I LIFTED MY HEAD TO GET A CLEARER VIEW 
 
BLACK BOULDER 
 CLAIM 
 
 By PERRY NEWBERRY 
 
 Illustrated by 
 Henry Pitz 
 
 THE PENN PUBLISHING 
 COMPANY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 1926 
 
COPYRIGHT 
 1921 jt BY 
 THE PENN 
 PUBLISHING 
 COMPANY 
 
 Black Boulder Claim 
 
Dedicated to 
 
 boys young and dd, <who like 
 adventure 
 
 662761 
 
Introduction 
 
 THIS is a story of the experiences of two boys 
 in the Sierra Nevada mountains in Lassen and 
 Plunias Counties, California. Their adven 
 tures take them from Jamesville, a small mining town, 
 up over Old Baldy to Eagle Lake and that spur of the 
 range in which the lake is held. Anyone knowing this 
 section of the country will be pleased to find that the 
 scene of the story, all of the description of the towns 
 and the groves and the ranges, is kept strictly within the 
 bounds of truth, and that one must draw on his imagina 
 tion for the plot alone. For those who have never been 
 in this beautiful and wild part of our land, it may be well 
 to give a short description of the flora and fauna of the 
 country. 
 
 Everyone, naturally, has heard of the giant redwoods 
 of California (Sequoia Gigantica), which grow in large 
 groves, covering spaces of perhaps less than a hundred 
 acres. Some of these are noble, huge old giants, sur 
 rounded by pines and beautiful Douglas spruces. More 
 perfect specimens are peculiarly symmetrical and regu 
 lar, though like the columns in Greek architecture they 
 are not spoiled by being too conventional, showing great 
 variety in harmony and general unity; the inspiring 
 shafts with rich, long, fluted bark, absolutely clear of 
 smaller limbs for almost two hundred feet, are tufted 
 
 5 
 
Introduction 
 
 here and there with bunches of green. The main 
 branches of the oldest trees are very large and crooked, 
 and zigzag stiffly to the point where they dissolve in 
 dense masses of little branches, making a regular, though 
 greatly varied, outline. The foliage at the top ter 
 minates in a great dome, that may be distinguished from 
 even great distances, thrown up against the sky above 
 the darker bed of pine and firs and spruces. This is the 
 king of all conifers, not only in size, but in majesty of 
 bearing. Some of these trees are so large at the base 
 that whole stage-coaches, horses attached, have been able 
 to drive through them. 
 
 Small lakes abound in this country, many thousand 
 feet above the sea, on ridges, along mountainsides and 
 in piles of moraine boulders. The largest of these lakes 
 are found at the foot of declivities where the push of the 
 glaciers was heaviest. These attain considerable size 
 and depth. Their waters are remarkably clear and one 
 can see down through them for great distances. Below 
 the waters of many of the lakes, the rock in some places 
 still shows the grooving and polishing marks of the 
 glacier period ; the erosion of the wave action has not as 
 yet entirely obliterated these superficial marks of glacia- 
 tion. 
 
 In our story, one of the boys shoots a bear; and it is a 
 well-known fact that this great range of mountains 
 abounds with game, one reason being that the large na 
 tional parks serve as excellent preserves, and also be- 
 
 6 
 
Introduction 
 
 cause the mountain fastnesses of the Sierra range fur 
 nish safe shelter for the wild folk of the woods. 
 
 Again, he shoots a cougar or mountain panther, which 
 is stealing up in the night to slay his horse, Zim. These 
 ferocious beasts are so plentiful that the state of Cali 
 fornia pays a bounty for all of them killed when suf 
 ficient proof is given. Rabbits, squirrels, quail and 
 other small birds and animals are in abundance. The 
 foliage and undergrowth is dense and where land is 
 covered in this way, game is bound to be plentiful. 
 
 One of the largest bushes of this country is the man- 
 zanita, which has exceedingly crooked, stubborn 
 branches and is not easily penetrated. In the first part 
 of the story, Ted is told that he will find gold in the 
 grass roots. The reason for this is that the manzanita 
 grows proportionately above and below the surface of 
 the ground. Therefore, when looking for water to use 
 in a mining sluice, if tall manzanita bushes grow near 
 the claim, the chances are that water is fairly close to the 
 surface. 
 
 To follow the trip which the boys took in their search 
 for gold, take a map of California and look in the north 
 western corner of Lassen and Plumas Counties, and 
 midway between them you will find Jamesville. From 
 here, go northwest to Eagle Lake and downward again 
 to Susanville, where Lem went for supplies. If the map 
 has sufficient detail, you will readily see the rugged 
 country, which they had to cross. 
 
 7 
 
Contents 
 
 I. 
 
 A TURN IN THE TRAIL . 
 
 13 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 36 
 
 
 
 TV 
 
 THE PISTOL-SHOTGUN 
 
 40 
 
 IV. 
 
 v 
 
 
 62 
 
 v 
 VT 
 
 
 71 
 
 V 1 
 
 VII. 
 
 THE CABIN ON THE LAKE .... 
 
 . 80 
 
 VIII. 
 
 BUILDING A HOME 
 
 9 
 
 IX 
 
 
 98 
 
 AAV* 
 
 X 
 
 
 112 
 
 . 
 
 XI. 
 
 SOLVING THE FOOD PROBLEM 
 
 . 121 
 
 XII. 
 
 "JUMPED!" 
 
 133 
 
 XIII. 
 
 A QUESTION OF RIGHTS 
 
 . I 4 6 
 
 XIV. 
 
 A CONFERENCE IN A TREE .... 
 
 . 160 
 
 XV. 
 
 A LYNX INTERFERES 
 
 . 168 
 
 XVI. 
 
 RECONNAISSANCE 
 
 . 179 
 
 XVII. 
 
 FAUSTINA . 
 
 . 189 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 BATTLE PLANS 
 
 . 198 
 
 XIX. 
 
 THE BATTLE OPENS 
 
 . 210 
 
 XX. 
 
 IN THE NIGHT ...... 
 
 . 222 
 
 XXI. 
 
 THE LIGHTNING-CHANGE ACT 
 
 . 229 
 
 XXII. 
 
 A FLAG OF TRUCE 
 
 . 241 
 
 
 9 
 
 
Contents 
 
 XXIII. POCKET OF GOLD * . , . . . 253 
 
 XXIV. BACK TO BALDV 265 
 
 XXV. GIANT MESQUITES ..,,.. 273 
 
 XXVI. WAYNE MAKES His LAST BID . . . . 284 
 
 XXVII. GOLD IN THE GRASS ROOTS .... 295 
 
 10 
 
Illustrations 
 
 I LIFTED MY HEAD TO GET A CLEARER VIEW . Frontispiece 
 
 PAGE 
 
 HE TALKED READILY AND INTERESTINGLY ... 64 
 THERE WAS GOLD IN THE PAN ! . . . . . 101 
 
 THE Two MEN SPENT THE REST OF THE DAY BUILDING 
 
 SLUICES .... . .190 
 
 DOWN THE HILL, WALKING JERKILY, HALTING FRE 
 QUENTLY . . . . . . 
 
 Black Boulder Claim 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 A TURN IN THE TRAIL 
 
 ZIM snorted, jerked up his head against my 
 laggard rein, and stopped dead in the trail. 
 Again I turned in the saddle and looked back. 
 The glow of the sun that had dipped behind the moun 
 tains to the west still lit the peak of Old Baldy, making 
 of its rough sides a radiant harmony of color, orange and 
 gold, with lavender and purple shadows. 
 
 13 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 But my eyes dropped lower to where the scrub-pine 
 and manzanita brush marked the trail I had followed 
 since noon. The greater part of its twelve miles of zig 
 zag windings was in view behind and above me, and with 
 keen eyes I searched its length. Someone, a-horse, was 
 following me. 
 
 Zim had twice before in the last hour on the narrow 
 trail whinnied and stopped in his slow, careful walk. 
 The first time I had believed a rattler slipping through 
 the rocks might have caused the disturbance of good 
 old Zim s usually complacent temper. But I was sure 
 now. Somewhere behind us, within sound of his whinny, 
 was a horse. 
 
 I let Zim rest and listened with him for an answer. 
 It was that quiet time that succeeds the setting of the 
 sun, when the wind seems to slip away in company with 
 the day. From the village below me, smoke came from 
 chimneys to rise straight and high ; people were at sup 
 per tables ; here and there a cow grazed in the streets ; 
 lights began to glitter from windows. Down there it 
 was beginning to be night while the sun still lingered 
 on Baldy s top. 
 
 Zim s ears, which had been cocked forward, relaxed, 
 and he reached his muzzle around to nose the sage beside 
 the path. I touched him with my heel, tautened the 
 reins with: 
 
 " Get up, old nag. Almost home," and we began the 
 last switchback to cross the river at the ford. 
 
A Turn in the Trail 
 
 There was no cause for serious worry in a pursuing 
 horseman. It might be some prospector following down 
 the trail I had come, making in to Jamesville for sup 
 plies. That he had not closed up the gap between us 
 in the opportunities I had given by my delays, might be 
 explained by a heavily laden packhorse making frequent 
 stops on the difficult descent. 
 
 I had left the Black Boulder claim after an early 
 dinner, almost as the sun crossed the meridian. All the 
 morning I had watched the water in the sluice lower 
 perceptibly with each passing minute. At eleven, it was 
 hardly over the riffles and was not strong enough to move 
 the sand in its current. There was no use working 
 longer with the shovel. I cleaned up what little gold 
 was caught in the cross-slats, horned it, put away my 
 tools in the shack, caught Zim and started for home. 
 Mining for the year, barely begun, was over. The great 
 pile of pay-dirt I had spent a laborious month in gath 
 ering was not one-third gone. And I, the sole owner 
 of as rich a gravel claim as there was in Plumas County, 
 with good values from the surface to bed-rock, gold that 
 clung even to the grass roots, was homeward bound 
 without enough dust in my poke to make me worry 
 over the possibility of a thief in the following horse 
 man. 
 
