The Treasure of Hidden Valley

CHAPTER XVI – THE MYSTERIOUS TOILERS OF THE NIGHT

IN A day or two the excitement over the great evening party at the Shields ranch had passed and the humdrum duties of everyday life had been resumed. Whitley Adams had completed his business at Encampment and taken his departure with the solemnly renewed promise to Roderick that for the present the latter’s whereabouts would not be disclosed to the good folks at Keokuk although their anxiety as to his safety and good health would be relieved. Grant Jones had torn himself away from his beloved to resume his eternal – and as he felt at the moment infernal – task of getting out the next issue of his weekly newspaper. Gail Holden had ridden off over the foothills, the Shields sisters had returned to their domestic duties, and all the other beauties of the ballroom had scattered far and wide like thistledown in a breeze. The cowboys had reverted to chaps and sombreros, dress clothes had been stowed away with moth balls to keep them company, and the language of superlative politeness had lapsed back into the terser vernacular of the stock corral. Roderick was pretty well alone all day in the bunk house, nursing the stiff leg that had resulted from the broncho-busting episode.

Between embrocations he was doing a little figuring and stock-taking of ways and means. During his six months on the ranch most of his salary had been saved. The accumulated amount would enable him to clear off one-half of his remaining indebtedness in New York and leave him a matter of a hundred dollars for some prospecting on his own account during the summer months among the hills. But he would stay by his job for yet another month or two, because, although the words had been spoken in the heat of the moment, he had pledged himself to meet the cowboy Scotty Meisch in the riding contest at the Frontier Day’s celebration. Yes, he would stick to that promise, he mused as he rubbed in the liniment Gail Holden, when she had come to bid him good-by and express her condolence over his accident, had announced her own intention of entering for the lariat throwing competition, but he would never have admitted to himself that the chance of meeting her again in such circumstances, the chance of restoring his prestige as a broncho-buster before her very eyes, had the slightest thing to do with his resolve to delay his start in systematic quest of the lost mine.

Meanwhile Buell Hampton seemed to have withdrawn himself from the world. During the two weeks that had intervened between the invitation and the dance, he had not called at the ranch. Nor did he come now during the weeks that followed, and one evening when Grant Jones paid a visit to the Major’s home he found the door locked. Grant surveyed with both surprise and curiosity the addition that had been made to the building. It was a solid structure of logs, showing neither door nor window to the outside, and evidently was only reached through the big living room.

He reported the matter to Roderick, but the latter, his stiff leg now all right again, was too busy among the cattle on the ranges to bother about other things.

But Buell Hampton all this time had been very active indeed. During the winter months he had thought out his plans. Somehow he had come to look upon the hidden valley with its storehouse of golden wealth as a sacred place not to be trespassed on by the common human drove. Just so soon as the melting snows rendered the journey practicable, he had returned all alone to the sequestered nook nested in the mountains. He had discovered that quite a little herd of deer had found shelter and subsistence there during the months of winter. As he came among them, they had shown, themselves quite tame and fearless; three or four does had nibbled the fresh spring grass almost at his very feet as he had sat on the porphyry dyke, enjoying the beautiful scene, alone in his little kingdom, with only these gentle creatures and the twittering birds for companions.

And there and then Buell Hampton had resolved that he would not desecrate this sanctuary of nature – that he would not bring in the brutal eager throng of gold seekers, changing the lovely little valley into a scene of sordid greed and ugliness, its wild flowers crushed underfoot, its pellucid stream turned to sludge, its rightful inhabitants, the gentle-eyed deer, butchered for riotous gluttony. No, never! He would take the rich God-given gift of gold that was his, gratefully and for the ulterior purpose of spreading human happiness. But all else he would leave undisturbed.

The gold-bearing porphyry dyke stretching across the narrow valley was decomposed; it required no drilling nor blasting; its bulk could easily be broken by aid of sledge hammer and crowbar. Two or three men working steadily for two or three months could remove the entire dyke as it lay visible between mountain rock wall and mountain rock wall, and taking the assay value of the ore as already ascertained, from this operation alone there was wealth for all interested beyond the dreams of avarice. Buell Hampton debated the issues all through that afternoon of solitude spent in the little canyon. And when he regained his home he had arrived at a fixed resolution. He would win the treasure but he would save the valley – he would keep it a hidden valley still.

