The Cave of Gold<br />A Tale of California in '49 by Everett McNeil (summer books txt) 📖

Save me!" and he clutched Fremont's legs with both his quivering hands, as the roar of the crowd became louder and more threatening.

"Quick," and Fremont bent over him, "will you tell all, all that you know of this horrible affair, if we will save your neck?"

"Yes! Yes!" eagerly agreed the terror-stricken man. "I'll tell ever'thing! Afore God I'll tell ever'thing! It's Bill an' Spike who is responsible, not me. It's them you want."

"Men," and Fremont again leaped up on top of the barrel, both hands outstretched for silence. "Listen, men, listen!"

For a minute the roar of the crowd continued, and then swiftly subsided, as all eyes caught sight of the tall figure of Fremont standing on the barrel top.

"Make your words few and to the point, Colonel. This is no time for speech-making," warned a voice from the crowd. "We want to get hold of the skunk who was willing to falsely swear away the lives of two boys."

"My words will be few and to the point," Fremont began, his clear penetrating voice reaching every ear in the crowd. "Skoonly will confess everything, if you will spare his neck. He appears to have been but the tool of the other two men; and we will need his testimony to make out a case against them and to prove to the satisfaction of all, the innocence of the two boys. Under these circumstances, it would seem to be best to allow him to go free, providing he makes a clean breast of everything he knows concerning this case."

"And further providin'," supplemented Ham, "that he be warned never ag'in tew show his cowardly face in Sacermento City or any minin'-camp in Calaforny, under penalty of instant hangin'."

"An' that he be given a hoss-licken, jest afore lettin' him go," added a roughly dressed miner, standing near the inner edge of the circle.

Growlingly, like a hungry dog driven from a bone, the crowd at length agreed to this disposal of Skoonly; and the wretched man, with much faltering and many terrified glances around the enclosing circle of grim faces, told how, for a thousand dollars in gold-dust, he had agreed to help Quinley and Ugger out with his testimony, if they needed it; how he and the two scoundrels had planned out the whole thing the night before and were on the lookout for the boys that morning; how he had remained in a near-by saloon, with his manufactured broken arm all ready, waiting for a summons from the two men; and how, at last, the summons had come and he had given in his testimony, according to agreement. He declared that the two men had told him that they only wished to frighten the two boys into giving up something, he did not know what, that really belonged to them, and had assured him there would be no danger of getting the boys hanged, that they would be sure to yield before it got to that point. About the murder of the miner he knew nothing, except that Spike Quinley and Bill Ugger had told him that they had killed the man themselves, and had showed him the money-belt, still heavy with gold-dust, that they had taken from him—

"Great guns!" broke in Ham excitedly, at this moment, "if we ain't plum forgot them tew villains," and he made a mad break through the crowd in the direction of the spot where he had left Quinley and Ugger.

In an instant the wildest excitement prevailed; and hundreds of men were rushing about excitedly, looking for the two scoundrels. But Quinley and Ugger were wise in their wickedness, and seeing, with fear-enlightened eyes, the results of the advent of Hammer Jones and Colonel Fremont, had taken advantage of the excitement attending the examination of Skoonly, to disappear so suddenly and completely, that, although Sacramento City was searched all that day and that night, as with a fine-toothed comb, not a sign nor hair of either man could be found; and the enraged crowd had to be satisfied with giving Skoonly the promised "hoss-licken," and running him out of town the next morning, with a warning never to show his cowardly face on their streets again, unless he was looking for the job of dancing the hangman's hornpipe at the end of a rope.

The excitement and the confusion and the swift scattering of the crowd, attending the search for the two scoundrels, of course ended the trial of Thure Conroyal and Bud Randolph for the murder of John Stackpole; and they stood free and worthy men in the sight of all people once more—and with the skin map still in their possession.

"Great Moses! but I was glad to see you, Ham!" declared Thure, as he gripped his big friend's hand, after some of the excitement had quieted down.

"Glad! Glad is no name for my feelings, when I saw your great body loom up by the side of the alcalde," and Bud gripped his other hand.

"I reckon you was some pleased tew see me," grinned back Ham, "both on you," and the hearty grip of his big hands made both boys wince.

"Colonel, Colonel Fremont!" and Thure broke away from Ham's hand to rush up to Fremont, who was talking with the alcalde. "I—we can never thank you enough for coming so splendidly to our help."

"Then do not try," smiled back Fremont. "My boy," and he gripped Thure's hand, as his face sobered, "I have not forgotten a certain night, some three years ago, near the shores of Lake Klamath, when an Indian stood with bow bended and arrow aimed at my breast; nor the skill and quickness of the boy, whose bullet struck and killed the Indian before his fingers could loose the arrow.[2] I fancy that I have not yet discharged my full debt to that boy."

"That—that was nothing," stammered Thure, his face flushing with pleasure to think that Fremont still remembered the incident. "But this—Think of the terrible death you helped save us from!" and Thure shuddered.

"Yes, it was terrible," and Fremont's eyes rested kindly on the face of the boy, "but, think no more about it now," he added quickly, as he saw how swiftly the color had fled from his face at the thought of the dreadful peril he had just escaped. "Come," and he turned briskly to Ham, "I wish you, and the two boys, and the alcalde, if he will do us the honor, to dine with me. I have an hour at my disposal before I must leave the city; and I know of no better way of spending it than in your company. Besides, I am hungry, and I am sure you are, also, after all this excitement, now happily over. So, fall in," and he smiled, as he gave the once familiar command.