 We stopped in the river while Zim buried his nose in 
 its cold waters. Night was settling fast. A quail 
 whistled in the alders beside the stream, to be answered 
 
 15 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 from the edge of the field beyond the ford. There was 
 the twittering of birds arranging themselves for the 
 night on the twigs of the thicket. Behind me, on the 
 mountainside, a rock came bounding down, tearing its 
 way through the scrub. 
 
 Something had dislodged that stone to start its hur 
 ried descent. Zim s nose had come from the water to 
 sniff the air. Again he whinnied. There was no an 
 swer. The rock, after a couple of faltering pauses on 
 the steep hill, found a hold against gravity and stopped. 
 All was still but the noises of the swirling river. With 
 a curiosity to see who was using my trail to the Black 
 Boulder, I dropped the reins over the saddle horn, threw 
 a leg across the pummel, and waited. 
 
 This was my third dry spring on the Black Boulder 
 claim and it would be my last. There had been years 
 before my father s death when water was plentiful in 
 the sluices for weeks, even months; when the top and 
 sides of Old Baldy, deep covered with winter snows, had 
 melted slowly and with little waste of the precious fluid. 
 The claim had paid well then. It held no lack of gold, 
 but without water might as well be sand. Except for 
 the streams from the melting snow, there was not even 
 a spring on all Baldy s sides ; and because the mountain 
 stood alone on the edge of the range of Sierra Nevadas, 
 there was no chance of a flume or pipe to bring water 
 to it. 
 
 My claim, the sole inheritance from my father, had 
 
 16 
 
A Turn in the Trail 
 
 proved a hindrance, not a help, to me. I was sixteen, 
 and my chances for an education were passing with the 
 years, for with the failure of a clean-up at the diggings, 
 it was necessary for me to find work on the ranches and 
 that kept me from school. This should be my last spring 
 on Old Baldy, I repeated to myself, as I waited, listen 
 ing for the sounds that would tell of the approach of 
 the follower. 
 
 Impatient to get on to where he knew oats and hay 
 waited for him, Zim pawed the water to send cold drops 
 against my face. I had given whoever started that 
 stone rolling plenty of time to catch up with me, and 
 there wasn t sight or sound of him. There was no place 
 to turn off the trail, so he must have stopped. Well, my 
 curiosity was not strong enough to keep me here all 
 night, while a supper waited in one of the cottages which 
 showed glimmering lights ahead in Jamesville. I threw 
 my leg around, kicked a foot into the stirrup, and Zim 
 took the steep bank with enthusiasm and an equal 
 hunger. 
 
 The trail turned into El Dorado, Jamesville s one 
 business street, a little above the Gilson House. I hoped 
 its guests were inside at supper so that I would not have 
 to listen to their jibes and jokes. My mine as these 
 ranchers called the crude workings was one of the 
 town s standard subjects for hilarity; my departure for 
 it in April was the occasion of many joshes and sarcastic 
 prophecies; my return would be greeted by shouted 
 
 17 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 witticisms from the hotel porch. It was pretty dark; 
 I might get by unscathed. I kicked Zim into a trot. 
 
 " Hi ! Ted ! That you ? " a voice hailed me from thf 
 shadows, and a silhouetted figure came running to< 
 ward me. 
 
 " Whoa, Zim. Hello, Lem." I stopped and waited 
 for him. 
 
 " What luck? " A city boy, Lem could not read the 
 story of my luck written plain on the mountain ?* 
 side. 
 
 " None; too short a run of water. How goes it witk 
 you?" 
 
 " Bad as ever," he grinned. He was tow-headed and 
 freckled, a year younger than I. 
 
 "Still with Wayne?" I asked. Wayne ran the 
 Gilson House. 
 
 " Still chambermaid of the stables at nothing per 
 week. Can t you come over to-night, Ted? " 
 
 " Not to-night. See you to-morrow though. Good 
 bye," and I went on my way. 
 
 Lem had been almost a year at Jamesville, sent there, 
 it was said, by the Juvenile Court of San Francisco for 
 some offense the details of which I did not know. It 
 was supposed to be a correctional measure rather than 
 a punishment, but the Judge couldn t have known Mr. 
 Wayne. Working for him was little better than life 
 at the State s prison, I guessed, for the little good 
 nature that bloomed in Wayne s system was needed for 
 
 18 
 
A Turn in the Trail 
 
 the hotel s guests, and none of its fragrance could be 
 wasted on the help. 
 
 I was one of Lem s few friends in Jamesville. Even 
 Mother Laing, with whom I lived, and the kindest 
 of women, was distrustful of the boy. Of course, the 
 story of his past had a good deal to do with the feeling 
 of suspicion against him, but it wasn t all that. Lem 
 was different from the boys of Indian Valley ; shrewder, 
 more cunning arid secretive. Even I didn t always 
 trust him. He was small, thin, wiry ; strong enough for 
 all his delicate look. Until he grinned, his narrow face 
 held a look of crafty slyness; with his wide smile, it 
 disappeared in cheeriness; as unexpected a change as 
 sunshine breaking through fog. There were no reserva 
 tions to my liking when Lem Strong grinned. 
 
 Hearing Zim s hoofs on the hard dirt road, Mother 
 Laing, carrying a lamp, opened the side door and stood 
 in its frame, calling: 
 
 You Ted Wilson ! Hurry in here and get your 
 supper." 
 
 " Sure, Mother Laing; soon s I put up Zim," and I 
 rode off to the barn. She had known I d be home to 
 night; had kept supper waiting for me. Just as good 
 a miner as there was in the hills, better than most of the 
 ranchers of Indian Valley, and she could tell from the 
 way the green grass took the place of white snow on 
 Baldy s sides, as it stretched high away to the east be 
 fore her door, that my labors there must end. It made 
 
 19 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 the telling of my disappointment easier, knowing she 
 knew it. 
 
 " Too bad, Ted," she greeted me as I stamped into 
 the big kitchen. " How much does it tote up? " 
 
 " Not six ounces." That would be but little over a 
 hundred dollars and was the smallest sum the Black 
 Boulder had ever yielded at the spring run. I added, 
 bitterly, " It was rich gravel, too. I could have cleaned 
 up thousands if the water had held." 
 
 " Too bad," wistfully. My misfortune meant added 
 work and discomfort for her. " But never mind; better 
 luck next time." 
 
 That was Mother Laing s way, " Never mind " dis 
 appointments, and " Better luck " for the future, and 
 it had always cheered me; but this night I had come to 
 the turn in the trail. I felt willing to give the Black 
 Boulder away; abandon it. I ate supper in silence, 
 hardly hearing the cheerful gossip of my five weeks ab 
 sence from town. It was only when Mother Laing an 
 nounced that Mr. Wayne had called twice to see me the 
 last week, that I perked up to ask: 
 
 " What did Wayne want? " 
 
 " He didn t say. He was real anxious to know when 
 you d be back, and I told him to watch Old Baldy. The 
 mountain would say quicker and surer than I could. 
 He ll be round again to-morrow, I guess." 
 
 " I ll go over there to-night. Maybe he s a job to 
 offer." 
 
 20 
 
A Turn in the Trail 
 
 "You ll not work for him, Ted Wilson! I ll not 
 stand for that." 
 
 " Either Wayne or the ranches. One s about as bad 
 as the other." I spoke bitterly, for I had no love of 
 farming. Work I must, for the money I had earned on 
 the claim was already owing to Mother Laing. She 
 was a widow, and when Father died four years before, 
 had given me a home and the best of care ; but she was 
 hard-working, washing and mending for the farm 
 ers families, and I could not allow her to support 
 me. 
 
 After the meal I walked across lots to the hotel and 
 faced the joking for the chance of seeing Mr. Wayne. 
 He was not in the office, though there were plenty of 
 his lodgers sitting about the stove, its warmth a comfort 
 those spring evenings, and they began the time-worn 
 pleasantries. 
 
 " Leave any gold behind in Baldy this spring, Ted? " 
 asked Tom White, who ran the dairy for Jamesville, 
 " or didya bring it all down? " 
 
 " Been expectin you d be borrying my hay wagon for 
 to haul it," from one of the ranchers; and the clerk in 
 the clothing store cut in with : 
 
 " No. Ted s buying one of these auty-mobile trucks 
 to handle his gold." 
 
 I smiled through it, but not a happy smile. It was 
 too serious for joking when it meant, perhaps, working 
 for Wayne the balance of the year. He came in from 
 
 21 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 the dining-room, through the door behind his office 
 counter, picking his teeth. 
 
 " Hello, Ted," he said amiably. "Any gold left on 
 Baldy? " They were not original in their gibes. 
 
 " Some few grains," I answered. " You wanted to 
 see me, Mr. Wayne." 
 
 " Why sorta." That would be his way of beginning 
 negotiations; not too encouragingly. " Come inside 
 here," and he lifted the section of the desk that stood for 
 a door. I went in to take a chair against the wall, while 
 he tilted back in his and worked diligently with the quill 
 toothpick. For a minute he eyed me slyly, then said, 
 " I didn t know but you was going to abandon the claim 
 up there." 
 
 " Black Boulder? " He nodded. " No; I ve the as 
 sessment work done now for this year." 
 
 " I know; and not wages for it either. How much 
 did you bring down with you for the run? " 
 
 " Not a great deal; the water gave out quickly." 
 
 " Sure; it always gives out quickly. How much?" 
 
 " Six ounces," I answered truthfully. I was still 
 thinking this was merely preliminary to the offer of a 
 job. 
 
 " Not even Chinaman s wages," he remarked con 
 temptuously, as he whittled tobacco from a plug to fill 
 his pipe. " Want to sell that claim, Ted? " 
 
 That came as a surprise. So far as I knew, Wayne 
 had never seen my diggings, and he wasn t the kind 
 
 22 
 
A Turn in the Trail 
 
 to buy sight-unseen. But this was a hopeful begin 
 ning. 
 
 " I might/ I said, a little too quickly for clever bar 
 gaining. " What will you offer? " 
 
 Slowly he scratched a match and held it in the bowl 
 of his pipe while he puffed longer than was necessary 
 for a light. " It isn t worth anything," he said finally. 
 The only good thing about it is it s convenient to town 
 here, and I could sort of keep an eye on it with a Chink 
 or two working it in the spring. I d risk a hundred 
 bucks on it." 
 