Next evening he had Tom Sun, Boney Earnest and Jim Rankin all assembled in secret conclave. While the aid of Grant Jones and Roderick Warfield would be called in later on, for the present their services would not be required. So for the present likewise there would be nothing more said to them – the fewer in the “know” the safer for all concerned.

It was agreed that Tom Sun, Jim Rankin and the Major would bring out the ore. Jim was to hire a substitute to drive his stage, while Tom Sun would temporarily hand over the care of his flocks to his manager and herders. Boney Earnest could not leave his work at the smelter – his duties there were so responsible that any sudden withdrawal might have stopped operations entirely and so caused the publicity all were anxious to avoid. But as he did not go to the plant on Sundays, his active help would be available each Saturday night. Thus the plans were laid.

But although Buell Hampton had allied himself with these helpers in his work and participants in the spoil, he yet guarded from them the exact locality of his find. All this was strictly in accordance with goldmining usage among the mountains of Wyoming, so the Major offered no apology for his precautions, his associates asked for or expected none. Each man agreed that he would go blindfolded to the spot where the rich ore was to be broken and packed for removal.

Thus had it come about that, while Buell Hampton seemed to have disappeared from the world, all the while he was very busy indeed, and great things were in progress. Actual work had commenced some days before the dance at the Shields’ home, and it continued steadily in the following routine.

The Major, Tom Sun and Jim Rankin passed most of the day sleeping. At night after dark, they would sally forth into the hills, mounted on three horses with three pack burros. A few miles away from Encampment the Major would blindfold his two assistants, and then they would proceed in silence. When they arrived near Spirit Falls the horses and burros would be tethered and Major Hampton would lead the way down the embankment to the river’s bank, then turn to the left, while Tom Sun, blindfolded, extended one hand on Buell Hampton’s shoulder and still behind was Jim Rankin with his hand extended on Tom Sun’s shoulder. Thus they would make their way to a point back of the waterfall, and then some considerable distance into the mountain cavern where the blindfolds were removed. With an electric torch the Major lighted the way through the grotto into the open valley.

A little farther on was the dyke of porphyry, quartz and gold. Here the sacks would be filled with the rich ore – their loads all that each man could carry. Footsteps were then retraced with the same precautions as before.

Placing the ore sacks on the backs of their burros, the night riders would climb into their saddles and slowly start out on the return journey, the Major driving the burros ahead along a mountain path, while Tom Sun and Jim Rankin’s horses followed. After they had gone on for a few miles Major Hampton would shout back to his assistants to remove the blindfolds, and thus they would return to the town of Encampment in the gray dawn of morning, unloading their burros at the door of Major Hampton’s house. Jim Rankin would take charge of the stock and put them in a stable and corral he had prepared down near the banks of the Platte River just over the hill. Tom Sun would show his early training by preparing a breakfast of ham and eggs and steaming coffee while the Major was placing the ore in one hundred pound sacks and carrying them back into the blockade addition he had built to his home. He would then lock the heavy door connecting the storehouse with the living room.

Usually the breakfast was ready by the time the Major had finished his part of the work and Jim Rankin had returned. After the morning meal and a smoke, these three mysterious workers of the night would lie down to sleep, only to repeat the trip the following evening. Each Saturday night, as has been explained, Boney Earnest was added to the party, as well as an extra horse and burro.

Buell Hampton estimated that each burro was bringing out one hundred pounds nightly, or about three hundred pounds every trip for the three burros, with an extra hundred pounds on Saturday night. If this ore yielded $114.00 per pound, the assay value already paid him, or call it $100.00, it meant that he was adding to his storehouse of treasure about $220,000.00 as the result of each week’s labors. Thus in three months’ time there would be not far short of $3,000, -000.00 worth of high grade gold ores accumulated. If reduced to tons this would make nearly a full carload when the time came for moving the vast wealth to the railroad.

One night in the midst of these operations, when Jim Rankin and Tom Sun supposed they were on the point of starting on the usual trip into the hidden valley, Buell Hampton filled his pipe for an extra smoke and invited his two faithful friends to do likewise. “We are not going tonight,” said he. “We will have a rest and hold a conference.”