The alcalde begged to be excused, on account of other matters that demanded his immediate attention; but Ham and the two boys, with answering-smiles on their faces, "fell in"; and, under the command of Fremont, charged down on the City Hotel, where their generous host entertained them lavishly on the costly viands of that expensive hostelry, while he and Ham talked of old times, of the perils and hardships and joys they had shared on those wonderful exploring expeditions that had brought a world-wide fame to the then young lieutenant, and the two delighted boys listened, until it became time for Colonel Fremont to go.

"Our dads will never forget what you have done for us, Colonel," Thure said, as he grasped Fremont's hand in farewell.

"I may soon put them to the test," smiled back Fremont, "by giving them an opportunity to vote for me, when we get our state goverment organized."

"You sure can count on all our votes," declared Thure eagerly; "that is, as soon as Bud and I are old enough to vote."

"Thank you," laughed Fremont, and added quickly, his face sobering. "And it is an honor to any man to receive the votes of men like your fathers and Ham here and you two boys, even in prospect, an honor, that, believe me, I appreciate," and the light in his forceful eyes deepened, as if he were seeing visions of the future. "But, I must be off. Remember me to your fathers and to all the others," and he sprang lightly on to the back of his horse, near which he had been standing during these words, and galloped off down the street toward the ferry.

CHAPTER XIII EXPLANATIONS

"Wal, now," and Ham turned a puzzled and frowning face on the two boys, the moment Colonel Fremont had vanished down the street, "what are you tew yunks a-dewin' in Sacremento City? A-tryin' tew git yur necks stretched, you blamed idgits? I'll be durned, if I wouldn't like tew spank both on you!" and the frown on his face deepened. "I—"

"Oh, Ham," broke in Thure excitedly, "we've got the most wonderful story to tell! And it all comes from that murdered miner, who, before he died, told us about a wonderfully rich mine that he had discovered; and it was to get the map to this mine that those two dreadful men tried to get us hanged—"

"Whoa—up! Jest pull up y'ur hosses a bit," and Ham stared in astonishment at the excited boy. "You're a-goin' tew fast for me tew keep up. Come 'long back intew th' hotel, an' tell me y'ur story straight, not in jerks an' chunks," and he led the way back into the City Hotel, and to a quiet corner in the big waiting-room, where they could talk undisturbed and unheard.

Here, in low but excited voices and after exacting promises of the utmost secrecy, Thure and Bud told their wonderful story to Ham.

"Wal, I'll be tee-totally durned, if it don't sound good!" declared that worthy, when, at last, the tale had been completed. "But thar's lots of mighty good soundin' yarns goin' 'round camp, 'bout wonderful gold mountains an' caves of gold. Howsomever, I never heer'd tell on anybudy's really findin' any on 'em; an', I reckon, 'most on 'em is jest lies. But that thar map seems tew give y'ur yarn a look like th' truth; an', I reckon, them tew skunks must have believed th' yarn, or they wouldn't have ben so pow'ful anxious tew git th' map. Gosh, if it should prove true!" and Ham's eyes widened and his cheeks flushed and he drew in a deep breath. "I'll be durned, if it should prove true, if I don't go back tew my old home in Vermont, that I ain't seen since I was a yunk 'bout y'ur age, an' buy up th' old farm, an' build a big house on it, an'—Gosh, a'mighty, if that yarn of y'urn ain't sot me tew dreamin'!" and Ham came back to the earth, looking a bit foolish. "More'n likely it's all a lie; an' thar I was a buyin' farms an' a-buildin' houses! Queer how th' gold gits intew th' blood an' makes all humans tarnal idgits, now ain't it?" and he shook his head wonderingly.

"But, there's the map, and the big gold nugget, and all the gold that the murderers got from him," protested Thure. "He must have found some kind of a mine to have got that gold; and crazy folks wouldn't draw real maps of the gold-diggings they only imagined they had discovered."

"An' you've got that map, an' that hunk of gold with you?" and again the eager light shone in Ham's eyes. "Wal, I reckon I'd like tew have a look at that nugget an' map."

"But, not here," interjected Bud anxiously, as he glanced suspiciously around the big room at a number of roughly dressed men, who were standing in front of the bar or seated at tables playing cards. "I think that we had better wait until we get to our dads, before we show up the map and the nugget. We can't be too careful. Now, how comes it that you are in Sacramento City, Ham?" and the eyes of both boys turned inquiringly to the face of their big friend.

"Reckon you're right 'bout th' map an' nugget," admitted Ham reluctantly. "Leastwise I don't blame you for bein' some keerful after y'ur late experience," and his own eyes glanced sharply about the room. "Now, as tew my bein' here, that's soon explained. Y'ur dads an' th' rest sent me in tew git a load of camp-supplies—flour, bacon, sugar, coffee an' sech like things tew eat, 'long with some diggin' tools an' extra clothin'. Got in a leetle afore noon; an', heerin' thar was a murder trial on in th' hoss-market, I hit th' trail for th' market tew once, bein' some anxious tew see who was a-goin' tew have their necks stretched. Wal, if I didn't 'most have tew push my heart back down my throat with my