Lone Pine: The Story of a Lost Mine

As he arrived there, he saw another mysterious horseman ride away from the corral at the back of the house into the night, and had he been able to get close enough to him he might have seen that he, too, bore a burden, for the rider was no other than the Navajo chief himself, and the burden that he bore consisted of several bottles of Mr. Backus's fiery whiskey, while a round number of what had lately been a part of Don Nepomuceno's precious hoard of dollars were now lining the interior of the storekeeper's wallet.

Stephens's counsel had been disregarded. The Spaniards have a riddling proverb which asks, "What is the cheapest thing on earth?" and the answer is, "Good advice." In the eyes of the Navajo the advice to let whiskey alone was very cheap indeed. The morrow's sun would find him neither ten leagues from San Remo nor sober.

Felipe encountered Backus at his own door, and hastily recounted to him how he had just seen the prospector ride off in the direction of the sierra with a spade across his saddle.

"Be after him then, man," cried the storekeeper; "there's your chance, if you haven't lost it. He's gone after something with that spade, you bet. Keep him in sight, and don't ever let your eye be off him till he begins to use it, and when he's busy at work with it, there's your opportunity. Or if you like to risk a fuss, show yourself boldly, and go up to him and mebbe he won't suspect what you mean to do. But don't miss your chance."

Felipe was gone like a shot.

No sooner had the boy disappeared than Backus began to regret it. He had been rather flustered, before Felipe came up to him, by his interview with the Navajo chief, for Mahletonkwa had begun by taxing Backus with not having kept Stephens from sending for the soldiers, by making away with his letters to the governor and the general, and he had retorted by declaring that he had done so, that no soldiers were coming, and that if Mahletonkwa had allowed himself to be bluffed he had only himself to thank for his idiocy. But they did not waste much time in disputing, for Mahletonkwa's visit to him had not been to quarrel but to obtain liquor, while Backus's strongest desire was to become the possessor of a goodly lot of those shining dollars of Don Nepomuceno that had attracted his cupidity.

Now, however, on thinking over what Felipe had reported, a possible explanation of the spade flashed upon him. Suppose Stephens had got the secret of the mine from the Navajos! He had remarked the vigour and determination with which the prospector had placed himself apparently on the side of the Navajos as against the Mexicans when they arrived. Probably this was a return for their having shown him the mine, which, moreover, would account for the unaccountable delay of the party in arriving that afternoon.

The idea of the prospector having stolen a march on him like this, in the matter of the mine, irritated him intensely; he knew so little practically of mining that he thought it quite possible that Stephens had started off thus in the night with a spade to dig up silver out of an old mine, as a man might dig up the coins of a buried hoard. Filled with this idea, he took a sudden resolution to follow Felipe and see what took place, and, if there was any secret worth getting hold of, to do his best to make himself master of it.

He hastily belted on his revolver, caught up an overcoat, as he recognised that he might have to lie in wait for an indefinite time, and the night air in the sierra was chill, and started forth on Felipe's track. He knew the direction; and assuming that Stephens had taken the trail for the sierra, according to the information Felipe had brought, he decided to take the same line.

There were plough-lands across on this side of the Santiago River also, and the trail led through a part of these. Where it crossed the ditch that supplied them with water he found the ground wet on the farther bank, and fresh hoof-prints of a horse in the soft earth. Someone had crossed there on horseback not more than fifteen or twenty minutes before; yes, and there, close alongside, was the sharp-toed, inward-curved print of an Indian moccasin. Stephens and Felipe were both ahead of him.

It was only in a place like this, where the soft earth retained a deep impression, that he could pretend to recognise their tracks by the light of the moon, but the fact that he had judged so accurately the course they were steering gave him confidence as he pressed forward, still following the line. And now the foot of the sierra was reached, and the trail plunged abruptly into broken and rugged defiles. Onward he pushed without halting, encouraged again and again by detecting at intervals the tracks of the horse going ahead. At last, however, there came a long interval, when he no longer saw the tracks. For a while he tried to persuade himself that it was only a chance that had caused him to fail to notice them, but he came finally to where the trail crossed a little creek, and the ground was soft and the trees were open enough to let the moonlight fall clearly on the spot. The sign of the Indian horses that had crossed it coming to San Remo during the afternoon was evident, but the footprints of the horse he was following in the other direction were not there. It was undeniable that he must have quitted the trail.