 An hour before I had thought of giving it away, and 
 here was my opportunity to do so; instead, I got up from 
 my chair with: 
 
 " Not for sale. The shack on the claim is worth more 
 than that." 
 
 " Yes, it might be if it wasn t on the claim; it might 
 make a real good fence anywhere anyone would need a 
 fence; but it would cost more n it s worth to bring it 
 down here. What d you say to a hundred and fifty? " 
 
 " No." I said it emphatically and I started for the 
 door. Wayne puffed smoke at the ceiling, still tilted 
 back. 
 
 " You climb up there along in April and you climb 
 down again in May, and you ain t enough better off 
 to pay wear and tear on the hoss. Four years of that, 
 ain t it?" 
 
 " Three," shortly. 
 
 23 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 " TKree years, and not Chinaman s wages in it. And 
 each year the snows seem to go off swifter." I had 
 stopped at the gate in the counter and was listening, 
 wondering what Wayne had up his sleeve. All he said 
 was true enough; but it was as true for him as for me. 
 Mr. Wayne thought just as highly of a hundred and 
 fifty dollars as he did of his right arm; he wouldn t offer 
 it, even so little, if he did not see a way to get back 
 many times the amount, and that quickly. Then I 
 remembered that there had been a horseman on the trail 
 behind me that afternoon. Could it have been Wayne ? 
 Might he have climbed up to the claim and taken a 
 squint at my pile of pay-dirt? 
 
 " Did you ever see just what I ve done up there? " I 
 asked. The hotel proprietor shook his head, puffed 
 slowly and said: 
 
 " No, Ted; but I can guess just about what you got 
 there. Pretty good gravel, running fair in values, but 
 impossible to handle without water " 
 
 " One might run a cable-tramway down the hillside," 
 I cut in, " and carry it to the river " 
 
 " Uh huh. Spend ten or fifteen thousand dollars on 
 the chance of getting back what? Even at that, how 
 many yards of dirt would you have to handle to the 
 ounce of gold?" 
 
 That was true, too. I d talked with Father about an 
 aerial-tram many times, and he had the same questions 
 of doubt that Wayne was asking. There was only one 
 
A Turn in the Trail 
 
 solution to Black Boulder s gravel, and that was 
 water. With water on the claim, it would be worth 
 thousands many thousands; without water, it was 
 worth just about what Wayne offered; not that. I 
 lifted the counter door. One hundred and fifty dollars 
 would set me square with Mother Laing and leave me 
 enough to finish the spring term at the Crescent Mill s 
 high-school. I stood in the counter door. I might earn 
 enough through long vacation to take me back for the 
 fall term ; six months more of schooling, perhaps ; and I 
 needed it. 
 
 " Say two hundred dollars cash," said Wayne, and 
 that was his mistake. 
 
 " The claim isn t for sale," I replied, and I dropped 
 the counter-top behind me. Black Boulder was getting 
 valuable too rapidly. If Wayne could leap from a hun 
 dred to double that in two bounds, I d do well to hold on 
 a while, at least. I started out. 
 
 " Hold on, Ted," the hotel man called from the desk. 
 I came back, grudgingly. I didn t want to listen to 
 good reasons for accepting his offer. I knew better 
 reasons than he could think up for just that thing; first 
 of all, that I owed Mother Laing money. When I was 
 alongside, he lowered his voice. 
 
 " I suppose I m kind of a fool, Ted, but I sympathize 
 with you and the widow. You ve had hard going, both 
 of you, and it ain t because you won t work. I want to 
 see you pull out of the muck. Mrs. Laing s getting 
 
 25 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 older each year, and she ought to be having life easier, 
 not harder. I ll make my offer three hundred, just out 
 of kindness of heart." 
 
 Again, every word true, and all a lie ! If Wayne had 
 stuck to his original figure, his argument would have 
 won; but that raise of one hundred dollars, " out of kind 
 ness of heart," was convincing. Somewhere in the 
 wood-pile was a nigger. I couldn t see him, but he was 
 hiding there. With a curt, " Thank you, no," I walked 
 out of the hotel. 
 
 26 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 NEW PLANS 
 
 S I came from the brightly lighted room to the 
 intensified darkness of the porch, I was startled 
 by a hand laid on my arm and a whispered, 
 " Psst! " in my ear. In the instant, I knew it was Lem 
 Strong, and I followed him silently down the length 
 of the veranda to slip off its further end and run with 
 him to the stables. It was only after we were in the 
 far stall that he spoke, and then it was in whispers. 
 
 A 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 " I m going to run away, Ted," he began. " I m go 
 ing to hop the twig." 
 
 " But how can you? " I was startled at the dis 
 closure. The law was a serious matter to me. " They ll 
 arrest you." 
 
 " They ll have to find me first, and that will keep em 
 busy for a long while. I want you to help me." 
 
 " But but " I was full of " buts." I didn t 
 
 like the idea at all. " What do you want me to do, 
 Lem?" 
 
 " Hold on till I tell you my plans. I dassent go back 
 to San Francisco; they d catch me there sure; and I 
 haven t money to go far in any direction. So I m going 
 to take to the mountains and walk to the next town 
 north whatever that is then work my way along till 
 I get to Portland. I ll ride the brake-beams on freights, 
 and- 
 
 " What are you talking about? Where do you think 
 
 you are? " I was astounded at such ignorance. 
 
 Where do you expect to find a railroad in these hills? " 
 
 " That s what I want of you; info. If I was to ask 
 any of these people about town, they d remember and 
 tell, and I d get caught. You ll keep mum." 
 
 His confidence in me was absolute, and no matter how 
 much I dreaded being mixed in this infraction of the 
 law, I could not fail him. But I wasn t encouraging 
 as I explained: 
 
 " The nearest railroad is at Quincy and that is miles 
 
 28 
 
New Plans 
 
 over the range. You d never make it. And if you did, 
 you d have to work your way clear down to Sacramento 
 before you could ever start for Oregon. You d " 
 
 " How do I get to Quincy, that s what I want of 
 you," Lem interrupted. " Never mind all the can t- 
 do s. Tell me the road to Quincy." 
 
 " There isn t a road; just a trail. And probably you 
 couldn t see it half the way, it will be so overgrown with 
 spring bushes. I wouldn t be sure of following it my 
 self, and I know the hills well." 
 
 " Can the knock-stuff, and boost, Ted, boost! Show 
 me one end of that path over the mountains, and leave 
 me to find the other. Where do I go from here? " 
 
 " Right up the valley to Engels, where you hit the 
 trail at the east end of the bridge. It leads over 
 Himmel s Pass, and you ll have no trouble, probably, 
 till you cross the summit. From there on the trail is 
 pretty bad, but you keep hiking southeast along the 
 slope of Morris Mountain till you dip into Green River 
 Canon. Follow that down to the valley, and the rest 
 is easy. There are ranches in the bottom." 
 
 Lem repeated the instructions, and I amplified them 
 here and there, until it seemed to me he couldn t miss 
 the trail. On foot, as I told him, it should take between 
 three and four days; I d made it in three. And I fin 
 ished with the advice, should he get lost, to travel 
 steadily southeast by the sun until he struck Green 
 River. 
 
 29 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 " Oh, well/ he said jauntily, " if I do get off the road 
 I can ask somebody the way." 
 
 "Ask whom? " I said. " You re going to see nobody 
 after you leave Engels until you reach Green River bot 
 toms. Not a soul. There ll be no travel on the trail 
 yet." And that reminded me of the traveler who had 
 followed me down my trail that afternoon. " Lem," 
 I said, " did anyone come to the hotel this evening after 
 I went by, riding a horse? " 
 
 " You mean a stranger? " 
 
 "Anybody." 
 
 Lem thought a minute, then shook his head. " Pon 
 Sing, the China boy, Lee Fong s helper, rode in about 
 half -past seven. He d been over to Crescent Mills buy 
 ing potatoes. Nobody else." 
 
 Pon Sing couldn t have been behind me if he had 
 come from Crescent. I left Lem, after advising him 
 against any rash action, and went home to find Mother 
 Laing in the living-room with a basket of socks to darn. 
 She greeted me with the question: 
 
 " What did Mr. Wayne want? " 
 
 " Made me an offer for the Black Boulder," I said, 
 getting a book from the shelves and pulling an easy- 
 chair around under the lamp. She gave a little snort 
 which expressed her opinion of Wayne and any offer 
 he d make. I opened the book as though to read, know 
 ing it was the best way to get her started in conversa 
 tion. 
 
 30 
 
New Plans 
 
 " How much did he bid? " she asked finally. 
 
 " Three hundred." 
 
 " Pooh! Does he call that an offer? " 
 
 " It was his fourth attempt. He began at one hun 
 dred," I explained. " I m afraid three hundred is as 
 much as it s worth." 
 
 " Now, Ted Wilson, you know better than that. 
 That claim is worth thousands not hundreds. Your 
 father spent more than three hundred dollars on the 
 house and flumes, let alone your work there. And 
 there s rich gold in the gravel." 
 
 "And no water." It was an old argument between 
 Mother Laing and me. Every year when I came home 
 discouraged, ready to abandon the claim, she would dis 
 suade me; but this was the first offer of money I had 
 had for it. I went on, " Mother Laing, I am going to 
 leave it to you whether the Black Boulder is sold or not. 
 I do not think Wayne has made his last bid. He may 
 raise his offer. I m going to leave you to deal with 
 him." 
 
 "And where will you be? " she asked, smiling. 
 
 " Hunting another claim with water on it." This 
 was the result of my thinking of several days and part 
 of several nights. :< I m going prospecting." 
 
 She laid aside her work, took the glasses from her 
 clear, gray eyes. For a long time she looked at me be 
 fore she said: 
 
 " I ve been expecting that, Ted. Each year when 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 you have returned discouraged, I have dreaded to hear 
 you say those words. But it s a part of your inheritance, 
 I guess, and must work itself out of the blood. Your 
 father wasted almost a lifetime in prospecting. All 
 these western mountains from Washington to Mexico 
 he hunted for gold, and never found anything that paid 
 him more than the gravel claim on Baldy. Do you 
 remember what his last words to you were? " 
 
 " He said there was gold in the grass roots." 
 