“Good,” said Jim Rankin. “Speakin’ wide open like, by gunnies, my old bones are gettin’ to be pretty dangnation sore.”

“Too bad about you,” said Tom Sun. “Too bad that you aren’t as young as I am, Jim.”

“Young, the devil,” returned Jim. “I’m prognosticatin’ I have pints about me that’d loco you any time good and plenty. ‘Sides you know you are seven years older than me. Gosh ‘lmighty, Tom, you an’ me have been together ever since we struck this here country mor’n forty years ago.”

Tom laughed and the Major laughed.

It was arranged that when the carload was ready Jim Rankin was to rig up three four-horse teams and Grant Jones and Roderick Warfield would be called on to accompany the whole outfit to Walcott, the nearest town on the Union Pacific, where a car would be engaged in advance for the shipment of the ore to one of the big smelters at Denver. The strictest secrecy would be kept even then, for reasons of safety as well as to preserve the privacy desired by Buell Hampton. So they would load up the wagons at night and start for the railroad about three o’clock in the morning.

Thus as they smoked and yawned during their night of rest the three men discussed and decided every detail of these future plans.

CHAPTER XVII – A TROUT FISHING EPISODE

FOR a time Roderick had hung back from accepting the invitation to call at the Conchshell ranch, as the Holden place was called. In pursuing the acquaintanceship with Gail he knew that he was playing with fire – a delightful game but one that might work sad havoc with his future peace of mind. However, one day when he had an afternoon off and had ridden into Encampment again to be disappointed in finding no letter from Stella, he had felt just the necessary touch of irritation toward his fiancée that spurred him on to seek some diversion from his thoughts of being badly treated and neglected. Certainly, he would call on General Holden – he did not say to himself that he was bent on seeing Gail again, looking into her beautiful eyes, hearing her sing, perhaps joining in a song.

He was mounted on his favorite riding horse Badger, a fine bay pony, and had followed the road up the North Fork of the Encampment River a number of miles. Taking a turn to the left through the timbered country with rocky crags towering on either side in loftiest grandeur, he soon reached the beautiful plateau where Gail Holden’s home was located. The little ranch contained some three hundred acres, and cupped inward like a saucer, with a mountain stream traversing from the southerly to the northerly edge, where the Conchshell canyon gashed through the rim of the plateau and permitted the waters to escape and flow onward and away into the North Fork.

As Roderick approached the house, which was on a knoll planted with splendid firs and pines, he heard Gail singing “Robert Adair.” He dismounted and hitched his horse under the shelter of a wide spreading oak. Just as he came up the steps to the broad porch Gail happened to see him through one of the windows. She ceased her singing and hastened to meet him with friendly greeting.

“Welcome, Mr. Warfield, thrice welcome, as Papa sometimes says,” said Gail, smiling.

“Thank you,” said Roderick, gallantly. “I was riding in this direction and concluded to stop in and accept your kind invitation to meet the General.”

“He will be delighted to see you, Mr. Warfield, I have told him about your singing.”

“Oh, that was making too much of my poor efforts.”

“Not at all. You see my father is very fond of music – never played nor sang in his life, but has always taken keen delight in hearing good music. And I tell you he is quite a judge.”

“Which makes me quite determined then not to sing in his presence,” laughed Roderick.

“Well, you can’t get out of it now you’re here. He won’t allow it. Nor will I. You won’t refuse to sing for me, will you? Or with me?” she added with a winning smile.

“That would be hard indeed to refuse,” he replied, happy yet half-reproaching himself for his very happiness.

“Daddie is walking around the grounds somewhere at present,” continued Gail. “Won’t you step inside and rest, Mr. Warfield? He’ll turn up presently.”

“Oh, this old rustic seat here on the porch looks exceedingly comfortable. And I fancy that is your accustomed rocker,” he added, pointing to a piece of embroidery, with silk and needles, slung over the arm of a chair.

“You are a regular Sherlock Holmes,” she laughed. “Well, I have been stitching all the afternoon, and just broke off my work for a song.”