"Now, whereabouts did the son of a gun leave it?" asked Backus of himself; "and how far back was it that I got a squint of his track last?" He pulled out a cold lunch, that he had brought along in his pocket, put on his overcoat, and sat down to take a rest and think things over. If Stephens had simply turned off and camped near the trail, he might have missed him by very little. Perhaps Felipe had been able to keep him in sight, and had stuck to him.

He started to take the back track, keeping a sharp watch out for likely places for a rider to turn out on one side or other of the trail. There were plenty of them, but he found no sign in any of those that he examined. And he had the exasperating sense, that trying to hit off a lost trail by moonlight was as futile a job as a man ever undertook. By daylight a master of woodcraft may assure himself that he has not walked over a hoofprint for which he is searching without seeing it, but the best trailer that ever stepped can miss a thing by moonlight that by day would be as plain to him as a printed book.

"A fool's errand," he said to himself, "that's what I'm on. Here I might be comfortably at home and snug in bed, and instead of that I'm lost up here in the sierra away along after midnight, and nary chance of finding what I come out after." He was thoroughly out of temper by this time, and his language was according. "Mine! d – n the mine! I believe the whole thing is a holy fraud, and if anyone ever again catches me out in the dark, on top of a rugged range of hills hunting for a mine that never existed, I'll give him leave to cut me into slices and fry me like so much bacon." He sat down to rest a moment before deciding finally whether to make any further effort, or just chuck and make the best of his way home.

At this moment, faint but distinct, came the sound of a shot fired somewhere in the mountain off to the south. Backus sprang to his feet instantly, shaking himself free from his despondency like a cloak.

"By the jumping Jemini!" he ejaculated, "there they are, I'll wager. Felipe must have managed to stick to the trail. Good for him! I wonder if he's managed to plug him? I'll just take a scout round that way and see if I can spot anything."

The moon was beginning to sink in the west, but there was light enough for him to pick his way through the trees and rocks in the direction of the shot. Suddenly he heard five shots in quick succession. They were nearer and clearer than before. But they were followed by absolute silence. Again and again he paused to listen, but no sounds greeted his ear save those that belonged to the woods at night, till at last, after scrambling up a rocky ridge, he became aware of a reflected light shining at the foot of a cliff. That meant a camp-fire. Hist! was that somebody talking? If Felipe had killed his man properly, there was no one for him to talk to. He advanced a step or two cautiously, and paused again. He fancied he could hear a voice; he would put his ear to the ground and see if he could not hear better so; he stooped, and sank on all fours as if he was after a deer, bending his head towards the earth, and as he did so he received a hard blow on his face, and a smart pang shot through his cheek, and at the same moment his ears were assailed by an angry, buzzing rattle.

"My God!" he cried, "I'm stung by a snake!" He threw up his hand to his wounded cheek and staggered to his feet, while the snake, having delivered his blow, slithered away to his home in the rocks. The agony of the poison began to dart through his veins. He struggled blindly forward towards the light, which now seemed ever so far away; he stopped and drew out his knife, with the idea of cutting out the venom, but it was right in his cheek; had it been in a finger he might have chopped it off, but he could not slash away half his own face. He flung the knife wildly from him and reeled forward again, knocking against the trees as he went like a blinded wolf. He had been struck by a big rattler with a full dose of venom in him after his winter's rest. His knees grew weak, and tottered under him; he fell, and struggled up again, only to fall once more; fearful pains ran through him, and his body seemed too big for his skin.

"Help," he cried, in a spent and broken voice; "help me! oh, help!" and he pitched forward and lay prone on his face, writhing and digging his nails into the ground.

