CHAPTER XIX
THE STRANGER
Forgotten now was the fate Roy had just escaped by the narrowest margin. Forgotten was the terrific labor that had been necessary to extricate him. Forgotten was everything except that piece of yellow-studded rock that lay on Roy’s palm.
“Pay dirt!” Nick gasped. “Pay dirt, by golly! Two hundred bucks--in one handful--”
“Nick, for Pete’s sake, if you’re going to lay down on the job, let’s have the shovel and I’ll dig myself out!” Roy said, grinning weakly. He was recovering rapidly from his unpleasant experience. “Think I want to sleep here?”
“Snakes, I forgot about that!” Nick seized the shovel again and continued his labors with energy. Roy, still clinging to the nugget, was finally brought to the surface. What had seemed the beginning of a tragedy had turned into a stroke of marvelous luck.
“Here’s how it was,” Roy explained, as he sat on the ground. “I heard some one yell overhead, and--”
“That was Silent,” Nick interrupted.
“And then the next thing I knew a clod of earth hit me on the shoulder. I thought some one was kidding me. The next second the walls started to cave in. A big chunk slid off and buried me up to my knees. I yelled, and tried to get out quick, and then I saw this nugget in the hole where the dirt had slid from.” He held the odd-shaped rock in his hand and gazed at it. “Yes, sir,” he went on, “I saw the nugget and made a grab for it. Then the whole world hit me on the head and shoulders, and the rest you know.”
“Yes, we know,” murmured Teddy.
“It’s an ill wind that blows nobody no good,” Nick orated. “An’ it’s a bum landslide that don’t uncover somethin’. Well, Roy, you sure have had your initiation as a miner.”
“Personally, I’m going back to camp and remove some of the initiation,” Roy answered, with a laugh. “I suppose you waddies will be right here?”
“We’ll be right here,” Teddy replied. “Where there’s some gold there’s sure to be more. What you going to do with the nugget, Roy?”
“Take it to the assay office.”
“That’s a good idea,” Silent approved. “Leave it there to be tested.”
“She’ll test up plenty,” Gus declared. “Two hundred is about right, I reckon. You all right now, Roy? I’ll get back to my claim.”
“And whatever that nugget measures, you’re in it,” Roy called. “Lucky for me you were around. We didn’t have enough shovels. I’d have been there yet. Thanks, Gus--a lot.”
“Toss it away,” Gus replied, with a grin. “What’s the idea, thankin’ me? I had a little exercise, that’s all.”
Alone, Roy rode back to the tent, washed and changed his clothing. His head ached, but aside from that he felt no effects from his experience. Later he took the nugget and left it at the assay office.
When he returned to “One hundred and eleven” he found that the hole was even deeper now than it had been before. But to prevent a re-occurrence of the cave-in, timbers cut from trees were driven into the ground against the walls.
“That’s what should have been done before,” Silent remarked, as he saw Roy. “I was goin’ to suggest it, but thought I’d wait a while. I’ll know better the next time.”
“We all will,” Roy declared. “How you making out?”
“Struck nothin’ yet. Give us time. We will.”
The work went on all that day and the next, the shaft growing ever deeper. Nick was engaged in the construction of a makeshift windlass when he heard a voice:
“Hey!”
The others heard it too, and stopped to listen. It seemed to come from behind a pile of cut timber.
“Hey! Blame it, how about--”
“Who is it--Gus?” Teddy asked.
“No, there’s Gus over there. I don’t know who it is. Maybe--”
“Hey! My flivver’s busted! But I got here, by golly, on two flats an’ a busted wheel! I got here!”
A figure stepped into view. Teddy let out a shout.
“It’s Bug Eye! For the love of Pete! What’d you say, Bug Eye?”
“Not much!” The puncher approached, grinned ruefully, took off his sombrero and bowed low.
“Greetings to you-all,” he said. “I bring with me the dewy freshness of the early morn, good luck from my boss, an’ one broken-down flivver. Howdy, Gus! How you fellers hittin’ ’em?”
“Gradually,” Gus replied. “What’s new?”
“First, I want to know if you found anything,” Bug Eye declared, rolling a cigarette. “Me an’ my flivver--which, by the way, lies yonder in the cornfield or some place--has come to you a-thirst for knowledge. Tell me, pretty maiden, hast found any gold?”
“Roy picked up a nugget worth five hundred,” Nick declared. “Five or six hundred.”
“Or even two,” Silent corrected, with a chuckle. “But he did find one.”
“Baby! Then there is gold? An’ I was afraid it was a fairy tale! Hot potato, here’s where I locate! Gold, hey? Well, split my esophagus!” He blew on his hands eagerly. “Gold!”
“How are things at the 8 X 8?” Roy demanded. “How’s Jerry Decker?”
“Better. Your sister is stayin’ there a while, Roy. Me, I think she’s hipped on the doc. Yea, Jerry’s better. He said if you heard of or seen a buck-skin bag with the initials G. D. burned in it, to grab it, because that’s what he had his nuggets in when they were stolen.”
“Any trace of the thieves?” Teddy asked.
“Nary trace. I don’t suppose you boys--”
“Have anything to eat? We have! A buck-skin bag, with his initials in it?” Roy rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Well, that’s something. We’ll be on the lookout.”
