Ernest Ingersoll

“ After a short interval of silence, it became plain, by the rattle of rolling stones, that the invaders were charging up the dump. Instead of trying to steal to the top, they sprang up as fast as they could scramble.
“It’s evident,” whispered Sandy, “that they’re expectin’ to catch us in that tunnel like a fox wi’ his ’earth’ stopped. But it’s a puir fox that has na mair than one hole to his burrow!”
Sandy seemed to have hit it, for their first act, when Bob, Scotty and Stevens had reached the crest, and found no one there, was to rush to the door as though to shut it and fasten it. ”

“ It was vastly amusing to the spectators to see these men, who were more distinguished for their laziness than for their energy, toil at the big stones, and when, having made sure they’d secured full possession of the place, they sat down and wiped their brows, Max and Len and Sandy suddenly rose up and wished them good-evening. ”

“ Thus two weeks of hard and systematic work with shovel, pick and barrow, carried them through the dyke, and on the morning of the fifteenth day their tools struck into the darker and wholly different vein-rock of their own lode, a hundred feet or so beyond the breast, or interior end, of the Last Chance tunnel. ”

“ Len remarked.
“Yes,” Mr. Anderson replied, “but that is no matter. Nature is never in a hurry. She can afford to be patient and wait, and let things move slowly. With her ’a thousand years is but a day.’ She has had, and will have, all the time there is.”
“For that matter,” Max remarked, catching up the strain, “what is this little bit of beauty{205} and interest, curious as it is, beside the splendid shows nature arranges for us, with never wearying change, from morning till night.” ”

“ THE ENEMY APPEARS. On Wednesday afternoon Len stopped work a little earlier than the others, though it was quite dusk, and left the mine to get supper. Turning his gaze down the cañon, the moment he came to the mouth of the tunnel, he saw three men on horseback riding up the trail nearly a mile away. It was merely by good chance that he happened to catch a glimpse of them, for had he been a moment later they would have been out of sight, not to reappear until the ford of the creek was reached, which was only a few yards beyond the foot of the Aurora dump. ”

“ Scotty’s hat flew off, and he tumbled over, while Bob and Stephens let loose a volley, which rattled harmlessly against the breastwork.
But Morris’s snap shot had not gone quite true, for Scotty picked himself up almost instantly and scrambled out of range, followed by his two companions.
This firing had brought Sandy and Max to the door of the mine with anxious faces, and you may believe they were not only enraged, but made very solicitous by the incident.
“It’s clear,” remarked Max, “that they mean to kill us if they can do so without open-handed murder. ”

“ Describing him to one another, they agreed that Sandy was the object of Scotty’s special aversion. This knock-down incident (into which it is unnecessary to go more particularly) was only one more count against the firm, and a new bond uniting this precious pair of scallawags. How and why Bob hated Max and Lennox we know; for a still better reason the gambler fostered a grudge against Sandy. They needed no oath-taking, therefore, to make them firm allies in any plan which might present itself to get revenge and possible profit ”

“ Len grumbled.
“Exactly! Now the Aurora is open and has a firm roof. She runs right alongside of ours, with only that dyke between them like a stone partition, and goes about one hundred feet further into the hillside. My notion is to go to the end of the Aurora, cut through the dyke into the Last Chance lode, and so get quickly at new rock, beyond any reached by our old drift, where I believe the mineral will be found richer, since all that we can learn goes to show that the lode improves steadily{42} in the quantity of that brown stuff which it carries. ”

“ A few moments later Sandy stepped out, and was amazed to find two of the adversaries stealing up the bank beside the cabin.
His alarm brought Max and Len in a hurry, and when they found themselves discovered the roughs retreated in great haste and a cloud of wrathful phrases, while Max shouted: “Hereafter we shall be watching, and it wont be healthy for any man to set foot on this side of the gulch.”
“Those men mean business, for sure,” Morris asserted, and added this counsel: “We musn’t show ourselves any mor’n we can help, and especially at night by the firelight. ”

“ They are more noisy and more difficult to separate from their betters in the rough and unarranged surroundings of a new mining camp or cattle district, than they would be in an eastern village where the affairs of life are well classified; but they are none the less avoided and despised by good citizens, and are feared rather than trusted in any emergency, like an Indian war, which calls for courage and discretion. ”

“ The new firm, Mr. Anderson, Max and Lennox, put the Silver Caves, as they called the new mine, into fine shape; constructed wagon-roads, built good houses in place of the old cabin, and in a few years were carrying on one of the most extensive mines in that part of the mountains. It came to be only one in a{216} group of good mines which were discovered on both sides of the creek, when men learned what kind of ore to look for in that district. ”

“ SUCCESS ACHIEVED. The next morning, after all the rest had started for town (for Stevens was quite able to travel, despite his wound) , Mr. Anderson and his adviser sat down to a business talk with our heroes.
“As I understand it,” the capitalist began, “you were anxious to sell an interest in this mine, and hoped to persuade me to buy such an interest. Is that so?”
“It is,” came in double response from Max and Lennox. ”

“ You see they believe it is the Aurora we are working and that there the riches lie. I don’t believe they have a hint of the cross-cut or the real state of things, do you?”
“Not to judge by what I overheard yesterday. But once they get possession of the Aurora entrance, wont they be able to find it all out in a few minutes, and seize on the cross-cut and the new work? Our army is rather sma’ to garrison the mine-chamber and the cabin too; besides, how can we get in or out, if they hauld the entrance? I’m ’fraid, my friend, ye’re biting off mair than your cheeks’ll hold.” ”