CHAPTER XXV

A PREHISTORIC HEARTH

When Stephens took his way through the moonlight, carrying the spade before him on the saddle, his heart was lighter than it had been for days. He was so used to living alone that this novel experience of being constantly in the company of others, night and day, without interruption, ever since the hour when he had rescued Josefa from the cacique, had tired him out. Also he disliked the sense of having others dependent on him, and during the whole of that time he had been burdened with responsibility, first for Josefa and then for the Mexican girl. At last, thank goodness, that was all over and done with. Josefa was secure in Reyna's keeping, and Manuelita was safe at home, while Mahletonkwa had been paid his money and dismissed; now John Stephens was his own man again, and not bound to see after other people's affairs any longer. He could go about his proper business by himself in his own independent way, and that was precisely what he liked better than anything else in the world. As for this matter of finding and burying the dead man's bones, it was one for which he was answerable to nobody but himself. Of his own free will and pleasure he had decided that it should be done, and, accordingly, here he was doing it. And what a useful pretext it had supplied him with for getting away from the fuss and flummery at San Remo. When he thought of those two stout, elderly dames falling upon him like a pair of animated feather-beds, and giving him their blessing, he felt weak; what a mercy he had this excuse of the burial to help him escape from it all! And then his mind reverted to Manuelita sitting there in the midst of the fuss, her eyes bright as ever in spite of fatigue and of the tears of joy she had shed at getting home, her cheeks pink with excitement, and her lively tongue going sixteen to the dozen. Was he, after all, so particularly glad to be off by himself once more? He hated a mob of people on principle, but was he so particularly glad to get away from her? Well, come to think of it, in a manner he was, and yet, again, he wasn't. Looking at it in one way, he wouldn't care much to be planted down there again in that crowded room with those cousins and aunts all round her, but suppose, now, that he had her once again with him up here in the sierra, alone together the two of them. He thought of how they had watched over one another, turn about, in the camp, and how she had mocked at his simple cookery, and the fun they had really had with one another. What a good time it had been; and yet when he was having it, so it seemed to him now, he had not been aware of the fact. Perhaps he had been too anxious about her then to realise it, but it was God's truth all the same, and they had had a good time. What was more, he knew it now and no mistake, and he wondered how it had come about that it was so good. By George! but he did wish he had her along right here and now, she riding on the horse, with him running alongside just as he had done that afternoon. She was good to talk to, and no mistake, and when he pointed things out to her and told her about them, everything seemed to have an unwonted zest which was lacking now in her absence, although he was riding over the very same ground he had traversed with her only a few hours ago. Every turn in the trail recalled to his mind something he had said to her or she had said to him. And how they had laughed, to be sure! He sighed at the recollection without having the least idea that he sighed, but he did not shake off the idea of how good it would be to have her with him. Strange to say he began to discover that he did not seem to quite care for his own company as he used to do. Unconsciously he lost himself in a reverie, until his horse stumbled over a stone, and he jerked the rein and struck him indignantly with the spur.

And all the time Felipe, with the revolver in his belt, was tracking him like a sleuth-hound.

Stephens reached the camp where they had passed the night in the little park, and the recollection of it all came back vividly; he remembered how startled he had been when she woke him, and he had sprung up with his rifle cocked, ready to shoot; he remembered his surprise and pleasure at seeing how neat and trim she had made herself while he slept, in spite of all the rough and discomposing experiences her involuntary journey had involved. "Grit! Yes, by George! she had lots of it, sure; and endurance too. She was just about as brave as they make 'em."

Through the little park he passed, and out of it again on the other side. Now he must begin to think about his destination; somewhere along here he meant to turn off to the left in order to cut in upon the head of that little cañon where he had killed the deer. That would save quite a lot of travelling. There was a good moon, and there was no need to retrace the whole trail back to the exact spot where he had fired the shot. "If I only had Faro along now," he said, "he could take me to the place where I killed the deer, blindfold, if I wanted him to." But Faro was far away at Don Nepomuceno's; he was a little footsore after the long journey he had made, so his master left him behind under the care of Manuelita. After a time Stephens noticed a favourable place for turning off among the pines, at what he judged would be about the right distance to strike the cañon. He wheeled his horse sharp to the left, and pushed steadily on over the carpet of pine-needles in the new direction.

