soon as he had eaten supper he went to bed and was soon sleeping soundly. Tom felt the need of slumber, and when he thought he could do so without disturbing anybody, he slipped quietly down the stairs. There sat Mr. Kelley fast asleep on his dry-goods box, holding in his hand the copy of a newspaper about a fortnight old, and which he had been trying to read by the aid of the smoky candle that gave out just light enough to show how dark it was; and as everybody else felt the need of slumber, and gave over to the influence of it wherever they happened to be, Tom threw off his boots and tumbled into his bunk. Once during the night he was aroused by somebody coming in and informing Mr. Kelley that it was twelve o'clock; then there was a stir of changing watches and the camp became silent again. Or no; it wasn't silent. Just after the watches had been changed (for men had to keep track of the cattle during the night and see that nothing happened to stampede them) Tom was treated to a wolf serenade. It began faint and far off, and then all on a sudden broke out so fiercely that it seemed as if the pack had surrounded the cabin and were about to make an assault upon it.

"What was that?" asked Tom, starting up in alarm.

"It's the pesky coyotes," said Monroe, who was taking off his boots. "We're always glad to hear them, for then we know that there is nothing else about."

"What else do you think might be about?" said Tom, wondering how any lone hunter could find any consolation in such a dismal serenade.

"Indians," said the cowboy shortly. "Good-night."

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."