“I heard you. Can’t you be persuaded to continue?”

“Not at present. We’ll wait till Papa comes. And the weather is so delightfully warm that I will take my accustomed rocker – and the hint implied as well.”

Again she laughed gaily as she dropped into the commodious chair and picked up the little square of linen with its half-completed embroidery.

Roderick took the rustic seat and gazed admiringly over the cup-shaped lands that spread out before him like a scroll, with their background of lofty mountains.

“You have a delightful view from here,” he said.

“Yes,” replied Gail, as she threaded one of her needles with a strand of crimson. “I know of no other half so beautiful. And it has come to be a very haven of peace and happiness. Perhaps you know that my father last year lost everything he possessed in the world through an unfortunate speculation. But that was nothing – we lost my dear mother then as well. This little ranch of Conchshell was the one thing left that we could call our own, and here we found our refuge and our consolation.”

She was speaking very softly, her hands had dropped on her lap, there was the glisten of tears in her eyes. Roderick was seeing the daring rider of the hills, the acknowledged belle of the ballroom in yet another light, and was lost in admiration.

“Very sad,” he murmured, in conventional commiseration.

“Oh, no, not sad,” she replied brightly, looking up, sunshine showing through her tears. “Dear mother is at rest after her long illness, father has recovered his health in this glorious mountain air, and I have gained a serious occupation in life. Oh, I just love this miniature cattle range,” she went on enthusiastically. “Look at it” – she swept the landscape with an upraised hand. “Don’t all my sweet Jerseys and Hainaults dotted over those meadows look like the little animals in a Noah’s ark we used to play with when children?”

“They do indeed,” concurred Roderick, with heartily responsive enthusiasm.

“And I’m going to make this dairy stock business pay to beat the band,” she added, her face fairly aglow. “Just give me another year or two.”

“You certainly deserve success,” affirmed Roderick, emphatically.

“Oh, I don’t know. But I do try so hard.”

Her beautiful face had sweet wistfulness in it now. Roderick was admiring its swift expressive changes – he was saying to himself that he could read the soul of this splendidly frank young woman like a book. He felt thrilled and exalted.

“But here comes Papa,” exclaimed Gail, springing delightedly to her feet

Roderick’s spirits dropped like a plummet. At such an interesting psychological moment he could have wished the old General far enough.

But there was a pleasant smile on his face as Gail presented him, genuine admiration in the responsive pressure of his hand as he gazed into the veteran’s handsome countenance and thanked him for his cordial welcome.

“Glad to meet you, Mr. Warfield,” General Holden was saying. “My friend Shields has spoken mighty well of you, and Gail here says you have the finest baritone voice in all Wyoming.”

“Oh, Daddie!” cried Gail, in blushing confusion.

“Well, I’m going to decide for myself. Come right in. We’ll have a song while Gail makes us a cup of tea. An old soldier’s song for a start – she won’t be listening, so I can suit myself this time.”

And Roderick to his bewilderment found himself clutched by the arm, and being led indoors to the piano like a lamb to the slaughter. Gail had disappeared, and he was actually warbling “Marching through Georgia,” aided by a thunderous chorus from the General.

“As we go marching through Georgia,” echoed Gail, when at the close of the song she advanced from the domestic quarters with sprightly military step, carrying high aloft a tea tray laden with dainty china and gleaming silverware.

All laughed heartily, and a delightful afternoon was initiated – tea and cake, solos and duets, intervals of pleasant conversation, a Schubert sonata by Gail, and a rendition by Roderick of the Soldiers’ Chorus from Faust that fairly won the old General’s heart.

The hours had sped like a dream, and it was in the sunset glow that Roderick, having declined a pressing invitation to stay for dinner, was bidding Gail good-by. She had stepped down from the veranda and was standing by his horse admiring it and patting its silky coat.

“By the way, you mentioned at the Shields’ party that you expected to go trout fishing, Mr. Warfield. Did you have good luck?”

Roderick confessed that as yet he had not treated himself to a day’s sport with the finny tribe. “I was thinking about it this very morning,” he went on, “and was wondering if I had not better secure a companion – someone skilled with rod and reel and fly to go with me, as I am a novice.”