And Felipe, following ever like a sleuth-hound, here overran the track just as did Backus half an hour later. But, unlike Backus, the acuter Indian boy had not overrun it many minutes before his quick instincts told him what he had done; he at once retraced his steps, and quickly succeeded in finding the place where Stephens had wheeled so sharp. He followed this new direction through the pines for a little way, but the horse-tracks on the dry pine-needles were practically invisible at night, and he soon became conscious that he had lost them, and that it was doubtful whether he could succeed in recovering them again. Nevertheless, with the tireless determination of his race, he persevered, more like a hound than ever as he quested now to right and now to left and now making a bold cast forward, in the hope that by a lucky chance he might stumble upon them. He passed thus through the belt of pine timber and out into the open park country beyond it. But casting about for a lost trail at night is a slow business, and the moon was already low in the west when his eye ranging around caught the light of a fire against a distant cliff. "That must be he," cried the boy, grasping the pistol with his left hand; "I'll get him now."

* * * * * * *

Stephens had a good eye for country; he had judged his distance correctly, and he hit the head of the little cañon he was searching for with singular accuracy. The country that he had here got into was beautifully open and park-like, only with some rough, rocky ridges intersecting it here and there, and he searched around freely and easily, keeping the moon on his left hand. Through the mountain glades he wandered, in the bright, mysterious light which seems so clear and yet which shows nothing as it really is.

"Rather a fool trick of mine, this night-work," said he, as his eyes hunted in vain for any sign of what he had come to seek. "I reckon likely I'll have to camp till morning, and then, maybe, if his bones are lying anywhere round here, I'll manage to find them." He drew rein irresolutely on the margin of a park-like expanse of undulating meadow larger than any he had seen yet.

"Hullo! what's that under the Lone Pine in the middle of the meadow?" A magnificent solitary pine-tree stood there in the moonlight, towering aloft, and at its foot a dark, square object appeared.

"Why, it looks like a house in this light," he said; "but it can't hardly be one neither." He turned his horse's head towards it and rode nearer. "It's a house, by George! A house up here! No, I'm blessed if it is. It is only a rock, but it's mighty like one all the same. Hullo! here's a queer thing lying close to the foot of it; looks like an old carcass of some sort or other. By George! but it's a dead horse." He reined up and the animal he bestrode snorted at the strange object. It was the dried shell of a horse, so to speak; the wolves and the eagle-hawks had taken the flesh and the inside portions, but the skeleton had remained intact, and so, too, had the hide. In that pure, dry air the skin, instead of decaying, had become hard and stiff, and clung to the ribs and bony framework still. He could see now that his mistake in taking the rock for a house was a very pardonable one in that deceptive light, for it was much the size of an ordinary adobe cottage, and it rose square and abrupt from the level, grassy ground. He threw his head back, and his eyes sought the top of the noble pine whose towering head seemed to strike against the stars.

"Well, that's the finest tree I ever saw outside of California," said the prospector.

He undid the lariat and dismounted, spade in hand.

"Dead horses aint exactly common objects hereabouts," said he. "If this one owned such a thing as a boss when he was alive, perhaps his boss might be lying hereabouts, too."

It was a shrewd guess, and as he stepped round the corner of the rock it was instantly verified. The body of the man lay there, stiff and dried like that of his beast. The clothing seemed to have partly protected the trunk and limbs from the birds of prey, but the white skull shone bare and ghastly. The long boots proclaimed him an American.

"Here's my man, sure enough," said Stephens, as he leaned on the spade and looked down at the remains. "Think of him getting rubbed out like this all alone up here in the mountains. No one's ever been near him since, I guess. I wonder who he was?"

He went back to the dead horse and looked over it once more. There were iron shoes on the forehoofs. "That's another proof, if one were wanted, of his owner being an American," he said. "Perhaps I could find his brand." He struck a match and held it close to the animal's quarter, but the skin there had been rent and frayed by the wild things that had devoured the meat, and he could not distinguish it.

"Saddle's gone, I see," he added, "and bridle and saddle blanket, and hobbles, if he had them round his neck, and every mortal thing. It's a wonder they left the horseshoes. These accursed Navajos haven't any scruple about stripping a dead horse. It's only a dead man that they're so scared about touching."