 " Yes; and that far-away gold always shone brighter 
 than what rimmed the pan, and the search for it was a 
 chase after the mirage. He wanted you to stick by the 
 gravel claim, Ted." 
 
 " I know; but he wouldn t have stuck for three dry 
 years " 
 
 " No, he wouldn t; and, knowing he wouldn t, he ad 
 vised you to do it. Give up the idea of prospecting, 
 Ted, and wait for next spring with the hope of better 
 luck." 
 
 I came to my feet and returned the unread book to its 
 place. My resolution had been made slowly, thought 
 fully, over camp-fires and under the stars. I was six 
 teen, but for three years I had supported myself by hard 
 work, and was older than my age; was steady with per 
 haps an over-confidence in my ability to take care of 
 myself. As I turned to Mother Laing to answer her 
 arguments, I felt sure of my sound judgment and the 
 practicability of my plans. 
 
 32 
 
New Plans 
 
 " I d hate to do anything you didn t approve," I said, 
 " but I ve studied this out carefully. There s nothing 
 at the Black Boulder that can be touched until next 
 spring. If I stay in Jamesville, I must work on a 
 ranch for barely enough to support myself. In the 
 mountains, even if I find no gold, I can live for almost 
 nothing I ll be only a little worse off. And I can 
 post-hole for pockets." 
 
 " Post-holing isn t easy work, Ted." 
 
 " No. Pocket hunting is hard work, and it isn t sure. 
 But I m not trying to dodge hard work, only to get 
 away from uninteresting work; do something where 
 there s a chance to make a real gain. You can t live 
 this mending, washing life forever, and I want a better 
 education. I m going to give four months to trying to 
 find a real gold mine." 
 
 " When do you want to start? " Mother Laing gave 
 way with a little sigh and the most hopeful of smiles. 
 That was her method of taking life. If it came against 
 her ideas, she accepted tranquilly and trusted results 
 would prove life right and her ideas wrong. 
 
 To-morrow morning early," I said quickly. " I ll 
 leave you all the gold I brought down with me, and you 
 can sell the Black Boulder for whatever you can get for 
 it if you want. I ll take Zim and what grub he can 
 pack, and get into the hills." 
 
 " Come into the kitchen and we ll see what we can 
 find," and I picked up the lamp and led the way to the 
 
 33 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 storeroom door, where for the next hour we fought 
 laughingly over the contents of Zim s next day s pack. 
 If Mother Laing had been allowed her way. my horse 
 would have staggered under a load of eatables to make 
 travel impossible. Only by arithmetical calculations 
 that proved totals of weight beyond equine strength 
 could I prevent her from adding comforts to the stores 
 that she piled upon table and chairs, insisting that I 
 should need them. A side of bacon and a sack of flour 
 were the absolute necessities; and to these I added white 
 beans, rice, coffee, salt, pepper and baking-powder. 
 That was the limit. To Mother Laing s pleas for sugar 
 and canned milk, potatoes and dried prunes. I was 
 laughingly callous, and I begged her to think of Zim s 
 troubles. When I had finally replaced the many things 
 she wished to give me, and had closed the door of 
 the storeroom and set my back against it, I said hap- 
 pfly: 
 
 "Xot another ounce of food weight, please! Zim 
 must make thirty miles a day on mountain trails, and 
 he ll look like a moving-van now. I ll eat all the rest of 
 the food when I come back." 
 
 "And when will that be, Ted? " 
 
 " Don t expect me before the first of September. If 
 there s a chance, I ll send you a letter now and then, but 
 as I m going deep into the hills, maybe I ll see nobody 
 all the time Fm gone." 
 
 " Where do you head for? " 
 
 34 
 
New Plans 
 
 " The Eagle Lake country. Father always said 
 there was gold in there, and I mean to find it." 
 
 She laughed. You get to bed, Ted, and have your 
 dreams while you sleep." As I started to obey her, she 
 called me back. " You re much like your father, my 
 boy ; and your father was a fine man, even though he was 
 a dreamer of waking-dreams. I wish you all the suc 
 cess in the world, Ted. Good-night." 
 
 35 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE HIGH SIERRAS 
 
 I CLIMBED out of bed long before sunrise next 
 morning, dressed quietly, not to waken Mother 
 Laing, started a fire in the kitchen stove and placed 
 coffee to boil before I went to the pasture and whistled 
 for Zim. He came to the bars dashingly, as though to 
 prove to me that the years had taken none of his speed 
 and agility. I slipped the halter over his nose with: 
 " Take it easy, horse. There s a hard pull ahead for 
 
 36 
 
The High Sierras 
 
 you," and he muzzled my shoulder, his cold nose against 
 my ear, as he followed me to the stable. 
 
 While he ate his breakfast, I saddled him carefully, 
 his own blanket, then mine, folded beneath the leather; 
 the cinch tight but not binding; and I began packing 
 with an even distribution of the load. Two burlap 
 sacks with the bulk of the weight were so roped together 
 that they hung high one on either stirrup-flap and gave 
 a foundation for lighter but bulkier stuff which must 
 make up the load. In the burlaps were my provisions, 
 oats for Zim, extra clothing, towels and soap. Matches 
 were in corked brass cartridge shells, absolutely water 
 proof, in a canvas bag with a coffee-pot, a small boiling- 
 pot, two tin plates, a tin cup, knife, fork and spoon. 
 This was tied across the saddle seat, with another sack 
 behind it, hitched to the cantle, in which rattled a fry 
 ing-pan and my miner s pan, a horn spoon, a deep iron 
 spoon big enough to melt metal over fire, and a pros 
 pector s hammer. When these four sacks had been 
 firmly fastened with Zim s picket-rope to Zim s back, I 
 poked in between their coils and his sides, a poll-pick, a 
 long handled shovel, and an axe, hung over the pummel 
 my repeating rifle in its leathern boot and a large can 
 teen filled with water, strung a belt of cartridges over 
 the cantle to lash at its rings, then stood back to inspect 
 my work. It was a heavy pack, two hundred pounds 
 at least, but it was well distributed. Zim could carry it. 
 
 I had no shotgun, and when one is starting into the 
 
 37 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 wilderness on a four months expedition with only what 
 he can carry on one packhorse, a shotgun for the killing 
 of small game is important. Among my father s effects 
 was an old-fashioned army revolver, one of those 
 weapons of Civil War times with a cylinder of five 
 chambers that is loaded each time with powder and ball 
 and a percussion cap. I should substitute bird shot for 
 the bullet, and as the rifling of the barrel had pretty 
 well rusted away, hoped to be able to kill small game at 
 short distances. I d never tried it out in fact, it was 
 only when the remembrance of the need of a shotgun 
 had come to me after I had gone to bed the previous 
 night that I, racking my brain, lit upon the scheme but 
 it seemed feasible. 
 
 Mother Laing had called breakfast twice before I 
 finished packing, so I went up to the house. If she had 
 endeavored to make me sorry at leaving home, her effort 
 at this last breakfast was not wasted. Here were all 
 the things I should miss in the mountains, a broiled 
 steak, fried eggs, fluffy biscuits with butter, real cream 
 in the coffee, and doughnuts that melted in my mouth. 
 I admit to a wistfulness that didn t affect my appetite 
 any, and I ate as though this one meal must last all the 
 time of my absence. When it was through, when I had 
 positively refused an added piece of jelly cake, she 
 gathered together enough of the remaining food to fill a 
 large paper sack, which she handed me with the explana 
 tion: 
 
 38 
 
The High Sierras 
 
 " You ll not have to pack it long, Ted. Only a lunch 
 to eat on the trail." 
 
 Then she went with me to the barn and watched my 
 final preparations. I slung the heavy revolver, together 
 with the shot-pouch and powder horn, over my shoul 
 ders, went all around Zim testing the firmness of the 
 bindings of the pack, slipped the bridle bit into his 
 mouth and buckled the throat latch, leaving the halter 
 on, and led him out on the driveway. 
 
 "Why, where you going to ride?" Mother Laing 
 asked in surprise at the loaded horse. 
 
 " 1*11 walk and lead. Zim has more now than he s 
 used to lugging and it s going to be a hard climb. 
 Good-bye, Mother Laing." 
 
 " You ll be back when you ve eaten all the food, and 
 that ll not be long," she said hopefully, as she watched 
 me tie the paper sack to the saddle. " I ll give you two 
 weeks before you re ready to come back to my cook 
 ing." 
 
 " Don t begin baking until the first of September." 
 I put an arm about her and gave her a good hug. 
 "And if Wayne comes at you with an offer for the 
 Black Boulder, you sell." 
 
 " If he offers what I think s due for it, I ll listen to 
 him ; but he never will." She came with me to the gate, 
 and I led Zim through. " Good luck to you, Ted ; and 
 no matter what luck, come back to me. You re the 
 only son I ve got." 
 
 39 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 I left her there waving her apron in farewell, and I 
 started down through Main Street, where I had some 
 small purchases to make at the general store. Early as 
 it was, Lem was out at the side of the Gilson House 
 currying one of the horses, while Mr. Wayne, his chair 
 tilted back and his feet on the porch railing, smoked a 
 pipe and kept a critical eye on the job. The latter 
 hailed me with: 
 
 " Changed your mind over night? " I shook my head 
 in answer, and his feet came down to the floor with a 
 bang; then he poked his hands deep in his pockets and 
 sauntered out to me, adding, " Going back up to the 
 claim? " 
 
 " I m heading for it," I answered cautiously. There 
 was something in Wayne s manner, more than in the 
 questions themselves, that made me study his face care 
 fully. Why should he be worried because I had started 
 back up Baldy or he thought I had? In his expres 
 sion was astonishment, dismay, as he said: 
 
 " I thought the water had all run off the slope." 
 
 " It has." I spoke without consideration. 
 
 " Then why in Tophet be you going back up there? 
 You can t mine without water." 
 
 There was no answer to that argument, even if I had 
 wanted to lie to him. " I m just passing by it on my 
 way into the hills," I told him. " I m off on a prospect 
 ing trip." 
 