“Oh, I’ll go with you,” she exclaimed quickly. “Would be glad to do so.”

“That’s mighty kind of you, Miss Holden,” replied Roderick, half hesitatingly, while a smile played about his handsome face. “But since you put it that way I would be less than courteous if I did not eagerly and enthusiastically accept. When shall we go?”

“You name the day,” said Gail.

Roderick leaned hastily forward and placing one hand on his heart said with finely assumed gallantry: “I name the day?”

“Oh, you know quite well I do not mean that.”

She laughed gaily, but all the same a little blush had stolen into her cheeks.

“I thought it was the fair lady’s privilege to name the day,” said Roderick, mischievously.

“Very well,” said Gail, soberly, “we will go trout fishing tomorrow.”

“It is settled,” said Roderick. “What hour is your pleasure?”

“Well, it is better,” replied Gail, “to go early in the morning or late in the evening. Personally I prefer the morning.”

“Very well, I will be here and saddle Fleetfoot for you, say, at seven tomorrow morning.”

And so it was agreed.

It was only when he was cantering along the roadway toward home that Roderick remembered how Barbara Shields had on several occasions invited him to go trout fishing with her, but in some way circumstances had always intervened to postpone the expedition. In Gail’s case, however, every obstacle seemed to have been swept aside – he had never even thought of asking Mr. Shields for the morning off. However, that would be easily arranged, so he rode on in blissful contentment and happy anticipation for the morrow.

The next morning at the appointed time found him at Conchshell ranch. Before he reached the house he discovered Fleetfoot saddled and bridled standing at the gate.

Gail came down the walk as he approached and a cheery good-morning was followed by their at once mounting their horses and following a roadway that led eastward to the South Fork of the Encampment River.

“You brought your flies, Mr. Warfield?”

“Oh, yes,” replied Roderick. “I have plenty of flies – both hackle and coachman. These have been specially recommended to me, but as I warned you last night I am a novice and don’t know much about them.”

“I sometimes use the coachman,” said Gail, “although, like yourself, I am not very well up on the entomology of fly fishing.”

Soon the road led them away from the open valley into a heavy timber that crowned the westerly slope of the river. They soon arrived at their destination. Dismounting they quickly tethered their horses. Gail unfastened her hip boots from back of her saddle, and soon her bifurcated bloomer skirts were tucked away in the great rubber boots and duly strapped about her slender waist. Roderick was similarly equipped with wading boots, and after rods, lines and flies had been carefully adjusted they turned to the river. The mountains with their lofty rocky ledges – the swift running waters rippling and gurgling over the rocky bed of the river – the beautiful forests that rose up on either side, of pine and spruce and cottonwood, the occasional whistle and whirr of wild birds – the balmy morning air filled life to overflowing for these two disciples of Izaak Walton bent upon filling their baskets with brook and rainbow trout.

“The stream is sufficiently wide,” observed Gail, “so we can go downstream together. You go well toward the west bank and I will hug the east bank.” Roderick laughed.

“What are you laughing at?” asked Gail.

“Oh, I was just sorry I am not the east bank.” The exhilarating mountain air had given him unwonted audacity.

“You are a foolish fellow,” said Gail – “at least sometimes. Usually I think you are awfully nice.”

“Do you think we had better fish,” asked Roderick, whimsically, “or talk this matter over?”

Gail looked very demure and very determined.

“You go right on with your fishing and do as I do, Mr. Roderick Warfield. Remember, I’m the teacher.” She stamped her little booted foot, and then waded into the water and cast her fly far down stream. “See how I cast my line.”

“You know a whole lot about fishing, don’t you?” asked Roderick.

“Oh, yes, I ought to. During occasional summer visits to the ranch I have fished in these waters ever so many times. You must not talk too much,” she added in a lower voice. “Trout are very alert, you know.”

“If fish could hear as well as seeNever a fish would there be —

in our baskets.” And she laughed softly at this admonition for Roderick to fish and cease badinage.

“Which way is the wind?” asked Roderick.

“There is none,” replied Gail.

“When the wind is from the NorthThe skilful fisherman goes not forth,”

quoted Roderick. “Don’t that prove I know something about fishing – I mean fly fishing?”