He went back to the corpse and looked at it a second time. "Gun's gone," he said, "but that's of course. And they didn't need to touch him when he was dead to get it, for, according to the way Mahletonkwa told it, they got his gun from him when he was alive. Pistol's gone, too, I see. Likely they got that off him living, before they shot him with his own gun. They couldn't take the clothes off him till he was dead, and so they preferred to leave them on him. Wish I knew who he was." He cast his eyes around. "Here's where he stood 'em off," he went on, looking at a tiny, stone-built enclosure, barely big enough to hold three people at once, that nestled against one side of the high rock, where it overhung. "That's the place he chose, sure. That's one of those cubby-holes those old cliff-dwellers used to put up under the rocks all about the country; I guess they used them to shelter in when they were out on guard. It wasn't a bad notion of this poor chap to get in there, but those infernal Navajos got away with him all the same – cunning devils that they are! Well, I might as well dig his grave right here."

He passed his horse's lariat round the enormous bole of the great Lone Pine and made him fast. Then choosing a place between the mighty roots, that anchored it like cables to the ground, he set to work with a will, and soon had the narrow last resting-place sunk in the soft black earth. He threw down the spade, and went to lift the light burden of the remains. "Perhaps I'd better look in his pockets first and see if there's anything to identify him by," he said. The weather-worn clothes, threadbare from summer rains and winter snows, lay light over the hollow breast, as he felt in the pocket and drew out a small book. He opened it; it was weather-stained, but not rotten. The moonlight was so bright he could almost have read the writing by it, but he struck a match to make sure. A name was inscribed on the first page. "Holly K. Fearmaker, 1869." There was no address. "Never heard of him before. I wonder where he was from?" He tried the other pockets; there was nothing save some bits of string. "If he owned a purse I reckon some Navajo scoundrel has got it now," said Stephens. "There's nothing, I don't believe, that Mahletonkwa would stick at for cash."

He lifted the remains tenderly, and placed them in the grave, gathering up all that he could find; then he shovelled the rich black mould of the mountain meadow on them, and heaped a little mound, and replaced the grassy sods on top. He leaned on the spade and looked down at his handiwork.

"What was it I seem to remember it saying, in the book that young Englishman had along in the San Juan district last summer, and loaned me to copy a piece out of? There was a verse that I liked, about the body of a man being like a tent. Yes, I've got it now —

"'T is but a tent where takes his one day's restA Sultan to the realm of Death addrest;The Sultan rises, and the dark FerráshStrikes – and prepares it for another guest.'

This grass will send its roots down to where you lie, pard; and it'll grow stronger as your bones grow rotten; and then the blacktail deer and the elk will graze over your head and fatten on the grass; and then, maybe I myself, or maybe some other lone prospector just like you or me, will happen along and shoot the elk or the deer, and the wheel comes full circle. Well, so long, old man, and sleep sound."

He went to the tree and unfastened the lariat from the hole. Then he stooped to pick up the spade which lay beside the new-made mound. As he did so his eye was caught by a little fragment of rock that lay by it, which had been thrown out in sinking the grave. Mechanically he picked it up, and its weight at once revealed to his practised experience that it was a mineral of some kind. He slipped it into his pocket and led his horse over to the big rock. "It does look rather like an outcrop," he said, as he carelessly knocked off a few small specimens with the angle of the spade. He had done this so many hundred times before, that he pocketed them almost without interest, as a matter of habit, and set off in the direction of the trail. Before very long he came to a stop.

The meadow was bounded by a low cliff, which, farther down, became the wall of the cañon where he had killed the deer. It was not more than about twenty or thirty feet high, but it was perpendicular, in places even overhanging, and blocked his way absolutely. He turned to the right along it in order to find where he might cross it. The cliff faced south and west, and the bright light of the moon made every detail distinct. Before he had gone far the opening of another little cubby-hole showed dark on a ledge of the moonlit cliff, which was overhung by the projecting brow above. Then there came half a dozen of them close together. Then the ledge broadened and ran inwards in a softer stratum of the cliff face, so that a whole row of little houses were built along it. The ledge was ten or twelve feet up the cliff face, so that the houses could only have been approached by ladders, while the overhanging cliff brow afforded them absolute protection from above.