 It was wonderful the way his grim face lightened, just 
 
 40 
 
The High Sierras 
 
 as though a weight had been lifted from his mind, as he 
 said eagerly: 
 
 " Sell me the Black Boulder before you go, Ted; I ll 
 make it three-fifty, and my last bid." 
 
 "Get up, Zim!" I started the horse into motion. 
 " You talk with Sirs. Laing about the claim, Mr. 
 Wayne. Whatever she says goes with me," and I left 
 him standing in the road, watching the dust old Zim 
 shuffled up. 
 
 Just out of sight of the hotel, in a group of acacias, I 
 found Lem waiting for me, and he came to join me with 
 a plea that was hard to deny. 
 
 " Take me with you, Ted," he cried. " Take me out 
 of old Wayne s grip. It s awful here. He beats me 
 almost every day. Let me go with you." 
 
 I couldn t. If desire to help him, if sympathy for 
 him, are in violation of the law, I was guilty. I had 
 even advanced the aid of information. But I could not 
 be a party to his escape from the orders of the court. 
 That I did not want him with me, that I could not give 
 him full trust and confidence, had no effect then upon 
 my decision. I was explaining my position as best I 
 could, when a shout from the hotel stopped me, and Lem 
 immediately took to his heels in response to: 
 
 " Hi, you loafing Lem Strong! Get back here quick 
 now, or I ll come get you! " It was Wayne in a rage. 
 
 I stopped at the Sierra Commercial Company s store, 
 bought powder, shot and caps for my pistol, then started 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 on the trail for the Black Boulder claim. It was out of 
 my way, would require several miles of additional hard 
 journeying, but I wanted to look along the dirt of the 
 trail for the confirming hoof -prints of the horse I felt 
 sure had been somewhere behind me the previous even 
 ing, and have a glance over my works on the claim to 
 find what could have interested Wayne to a sudden de 
 sire for purchase. He had offered three hundred and 
 fifty dollars for what he had jeered at and regarded as 
 a joke ever since my father staked it. I might guess his 
 reason if I was on the place; certainly I could not im 
 agine one here. 
 
 The trail was a good one, and Zim and I could walk 
 abreast much of the way. Behind us in the valley the 
 sun was bright on the fields and the little village, but we 
 were in the shadow of the hill where it was cool climbing. 
 The ascent was by a switchback trail that climbed rap 
 idly, and soon we were high above Jamesville, its red 
 brick and gray board buildings, dwarfed as I looked 
 down upon them. Mother Laing s house was concealed 
 by a group of live oaks, but I thought I saw a flicker of 
 her apron out by the barn; hunting eggs, I guessed. 
 
 " Give your old home a long farewell," I said to Zim, 
 pulling his head about; but he was more interested in 
 the manzanita brush beside the trail, which he sampled 
 only to reject. 
 
 I had found the prints of a horse s hoofs in the soft 
 ground at the ford, but here the trail was too much rock 
 
 42 
 
The High Sierras 
 
 and too little dirt for any evidence of a passing animal 
 to show. Soon a turn in the zigzag brought me into 
 the sunlight and shortly I lightened myself of pistol, 
 ammunition and coat, adding them to Zim s pack; 
 climbing was hot work. Even the rugged mountain 
 horse was damp with perspiration. I gave him frequent 
 pauses at the ends of the switchbacks, nor did I neglect 
 the opportunities of sitting down to rest. 
 
 Finally we came to where the trail turned into the 
 gully which was the tail-creek of my sluices, now dry as 
 a bone. There had been some water running over the 
 broken rock and gravel when I left, not twenty-four 
 hours before, but even in so short a time it had been 
 drawn up by the sun. And it was here I found proof 
 that there had been another horse besides Zim on my 
 claim, for in the dried mud was the print of a shod hoof. 
 In crossing the tail-creek s narrow width, one hoof had 
 been pressed to leave its impression. 
 
 A horse in the mountains is not of itself cause for even 
 a second thought. There were probably a dozen or 
 more turned loose to graze on the grass that follows the 
 snows with almost miraculous rapidity on Baldy s sides. 
 True, they rarely came so high up as the Black Boulder 
 claim; preferred the less rocky meadows on the lower 
 slopes; but the print of a hoof, or the sight of a horse, 
 would not have been strange enough for comment. But 
 this horse had followed behind me, at least as far as the 
 river, and this horse had kept out of my sight throughout 
 
 43 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 the several hours it had pursued me. That required 
 more than equine intelligence; a man was on, or with, 
 that horse ; and that man had reasons for not wanting me 
 to see him. 
 
 We climbed slowly up to the diggings, steaming in 
 the heat, and my eyes went over the familiar workings 
 hunting signs of an intruder: the pile of pay-dirt, partly 
 used; the badly hammered grizzly, the long stretch of 
 sluices. All seemed exactly as I had left it, and my eyes 
 turned to the cabin. 
 
 It stood with its door wide open. Surely I had closed 
 and secured it yesterday when I left. I recalled dis 
 tinctly placing the padlock through the staples and 
 springing it. Someone had opened the door. 
 
 A glance within showed me that nothing had been 
 taken ; in fact, there was nothing worth taking ; old min 
 ing tools, too worn to have value ; pots and pans that had 
 smoked black over the fire; a few aged dishes. There 
 seemed no reason here for the labor of pulling a hasp 
 from the solid door-frame to force an entrance, and so 
 far as I could find, nothing had been moved or dis 
 turbed. 
 
 Without waiting for the lunch I had intended to eat 
 here, I washed out Zim s dry mouth with a spongeful 
 of water from the canteen, and continued on my way, 
 studying over the problem of the visitor at the claim. 
 No matter from what angle I approached it, I could get 
 no answer. Wayne, I knew, had not been there him- 
 
 44 
 
The High Sierras 
 
 self, nor could I believe he had sent someone else to look 
 over the property before making his offer of purchase, 
 for the merest dabbler at mining could see the impossi 
 bilities; besides, why should he break into my cabin? A 
 wandering prospector, a cattleman searching for strays, 
 a hunter after mountain game none would violate the 
 lock of a mine-shack. Besides, any honest man would 
 have tried to catch up with me on the trail, not stay 
 hidden behind. It didn t seem to have an answer, and 
 I put it out of mind. 
 
 There was no trail over the hog-back the ridge that 
 separated Baldy from Summer s Peak but it was 
 above the manzanita and would be fair traveling. I 
 could reach it by the gully that brought the water to my 
 sluices, so led Zim up the dry arroyo. Never before 
 had I gone more than half a mile up this watercourse, 
 and only once or twice to clear it from some clog when 
 it was feeding the boxes. There were bushes along it 
 and an occasional stunted oak or lilac, but we made no 
 difficulty of the first part of the ascent. Now and then 
 smaller gullies came in from the side-hill, all dry ; and at 
 one of these I stopped for a minute, trying to decide 
 which was the main stream, which the fork. Because its 
 trend was to the north, the direction I wished to go, I 
 chose that branch, to find myself in almost immediate 
 difficulties. Plant growth should have dwarfed as I 
 climbed higher, but here in the gully were mesquites 
 taller than any I had passed. They were ten and 
 
 45 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 twelve feet high, with branches that caught at my 
 clothes, slapped against my face and at Zim s withers. 
 
 As the banks of the arroyo were too steep to climb at 
 this point, Zim and I pushed ahead until our way was 
 completely blocked by the mesquite growth. No longer 
 brush, these were mesquite trees, thirty to forty feet 
 high, with branches that could not be bent aside to make 
 passageway. I had never seen or heard of this freak 
 of Baldy s surface, these gigantic mesquites, and tying 
 Zim to one of the low branches, I pushed ahead to seek a 
 way through. 
 
 Bending low, creeping under the boughs, I soon dis 
 covered that I was not the first to make this attempt at a 
 passage. Branches had been recently broken, some cut 
 with a knife, and there were footprints in the deep leaves 
 and droppings of the trees, too indistinct for me to learn 
 anything by study of them. I could not even tell which 
 way they pointed, whether up or down the gully. 
 
 I turned back, unhitched Zim and we retraced our 
 way. My nerves were still unsteady by reason of the 
 broken lock and the horse s hoof -prints on my claim ; the 
 gully under the mesquites was deep shadowed and 
 gloomy; there seemed no excuse in my imagination for 
 anyone climbing into that mesquite; and I was a bit 
 frightened and wanted to get out into the sunshine. I 
 looked for a place where Zim could clamber up the side 
 of the little cafton. 
 
 I had turned his head to start the scramble, when, 
 
 46 
 
The High Sierras 
 
 looking down, I saw in the dust on a ledge of rock, the 
 perfect impress of a man s foot. Kneeling, I gave it 
 careful examination. Not a miner s boot ; not the heavy 
 brogan of the rancher ; not an Indian moccasin. It was 
 broad for its length, wide and rounded at the toe, then 
 narrowed in graceful curves; and there was no distinc 
 tion of a raised heel. The sole was flat its whole length, 
 and the foot inside the shoe seemed to have no arch, for 
 the pressure was so nearly equal everywhere that my eye 
 could see no difference. It was the print of a flat foot 
 in a shoe without a heel, and it pointed down the gully. 
 Straightening up with a scowl of perplexity, I gave 
 Zim the word, and he, good little mountain horse, dug 
 hoofs into crumbling earth, caught foothold with one 
 leg as the ground slipped from beneath another, heaved 
 and plunged ahead, and quicker than I could make the 
 top, stood trembling and breathing deep on solid 
 ground. For a time we rested, then cut across among 
 the rocks to the hog-back, where we stopped again to 
 look from the brow of the divide to the eastward, into 
 the unknown. I had never been this far into the hills 
 before ; had wanted all my life to look beyond Baldy and 
 see what the world was like. Now I found it only 
 mountain beyond mountain, a seeming desolation of the 
 high summits of the Sierra Nevadas. My first thought 
 was of disappointment of so dreary a prospect, but as 
 I looked back on dry Baldy I was glad that there were 
 raw hills ahead to be conquered. 
 