He did not tell Bug Eye of their adventure on the way to camp, since to do so would be to involve Silent. Simply he described, as best he could, the two men who had been seen riding away from the figure on the ground, who later proved to be Decker. The description was strengthened by the quick view he had had of the two horsemen the night of the storm.
“Well, I reckon they’ll steer clear of Nugget Camp for a while,” Bug Eye stated. “It would sure please the old coot if we got his gold back for him, though. Where’s them eats?”
It was past mid-day, and the miners decided to knock off and return to the tent. When Teddy suggested to Bug Eye that he lock his flivver or anchor it to a tree, the puncher replied:
“Boy, Columbus hisself couldn’t move that machine! She’s sot, that’s what she is! An’ there she’ll stay till I makes a fortune here.”
“Figgerin’ to move it before Christmas?” Nick asked.
“Uh-huh! Long about Thanksgiving I’ll solder on my boots an’ head for the East, if I can get somebody to help carry my nuggets.”
When Bug Eye was told how Roy had made his “strike,” the cowboy whooped in amazement.
“Is that the custom here?” he demanded. “You got to be buried before you hit pay dirt? Then here’s the little man what starts a new system. Me, I leans down an’ picks ’em up. Yay, bo!”
They were in the tent now, sitting before a meal of Silent’s concoction. Nick, who was nearest the entrance, suddenly turned, a fork full of beans half way to his mouth.
“Who is it?” he called.
The tent flap parted and a man stuck his head in. None of them had seen him before.
“Howdy, gents,” he said. “You new here?”
“Just arrived,” Roy answered. “Come in. Have something to eat?”
The stranger, a tall, big-boned man in rough clothes, entered.
“Not me,” he answered. “Had mine. Say whose flivver is that ’bout quarter of a mile to the north?”
“She answers to the name of Lizzie, an’ she comes when I call her,” Bug Eye replied. “Why?”
“Want to sell it?”
“Now, I ain’t thought much about it,” the puncher answered slowly. “She’s got two flats an’ a busted wheel.”
“Give you seven hundred.”
“Seven hundred!” Silent, sitting on an upturned box, looked at the man closely. “Is she worth that?”
“She is to me. Well?”
“Certain, you can have it for that price,” Bug Eye declared. He frowned slightly. Three hundred would have been an exorbitant figure.
“O.K.” The big man nodded. “Here’s the cash.” He drew a roll of bills from his pocket. “Five hundred, five-fifty, six, seven hundred. Right?”
“Yea, it’s right, all right,” Bug Eye said. “But don’t you want a bill of sale or somethin’?”
The stranger laughed.
“A bill of sale, out here? No! Then the flivver’s mine? Got a key?”
“Key’s in it. How come you want it so bad?”
“Got to have somethin’ to cart my stuff. I can fix them tires an’ the wheel. You see, I made a strike ’bout two hours ago. Figger I got near twelve thousand bucks.”
“Wow!” A look of amazement came to the faces of those listening. “Twelve thousand bucks! Where’d it happen, stranger?”
“Ah--that I ain’t sayin’. But I’d be much obliged if one of you’d help me load. Look, I got a wheel that I bought a week ago--an auto wheel, I mean. I want to get out of this camp as soon as I can an’ get the stuff to a safe place. If you--”
“I’ll help you,” Nick volunteered. “Want to start now?”
“Yea, I’d like to. My tent’s down the road a piece. You got some tools in the flivver, I suppose. I can have it fixed up in no time. An’ I’ll pay you what you want for your trouble,” nodding toward Nick.
“Hey, nothin’ doin’! I don’t want no pay. Come on, let’s go. All right?” The puncher looked over at Roy.
“Sure, go ahead! See you later.”
Nick followed the man from the tent. When they had gone, Teddy turned to his brother.
“Well?” he said.
“Uh-huh--that’s the way I feel about it. Seven hundred dollars! I reckon that isn’t much to him, though. Say, did he strike anybody as being--sort of queer?”
“He did me,” Silent remarked quietly. “The way he came in an’ how he told about his strike. Most people wouldn’t do that. An’ how’d he know where the flivver was?”
“Unless his claim is near yours,” Bug Eye put in.
“It isn’t,” Teddy declared. “Gus told us ours were the only claims that far up. I wonder--” he stopped, then went on: “I wonder if he could have been taking a look at ours?”
“What for?”
“Oh, just curiosity,” Teddy said evasively. “But if he’s trying to pull something funny, he won’t get far with Nick.”
“I’ll tell a maverick he won’t!” Roy arose. “Well, let’s get back to work. Snakes, suppose you hit pay dirt for twelve thousand dollars! Would you go into a stranger’s tent and ask for help to cart the stuff?”
“I would not,” Silent asserted. “The whole thing looks fishy.”
They wandered out of the tent into the open. Gus, who had finished his meal--he had refused to join them on the plea that there were some things he had to do in his own tent--was told of the stranger’s offer and Nick’s accompanying him to help load his gold.
“That waddie is goin’ to get hisself in trouble one of these days, bein’ so kindhearted,” Gus said. “Load the gold! Where to? What for?”
Teddy shrugged his shoulders.
“Can’t say. We’ll know more when Nick comes back. Come on, boys--we have work ahead of us.”
They mounted their ponies and started again for their claim. But as they rode they were thinking, not so much about gold, as about the tall stranger and his request for help.