CHAPTER XXIV

READY TO QUIT

Men crowded to the flaps of their tents, chewing in haste the last of their breakfast. Others slammed open the doors of rude slab-sided shacks, some holding in their hands coffee pots which they had been about to set on the stove. Many of the miners of Nugget Camp, who had already eaten their morning meal and were on the way to work their claims, stopped and stared at the cavalcade on its way down the one main street.

“What is it, boys?”

“Some kind of a pee-rade, I’ll gamble!”

“But what for?”

“Must be the start of a circus!”

Thus the comments that greeted Roy, Teddy and their friends as they rode along, closely guarding Greyhound and his gang.

“Hey, what’s the parade for?” some one sang out.

“Robbery and murder!” answered Roy, with a grim face.

“Robbery?”

“Murder?”

The words were enough to set the whole camp astir had it not already been galvanized into life by the sight of the armed men guarding the others on horses.

“Watch out, fellows!” warned Teddy in a low voice. “Some of their friends may try a rescue!” He nodded toward the prisoners.

“Friends!” ejaculated Roy. “They won’t have any friends when we tell what happened--and when they hear Silent’s story.”

So it proved. Feeling ran high against the outlaws and there were a few reckless spirits in Nugget Camp who would have taken the prisoners from the X Bar X boys and strung the criminals to the nearest trees. But wiser counsel prevailed.

Luckily there had come to camp that morning a deputy sheriff on some other mission. But when he saw the prisoners and heard the story, he quickly swore in other deputies to aid him and, taking charge of the prisoners, soon had them as safely housed as was possible in that rough country.

“And to think you fellers caught them!” murmured more than one rough old miner, as what Roy and Teddy Manley had done became broadcast about camp. “Sufferin’ hoptoads! Some nerve!”

“Not much nerve needed when we knew what had happened to Silent,” remarked Teddy.

The excitement did not last long--excitement was too readily made to order in Nugget Camp--and when the prisoners had been taken away with the promise of justice being meted out to them, the new prospectors went back to working their claims.

But they did not forget the boast Allen had made about the quantity of gold concealed in the lair of the outlaws, and when they had time to investigate, Roy, Teddy, and their friends went back to recover it.

Allen had not been wrong. A large quantity of gold dust, some almost pure nuggets, and a large quantity of ore as thickly studded with lumps of gold as is a Christmas pudding with plums, was collected. Most of it had been stolen at different times from miners who had made lucky strikes and who had foolishly talked too freely of their good fortune, or else who, as foolishly, “hit the red-eye trail” and became so helpless that they fell easy prey to the thugs in Greyhound’s gang.

Among the pile of nuggets were some marked in a peculiar way, and these, it developed later, were the property of Jerry Decker. Though the amount was not quite as much as he claimed (due, perhaps, to toll taken by the bandits) it was a goodly sum, and when news of the recovery of it was sent to the injured man it did more to restore him to health and strength than all the doctor’s medicine.

“Well, fellows, we’ve got to work harder than we’ve been doing,” Roy announced one night as the prospectors gathered about the campfire. They had been gradually sinking their shaft deeper and deeper, and had cut several lateral tunnels, timbered with much labor and no little risk, but, so far, all the gold they had taken out had not paid them for their work--not even counting the first big nugget found.

“Work harder?” groaned Teddy. “My back’s ’most broken now, and as for my hands--I’ll be lucky if I can ever hold the reins again,” and he held up his blistered palms.

“Don’t give up!” begged Gus. “Lots of times, when everything seems like to be peterin’ out, a man may make a lucky strike.”

“Well, it’s got to come pretty soon for me, or I’ll pull up stakes and go back to riding fence,” announced Teddy.

“Are you really serious about that?” asked his brother.

“I sure am. This gold rush doesn’t mean as much as it did at first.”

Truth to tell, Nugget Camp did appear to be “petering out.” It had been famous in its day, and might be again, many days hence. But just now, aside from a few sensational finds of rich nuggets here and there, most of the miners, including the X Bar X boys, were not making a living at it. About the only ones who were really taking in anything were the proprietors of the gambling joints and the various “hotels.”

“Oh, don’t give up yet,” begged Roy, as he and Teddy prepared to turn in that night. “They don’t really need us back at the ranch, and we might as well give the wheel of fortune another turn or two.”

“Oh, I’m not quitting--completely,” said Teddy. “As for them not needing us--”

“I get your drift, as the hill said to the snowbank!” broke in Roy, with a chuckle. “You mean--”

“If you say ‘girls’ I’ll attack you with this!” and Teddy held up a slippery cake of soap he had just been using at the wash basin.

“Let it go at that!” wisely rejoined the other.

“I’ll stay one more week,” was Teddy’s final decision.

That last week the prospectors worked as they had never worked before. They dug until far into the night, taking advantage of the bright moon, and excavated by means of lanterns lowered into the shaft. They built new sluice-boxes with closer cleats and panned their clean-up every other day with great care.

Yet the little pile of yellow grains remaining after all the gravel and dirt had been washed away, was pitifully small compared with the terrible exertions that went into that shaft and the tunnels.

“Well, this is the end of the week,” remarked Teddy one evening after the routine clean-up, and he looked at the small quantity of gold that resulted. “I’m through!”

“Yes, I guess we might as well call it a finished job and quit,” agreed his brother grimly. “Old One Eleven didn’t pan out as expected. Oh, well, we’re not out much--only our time and trouble.”

“That’s all,” agreed Teddy. “And we cleaned up that gang and got back a lot of gold for others, if we couldn’t wash out any for ourselves. Well, we’ll pack up in the morning and hit the trail for home.”