 47 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 I turned to them, then stopped to look again at the 
 giant mesquites. Although we had come not a quarter 
 of a mile as the crow flies since leaving the gully, they 
 were not to be seen. On Baldy s side were many 
 patches of brush, mesquite and manzanita, and one of 
 these, I knew, would be the tops of the big trees poked 
 above the rim of the deep arroyo, but, try as I might, I 
 could not tell which one. Unless I had stood among 
 them in the gully, I d never believe they existed there 
 upon Baldy; which explained why I had never heard of 
 them, as I certainly would have heard had they been 
 known to my father or the miners of Jamesville. 
 
 48 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE PISTOL-SHOTGUN 
 
 FROM the Summer s Peak hog-back a trail ran 
 northeast to join the Eagle Lake trail at Ophir 
 Creek; and here we arrived in the late afternoon, 
 Zim to poke his nose into its waters, I to lie on the bank 
 beside him with my face buried nearly as deep in its cold 
 current. We were parched. 
 
 I found a good camping ground just above where the 
 trail crossed the creek, a widening of the little canon to 
 make an acre or so of flat, on which grass grew for Zim s 
 pasturage, and as quickly as I could get his packs off and 
 
 49 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 hobbles on, he was at supper. For mine, I built a fire 
 beside a rock, and placed coffee over it to boil; then 
 looked about for a place to spread my blankets for the 
 night. 
 
 Comfortable sleep, and plenty of it, was, I knew, the 
 first necessity of the prospector. One can travel far 
 with the handicaps of hunger and even thirst, but the 
 rest from exhaustion that sleep gives is essential. The 
 ground in the flat was damp. Only a few days before it 
 was snow-covered. I chose for my bed a large flat rock 
 alongside the creek, and gathered small branches from a 
 pine near by to lay upon it, first cutting away the bulk 
 of the woody parts. Then from beneath the pine I 
 scooped up armfuls of dry needles to place over the 
 branches until all was soft ; put Zim s blanket atop the 
 needles; laid my own over it, ready to roll around me; 
 and was sure I should be snug and warm for the night. 
 
 Before I had finished, the coffee had boiled, and the 
 pot had been set on a hot rock to settle. For supper 
 there was the bag Mother Laing had given me, and I 
 found it held buttered biscuits, doughnuts, and almost 
 half a jelly cake. As these were probably the last prod 
 ucts of civilization I should see for several months, I 
 took out but two biscuits and a quite respectably small 
 cut of the cake, hesitating some time whether the latter 
 should not be one of the crullers. The rest I rewrapped 
 carefully in the sack; took from my pack the side of 
 bacon " sow s belly," they call it in the hills and cut 
 
 50 
 
The Pistol-Shotgun 
 
 two thick slices, which I rolled in flour before placing in 
 the frying-pan, then set table by laying tin plate and 
 cup, knife, fork and spoon on top of a rock. 
 
 While I sniffed with pleasure the aroma of frying 
 bacon and steaming coffee, I looked across at Old Baldy 
 in the brilliant hues of evening sunset. Not a bad 
 mountain at all, as one saw it from here, its varied greens 
 of grass, brush and trees giving it a softness in pleasing 
 contrast to the rugged peaks ahead. I might have loved 
 Baldy if this creek that surged and bubbled beside me 
 could have been upon its sides. Ophir would run deep 
 with water every day of the year not just for the short 
 time of the melting snows. If it was flowing through 
 the Black Boulder claim, I should be rich. Well, I 
 couldn t move the stream to Baldy, so I must find a 
 mine upon a creek like it on some other mountain. 
 That was the solution of my problem. 
 
 The bacon was done, and I ate. I reopened the 
 paper bag for another biscuit. I hadn t realized how 
 hungry I was. I finished the buttered biscuits, added 
 the doughnuts to my meal, then decided that jelly cake 
 wouldn t keep well in the hills ; ate it to save it. There 
 wasn t a crumb left in Mother Laing s sack when I got 
 up from supper. But I was filled with food and con 
 tentment as I built the little cooking fire into a bigger 
 blaze and leaned lazily back against the warm rock that 
 was my bed. 
 
 Prospecting was not such hard work. Of course, 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 there wouldn t be doughnuts and jelly cake every day, 
 but there was plenty of game in the hills; which re 
 minded me that I had seen none all day. Still, one 
 didn t expect to find game on dry Baldy. Here along 
 the creek bottom should be good hunting; quail and rab 
 bits, anyhow. Maybe I d better try out my pistol-shot 
 gun in the morning. It would be rather a serious mat 
 ter if it didn t work as I d planned, for at the rate I was 
 eating, the stores wouldn t last long. Meals such as I d 
 had to-night, three times a day, seven days a week, for 
 four months well, the size of the pack it would make 
 dwarfed Old Baldy! 
 
 I jumped up hurriedly, brought my supplies closer to 
 my bed, laid the loaded rifle within reach of my hand, 
 and looked carefully over the revolver. It seemed all 
 right for small game ; the loads were not heavy, but there 
 should be enough propulsion to kill doves, quail, grouse, 
 and rabbits; and the rifle would take care of anything 
 bigger. Then I used the last of the daylight to gather 
 a supply of pitch-pine for fire-wood. The canon was 
 cooling rapidly to a shivery chill, and I d need a blaze; 
 but more I wanted the comfort and cheer of itsjglpw. 
 
 As the mountains dulled to lavender, blue and gray, 
 with pale stars beginning to show in the gloom of the 
 sky, I felt the loneliness of the wilds. I had spent many 
 nights alone on Baldy, but there I looked down upon the 
 twinkling village, whose lights crowded closer with 
 night s falling. Here were only grim mountains, I the 
 
 52 
 
The Pistol-Shotgun 
 
 one human being, seemingly, in all their peaks. And 
 I began to doubt the wisdom of my attempt to snatch 
 fortune from them. I was too young and inexperienced 
 to tackle the strength of the rough hills, looming blacker 
 each moment. I should have brought one companion, 
 at least; even Lem Strong would be welcome now. 
 
 Then Zim s hoof struck against a stone; a familiar 
 sound; and misgivings went from me. Out there, 
 placidly munching the wild grass, was a friend who 
 feared no darkness or sound of the night. He could 
 not talk reassurance to me, but he was my good friend 
 and comrade of perfect understanding. I piled the last 
 of the pine knots on the fire and climbed into my blan 
 kets, warm and fragrant of the pines. Above were 
 golden stars, friendly stars. I slept. 
 
 A gray squirrel on the limb of a near-by alder, scold 
 ing in throaty chuckles at the stranger in his domain, 
 woke me to a bright sunrise in a crisply chill morning. 
 I shivered as I leaped from under the blankets, and 
 dressed by pulling on my boots. It was only after I 
 had washed at the creek that I remembered that squirrels 
 were food, and the revolver was still untried, and in the 
 meantime the little animal had lost interest in me and 
 disappeared about the duties of squirrel housekeeping. 
 
 I hastened to light a fire and had soon warmed myself 
 as I prepared the coffee. Zim, seeing me up and about, 
 raised his head to give me morning greeting with a 
 whinny, and I answered with a joyful shout. This was 
 
 53 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 our first day in the wilderness, the beginning of adven 
 ture, with Old Baldy behind us and the whole world 
 ahead. 
 
 Our trail led up Ophir Creek for about ten miles, then, 
 as I knew from the maps, cut along the east slope of 
 Mount Felton to cross the divide into Eagle Lake basin, 
 a distance in all of twenty-six miles. By starting early, 
 I could possibly make it before dark. There was no real 
 reason for hurry; the loss of a day in reaching my ob 
 jective meant nothing, especially as Eagle Lake might 
 prove no better ground for prospecting than any I must 
 pass to reach it; but I was an impulsive boy, and I 
 wanted to get on. 
 
 It was seven o clock by the big, old-fashioned watch 
 which had been my father s timepiece for many years, 
 when we started on our way. The trail crossed the 
 stream a score of times in that first mile, and my boots 
 were soon as full of wet as my feet would allow. While 
 I was squidging along, leading Zim by a loose hold on 
 the hackamore, a jack-rabbit hopped out of the brush 
 beside the trail and paused to look at us before unloosen 
 ing his long-legged gallop. 
 
 That half second s hesitation gave me opportunity 
 to cock the pistol and take a hasty aim. As I pulled 
 trigger several things happened; the gun went off with a 
 loud report and a vicious kick; Zim jumped, jerked 
 away from me, wheeled and started on a run ; and Mr. 
 Jack-rabbit flirted his long ears, laid them back, and 
 
 54 
 
The Pistol-Shotgun 
 
 disappeared up the mountainside in three jumps. I 
 had missed him completely! 
 
 I trotted back after Zim, calling and whistling to him, 
 but he was thoroughly frightened, for he had never been 
 broken to firearms. I could see him now and then, 
 when trees or brush didn t intervene, galloping back 
 over the trail. The only thing I could do was to follow 
 as fast as I could, and hope he d get over his scare before 
 he led me clear back home. 
 
 He did. Something about our camp at the crossing 
 composed his nerves, and when I came panting up, Zim 
 was feeding in his pasture of the night, the pack almost 
 off him and all on one side. He snorted in alarm as I 
 came through the thicket, but, recognizing my voice, 
 quieted, so that I came up to him and patted him sooth 
 ingly. He wasn t to blame for objecting when I fired 
 a cannon under his nose. 
 
 I had to take off the pack to readjust it; and having 
 it off, I decided to give that revolver a thorough try-out 
 before starting a second time on my journey. It was 
 seriously important for me to know why I missed that 
 rabbit; either it was an indication of shamefully weak 
 marksmanship or proof of a defective weapon. The 
 mountain-bred Jack is not a small target; this one that 
 had cavorted up the hill, maybe laughing at me, was as 
 big as a lamb. Counting its ears in the measurement, 
 it was taller. And it had been sitting still when I shot, 
 and not too distant. 
 
 55 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 I began a search for a mark on which to test the gun, 
 looking through the thicket for bird or squirrel, working 
 my way down-stream over the bottom-lands. I had 
 gone no more than a quarter of a mile below the camp 
 when a covey of quail hurtled out of the brush in hum 
 ming flight. Aiming at the center of the flock, I pulled, 
 cocked, and pulled again. Two ounces of bird-shot I 
 sent into the midst of that covey before it was out of 
 range, and never a feather was touched ! 
 