“ The next man, seizing with a firm grip, and holding his chances at every risk until the opposition has vanished, finds a great reward.
But in order that our friends might hold on to their property it was necessary to put it on a war footing. Their way of operating the mine through the Aurora’s tunnel must be abandoned, of course, unless they proposed to defend that, too, which they could not do, as they had no legal rights there. ”

“ Thieves and gamblers at home are justly abhorred by them, yet the same man, perhaps, transplanted to the Rockies to escape the sheriff at home, becomes in these flashy books a sort of chivalrous knight whose uncouth ways only heighten his supposed virtues.
This is the worst of nonsense. A brave, heroic man does not show himself in this garb. The honest heroes of the Rockies never figure in dime novels and never will. They are not loud and “chinny” enough for that. They do not wear long hair, nor carry a big Kentucky rifle, nor appear and disappear{70} in any mysterious Jack-in-the-box manner. ”

“ At any rate the Aurora is worthless, and I have merely been using that as a runway to get to the back end of this mine easily, through a cross-cut. We’re not working the Aurora, we’re working the Last Chance. ”

“ Brehm, during the examination of Bob’s prospect-hole to which he had just alluded, was so upright and intelligent, that when he heard{196} that something different had been discovered on Panther Creek, and by whom, he had readily consented to come and see it. “Now I want to see all you have to show me; and if you have anything good, I’ve no doubt we can make some sort of a bargain. But I don’t profess to understand these things as well as some, and at any rate two heads are better than one. ‘In a multitude of counsellors there is wisdom,’ the Wise Man says. ”

“ There is in every mining district a class of men who behave more or less as these novels portray, going as far toward it, anyhow, leaving out some of the theatrical foolishness, as they dare; and I suppose they form the material out of which the writers of the sorry stuff try to make their heroes. ”

“ But, Bob, what made you so anxious to know whether Buckeye Jim was dead?”
“Cause it fixes us O. K. The boys up{76} the creek are working his mine. I don’t know whether they’ve got any show of right about it or not, but now Jim’s dead I reckon they’d have hard work to keep it if we war to jump it.”
Do you know what it is to jump a mine? It means simply to seize it without any right, and hold it by force, a thing very often successful when the first claimant has no legal title to the property. ”

“ We musn’t disturb nothing, and we must get out o’ here as soon as we can, so’s not to be caught prospectin’ their trail. What we want is to surprise ’em some fine mornin’, when they aint lookin’ for no visitors, drop on ’em like a gobbler on a June-bug. I reckon there’ll be some regular squealing fun ’bout that time, eh, old pard!” and Scotty banged the rheumatic back of his squint-eyed companion in a way that made Bob howl, and did Sandy’s heart good. ”

“ Max interrupted with fine contempt. “At least no gentleman would do so, though a gambler might.”
“How then?” asked Sandy, considerably crest-fallen. “Where does a gentleman usually carry his bowie-knife?” ”

“ From the Last Chance, however, a man might easily ascend, as we know, and then, by care and trouble, he could pass along ledges above the Aurora, to where, some distance beyond, a crevice enabled him to clamber down to the bottom of the gulch, a few hundred yards below where the trail crossed the creek. ”

“ PREPARATIONS FOR WAR. Schemes looking toward the same object were at the same time busily advancing down at the camp.
Len had made his way back as rapidly as possible, and fortunately met Morris just as he was riding away into the mountains to be gone over night. He explained to him the whole situation, excepting that interview at the Professor’s, and at once enlisted his sympathy and interest. This was doubled when he heard that the real leader of the would-be jumpers was his antagonist in that El Dorado affair of which we have heard, whose overthrow would give him much satisfaction. ”

“ Astounded and angry, the three ruffians hurled back a lot of brag and bad language, the substance of which was that nobody dare come and take back the Aurora.
They replied with a laugh, and went in with a parting shot in broad Scotch: “It’s the life o’ an auld hat to be weel cockit.”{133}
Morris had already sneaked into the house and was slicing bacon for supper.
“I’ll lay low for the present, I reckon,” he said, “’t wont do no harm, and it may be worth something to let those fellows think you’re alone.” ”

“ A man can endure failure with much composure when he feels that it has been through no lack of diligence on his part, and if success follows, it is all the more satisfactory for having been earned by good judgment and hard work. ”

“ Bushwick,” remarked Sandy, “why you should go to town to-night.”
“I feel it strongly, and Morris and I’ll get away as soon as it is dark. You fellows have worked enough to-day, haven’t you? Suppose you stay out now.”
“All right; we will. We’ve got a fair sort of a hole in there, anyhow. It’s pretty deep, and a man can walk upright all the way except in one or two places.”
They saw no more of the enemy that day, however, and Sandy occupied himself by cooking an extra good supper. ”

“ I remember that my grandfeyther used to say to us bairns,—‘better to keep the deil wi’oot the door, than drive him oot o’ the hoose.’ I’m thinking, though, I’d like to take that gambler-man by the nape of his neck and gie him the name of an auld Scotch dance down the bank,—I mean the Highland fling, ye ken?”
Max did not join in the laugh; in his despondent way, he was filled with hesitation which none of the others felt. ”