 In sheer disgust I threw the old pistol on the ground 
 and started back to Zim, expressing to myself the con 
 tempt I felt for the weapon. I could have done better 
 with the rifle, and no rifle is supposed to be made for 
 shooting quail on the wing. But, as to that, neither had 
 the revolver been built for that purpose. It was my 
 fault for trying to convert its original use of a single 
 slug to an ounce of pellets. I went back where I had 
 flung it and picked it up. 
 
 The pistol lay amid rocks, one of which it had scraped 
 in its fall. Because that fresh scar gleamed yellow 
 against the rusty surface color of the stone, I lifted it 
 curiously. It was quartz, a bit of float that had broken 
 from some ledge long enough before to turn in color 
 from white to rusty brown, and it was larded with free 
 gold. 
 
 Float travels only down-hill. It may go in a de 
 cidedly crooked line, make every direction of the com 
 pass, but as gravity is the only reason for its traveling, 
 
 56 * 
 
The Pistol-Shotgun 
 
 every inch of the way must be down-hill. Had I not 
 picked up this bit, it would possibly have continued its 
 journey to the distant Pacific Ocean; a passing hoof or 
 boot dislodging it to start it rolling down the creek bank, 
 where the stream would tumble it on its way to the river, 
 and so, ultimately, to the sea. 
 
 Above the spot where I had found it was a ledge of 
 gold-bearing quartz, and if this specimen was a fair 
 sample, the ledge was rich. It would probably out-crop 
 that is, break through the surface of the ground to 
 show as a rock face, holding quartz but that was no 
 certainty. It was impossible to tell how many years, 
 even centuries, this piece of float had consumed in travel 
 ing so far, or what changes there had been in the face of 
 the mountain since it broke from the lode. But I knew 
 that sooner or later I could find the ledge ; knew that as 
 a prospector I had my work cut out for me by this 
 chance discovery ; but I looked up the course of its prob 
 able descent and turned away to go back to Zim. The 
 float had come from Old Baldy. 
 
 Somewhere on the north face of my mountain was a 
 ledge of gold-bearing quartz, and I couldn t make up 
 my mind to turn back and look for it. It was too near 
 home; in my own back-garden, as it seemed; and Baldy 
 was too dry too familiar and parched. I had one mine 
 on its sides ; why search for another? I placed the bit of 
 float in Zim s oat-bag, took from the pack the paper 
 sack I had saved, roughly scrawled a bull s-eye upon it 
 
 57 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 with a bit of charred stick, and tested the value of my 
 pistol-shotgun. 
 
 I brought Zim up to see the try-out, determined to 
 accustom him to the sound of firearms, tied him firmly 
 to a tree and set up my target on the side-hill twenty 
 paces away. Taking careful aim over the rusty sights 
 at the center ring, I fired a puff of dust a foot beneath 
 the paper. Allowing more of the front sight to show 
 through the groove, I fired again, to see the paper give 
 a flirt in the air. I had hit. Quieting Zim, who had 
 jumped at each explosion, I ran up to the sack and 
 looked at my target. Near the center was a hole not 
 three inches across, and through this every shot had 
 gone. The entire ounce of pellets had traveled in a 
 mass almost as the rifle-bullet flies. 
 
 I doubled the distance and tried again, to find that 
 while the gun scattered more, it had so lost penetrative 
 force that I doubted if it would kill or stop the flight of 
 bird or animal. No good at all, at short or long range. 
 This was a serious setback. Without the ability of add 
 ing wild game, so plentiful in the hills, to my larder, I 
 would soon be short of food. To rely upon the rifle for 
 every quail, grouse, squirrel or rabbit would run me out 
 of cartridges in a few days, but that was the only alter 
 native, unless I could learn to shoot the revolver with 
 the same skill I had with the rifle. 
 
 I spent an hour in practice with it, learning its sight 
 ing, its range, its quirks and peculiarities; and the sun 
 
 58 
 
The Pistol-Shotgun 
 
 climbed higher in the heavens. Lunch-time found me 
 slicing bacon from the side, boiling coffee over the same 
 fireplace I had used at supper the night before. This 
 wouldn t do at all ; I was eating up my stores and mak 
 ing no progress. I determined to get on directly I had 
 eaten, and having so decided, added a flapjack to my 
 noontime meal. 
 
 The Sierra flapjack has at least one unique quality. 
 At bottom, it is like any other flapjack, flour, salt, bak 
 ing-powder and water, well mixed to proper consistency, 
 and poured into a hot, greased skillet. It may be a bit 
 thicker than some other varieties, but that is not its claim 
 to fame. When it has turned to a rich, russet golden 
 brown on one side, it rises gracefully into the air, makes 
 a single, perfect half revolution, and descends, uncooked 
 side downward, into the hot griddle ; and without a spat 
 tering drop! I ll not claim that this flight is entirely 
 voluntary. In fact, a skillful human hand is needed on 
 the skillet handle; such a hand as I possessed, for I was 
 adept at flapping the flapjack. 
 
 After dinner the cool waters of the creek tempted me 
 to a bath; it was not deep enough to call it a swim. 
 Somewhat above my camp I found a hole that would 
 serve nicely, and was looking into it before undressing 
 when I saw a large trout move out from under the over 
 hanging bank, hold himself with quivering fins in the 
 current for a minute, then return to his shelter. That 
 quickly decided me to substitute fishing for bathing, so 
 
 59 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 I hurried away to cut a willow rod, fastened the line I 
 carried in my pocket firmly to its butt-end, about a foot 
 above, wound it with frequent hitches to the tip, and 
 there fastened it again. Should the pole break, I d still 
 have the line. 
 
 I had artificial flies with me, but as food, not sport, 
 was the main object of this endeavor, I went kicking 
 through the tall grass up the gully, cap in hand, and 
 soon had a score of stunned grasshoppers for bait. 
 Then I returned cautiously to the pool where I had seen 
 the fish and made my cast. 
 
 Flash snap ! An immediate strike, an instantaneous 
 breaking of the rod near the tip. When I pulled in, the 
 bait was gone and my tackle wrecked. That had been a 
 big, greedy trout. I went back to the willows, cut a 
 larger, stronger pole, refixed my line, and repeated the 
 play. 
 
 As the hopper, transfixed by the hook, landed on the 
 calm water of the pool, there was a swirl. I gave a quick 
 jerk and a silver streak shot through the air and into the 
 brush behind me. Dropping the rod, I went after it, 
 bringing back a few ounces of muscular activity, with 
 five times as much fight as weight. 
 
 For half an hour I caught fingerling trout, five to 
 seven inches long, most delicious eating, but little sport 
 with my strong pole and line. Then I hooked another 
 fierce struggle, that made the pool almost boil as the 
 fish rushed in a circle at the end of the line. I feared he 
 
 60 
 
The Pistol-Shotgun 
 
 would break or bend the hook, snap line or leader, or 
 even the rod, for without a reel, the only way to play the 
 fish was to ease the rushes gradually, urging him when he 
 paused for rest, tiring him by keeping him active. 
 Twice I attempted to land him, only to start the fight all 
 over again, and it was a long half hour before I steered 
 him close enough in to reach down with a hand and 
 grasp him behind the gills to throw him ashore a four- 
 pounder rainbow. 
 
 61 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 A MOUNTAIN LION 
 
 I HAD given over all idea of starting on again until 
 morning, and was cleaning my catch of trout on 
 a rock by the stream, when a man s voice hailed me, 
 and I looked up startled to find I had company. The 
 swirl of the creek had kept me from hearing the ap 
 proach of a tall, clean-faced man riding a handsome bay 
 horse, who must have come by the trail down the gully, 
 the one I should travel next morning. 
 
 " How far to Jamesville? " he asked, and when I had 
 
 62 
 
A Mountain Lion 
 
 told him, swung off the horse, with, " No objection to 
 my making camp alongside you for the night, is 
 there? " 
 
 " Glad to have company," I said. "And, if you will, 
 sir, I ll be pleased to give you a supper of trout. I ve 
 more than I can handle alone." 
 
 " Thank you, lad. I ve a snack in my saddle-bags, 
 but if you ll let me chip in with it, the invitation is ac 
 cepted. Nothing so good as fresh brook trout. Are 
 you camping here, or where you bound? " 
 
 He was unsaddling, and I had opportunity lo study 
 him before I made reply. I already knew I liked his 
 face. He was about fifty, I judged, a bit grayed of 
 hair, wrinkled of cheek and brow, but with an expression 
 of easy good nature and the appearance of strength that 
 was reassuring. I answered frankly: 
 
 " I m started prospecting. I ll make Eagle Lake to 
 morrow. Did you come by there? " 
 
 " No." He hobbled the bay, gave him a gentle slap 
 on the withers, and sent him to join Zim. " I m last 
 from Quincy, but that s some days back. Let me help 
 with those fish," and he pulled a capable pocket-knife, 
 opened it, and went to work. " My name s Burchard 
 Frank Burchard." 
 
 I gave him mine, told him I lived at Jamesville, asked 
 him to get word to Mother Laing that he had met up 
 with me, and when we went up to my camp, I carrying 
 the fish, he lugging his saddle and bags, we were on the 
 
 63 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 friendliest terms. But neither then nor later, while we 
 were preparing supper, to which he added bread and 
 butter with boiled ham between the slices, hard-boiled 
 eggs and a piece of cheese, did he tell me more about 
 himself, or what was taking him to my home town. By 
 his clothes, he was neither miner nor rancher; I guessed 
 him a city man ; and he talked readily and interestingly 
 about everything else but his affairs. 
 
 My rock bedstead was large enough to accommodate 
 two, and we gathered more pine boughs and needles, 
 rolled up in our blankets side by side at dark, with a big 
 pitch fire burning beyond us. It was cheery and com 
 fortable, and when Mr. Burchard had started his pipe, 
 I told him all about my Black Boulder claim, its disap 
 pointments, my hopes for this journey, and finally of 
 Wayne and his offer for the property. He had listened 
 quietly, now and then asking a question or making a 
 comment that showed he was attentive, but with 
 Wayne s name, he lifted up on his elbow, turning to 
 ward me, and said: 
 
 " He s the hotel man, isn t he? " 
 
 " Yes; runs the Gilson House. He s about the rich 
 est man in Jamesville." 
 
 " Did you ever hear that he had a brother? " 
 
 I hadn t; or if I had, it was so long ago that I d for 
 gotten it. I told Mr. Burchard that no brother had 
 visited Wayne in my recollection. He looked at me in 
 the flickering light as he asked: 
 
 64 
 
HE TALKED READILY AND INTERESTINGLY. 
 
A Mountain Lion 
 
 "And how many years back would your recollection 
 carry, Ted? " 
 
 " Six eight possibly ten. I ve lived there all my 
 life, and it s a small town. All my life I ve known Mr. 
 Wayne. If his brother had come to Jamesville I think 
 I d remember; but then, he might have a brother sev 
 eral of them and I shouldn t know unless he came to 
 visit him. Wayne s awfully quiet about such things." 
 
 That seemed to satisfy my bunk-mate, for he switched 
 his questioning to strangers at the hotel, guests who had 
 come within the past two months ; and I was little use, as 
 I had been away most of that time. Finally he knocked 
 his pipe against the rock, carefully extinguished the 
 sparks, and suggested that as we were both due for an 
 early start in the morning, we had better sleep. I was 
 quickly obedient. 
 
 Mr. Burchard left me directly after breakfast early 
 next morning, thanking me cordially for what had really 
 been a favor on his part, and rode away on the trail to 
 Jamesville. I was sorry to see him go, for he had been 
 fine company, and I pressed upon him the rest of the 
 trout for his luncheon, to find, after he was so far that it 
 was impossible to recall him or catch him up, that he had 
 forgotten or, maybe, purposely left four sandwiches 
 and the rest of the slab of cheese. I was certainly his 
 debtor. 
 
 I started Zim just as the sun climbed over the summit 
 of the Sierras, the pistol-shotgun riding in his pack, the 
 
 65 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 30-30 rifle upon my shoulder; and I hoped that same 
 jack-rabbit would pop onto the trail again, and give me 
 the chance to prove I wasn t the dabster with the rifle I 
 had been with a revolver. But either he had not re 
 turned, or lay quiet in the brush, for I saw no game at 
 all, and before noon we had turned away from the creek 
 bottom, Zim parting with the stream by drinking so 
 much of it that I was afraid I d have to loosen his 
 cinches, I filling both my stomach and the canteen with 
 its waters. 
 
 Twice I missed the trail on Felton before we came to 
 the divide; the first time, by following Mr. Burchard s 
 horse s hoof -prints, not realizing for some time that he 
 didn t pass over the divide, but had skirted the summit 
 of Haugh s Peak to come in from the north. It was 
 the easiest thing in the world to lose that trail, for it was 
 overgrown with blackberry and wild cucumber vines, 
 and the manzanita s spring foliage of silver gray had 
 spread from both sides to choke it. My second excur 
 sion took me several miles out of the course, and all I 
 could do when I discovered that I was lost was to re 
 trace the long way till I struck the trail again. 
 
 Finally we crossed the divide, but these provoking 
 delays had taken hours. Sunset found us headed down 
 hill; the lake was not yet in sight. The trail led into 
 deep woods, which, I hoped, might border it and conceal 
 it, so I determined to push through, even if it took me 
 far into the night; and had no more than made that 
 
 66 
 
A Mountain Lion 
 
 decision, when there came another halt. A cock grouse 
 got up from beside the trail on whirring wings and flew 
 to light in a tree not two hundred yards up the slope. 
 
 Tying Zim, I went after the bird. It would be too 
 fine an addition to my larder to neglect, even though I 
 was in a tearing hurry to get on. I threw a cartridge 
 into the rifle chamber and went directly where I had 
 seen it settle down. 
 
 A bull-grouse has somewhat the ostrich idea about 
 hiding; if it is on the limb of a tree, it believes it is safe 
 from harm, and has little fear of man or beast. I ex 
 pected to march up under the bird and pop him off his 
 branch as easy as telling it. But the grouse wasn t in 
 sight when I arrived, and though I circled the tree a 
 score of times, rifle ready for a quick shot, I never had 
 a peek at the bird. Finally, when I had given up and 
 started back, I heard it fly, and was too mad even to 
 look over my shoulder to see where. 
 
 As night came in and the woods blackened, I let Zim 
 lead, for he had better eyes than mine for the trail, but 
 when he came to a final stop, I gave up. Even with 
 lighted matches I could not tell if I were on or off the 
 narrow way, and there was only one thing to do; camp 
 and wait for daylight; and here was no fit place for a 
 camp. The trees were thick around us, and a dense 
 undergrowth of brambly brush and vines made it im 
 possible in the blackness to hunt up a better spot. I 
 took packs and bridle off Zim, turning him loose, un- 
 
 67 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 hobbled, to find room to move and, perhaps, forage, 
 while I lay down in my blankets, right there, my head 
 against the roots of one tree, my body cramped between 
 two others, so tired I cared nothing for food or a fire; 
 and I tried to sleep. 
 
 My first night of the wilderness was lonely but com 
 fortable; last night had been comfortable and friendly; 
 this one was lonely, uncomfortable, unfriendly. After 
 the sound of Zim s hoofs had died in the distance, there 
 was nothing familiar to my ear in the forest, though it 
 was filled with disquieting noises. Branches cracked 
 without seeming reason, there were unaccountable 
 movements of the brush, distant and formless cries on 
 the mountains, and occasional nearer calls of birds or 
 animals with whose tones I was unfamiliar. Upon 
 Baldy, I knew the cause of night sounds; here they 
 seemed unreasonable and terrifying. 
 
 My nerves grew taut; my hand clutched the rifle 
 beside me; I wished I had tethered Zim where I might 
 hear him, or had brought Lem Strong with me. Lem 
 wasn t such a bad sort I liked him when he grinned. 
 I wished I owned a dog, either a small one that would 
 curl up in the blankets with me, or a ferociously big 
 dog that could tackle a bear or panther. 
 
 Then something screamed, and I leaped free of the 
 blankets. It had seemed so close that now I felt sure I 
 could hear the beat of the thing s heart; my own, ham 
 mering away, I presume. My hands, tight and cold 
 
 68 
 
A Mountain Lion 
 
 about the weapon, trembled like aspen leaves. Back 
 pressed against the tree trunk, I stood stiffly erect, 
 scarcely breathing, my eyes boring into the blackness, 
 and waited. 
 
 Seconds seemed hours. Off to the right, a twig 
 snapped like the report of a cannon. Then again came 
 the night-splitting scream, and this time, wide awake, I 
 recognized it, and gave it location in a way. It was not 
 so close as I d thought; to the right a few hundred 
 feet yards, perhaps. I had heard that cry before of a 
 night, but always I had been safely behind walls ; it was 
 the cougar, the panther of the mountains. 
 
 I stilled the trembling of my hands by desperate effort 
 of the will, and cocked the rifle. On the silence, the 
 click of the lock seemed like an explosion of the gun. 
 Again I waited. 
 
 Zim neighed, and there was fear in his call. Was the 
 mountain lion stalking him? I had heard many tales of 
 slaughter of cattle, of horses found partly devoured by 
 the beasts, of raids of corrals and stock pens. In fear 
 now for Zim, I began to regain my courage, for I must 
 not funk with my horse in danger; could not stand by 
 with a high-power rifle in my hands, while Zim was 
 made carrion by this night stalker. I must make an 
 effort, at least, for his rescue. 
 
 Minute by minute the woods were growing brighter, 
 and I glanced up to see a great, round moon cut by the 
 branches of a pine. Ic was in its last quarter, and each 
 
 69 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 moment its light was creeping deeper and deeper into 
 the shadows of the forest. Again Zim whinnied, long 
 and loud. With rifle at a ready, I slipped through the 
 trees to find him. 
 
 70 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 BACK TRAILING 
 
 IN a little opening of the timber, Zim, with head 
 high, ears thrust forward, listened as I had listened 
 in a sweat of fear. He had heard me coming, but 
 had not known it was I. Now, as I broke through the 
 fringe of thicket, he whinnied a greeting, and trotted 
 quickly to my side. I patted his neck, feeling the quiver 
 of frightened nerves. Together we stood, both peering 
 into the shadowed trees against the moon. 
 
 Beyond the clearing something fell. I guessed it a 
 rotten branch, dislodged by the moving animal, and 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 watched in the trees above. Then I saw the leaves of 
 a cotton wood sway as a branch bent beneath weight, and 
 knew I had located the beast. Although its conceal 
 ment was complete, it lay stretched somewhere along 
 that bough. Another moment, the flicker of foliage 
 told me where. 
 
 I aimed, but held my fire. The ivory front sight of 
 the rifle, tipped by the moon s rays, showed bright 
 through the rear notch, and I felt certain of landing a 
 bullet wherever I pleased at this short range; but I 
 wanted a surer mark than fluttering leaves. There 
 would be no chance to retrieve an error of aim. One 
 spring of the big cat, and it would be lost in the shadows. 
 
 I waited a long, long minute ; then from its screen of 
 leaves came a head, silhouetted against the sky. I drew 
 the white tip of the sight deeper into the notch till only 
 its point rested between the ears, midway of that 
 silhouetted head, and added the final soft pressure to 
 the trigger. The spurt of flame was simultaneous with 
 a crashing fall and the sharp crack of the rifle ; then Zim 
 snorted wildly, and ran through the forest. I threw the 
 lever that sent another cartridge into the rifle s chamber, 
 listened to the sound of the horse s hoofs dying away in 
 the distance, and watched a blacker shadow on the 
 ground among the black shadows of the cottonwood. 
 
 There was no movement there. Throwing the rifle 
 into the crook of my arm, I reached for matches, lighted 
 one, and held it above my head. The dark form was 
 
 72 
 
Back Trailing 
 
 stilled. Another match blaze, and I moved cautiously 
 toward it, to find there was no need for care or caution. 
 The great beast was dead, my bullet between its 
 eyes. 
 
 Trembling now with triumph, the joy of bagging big 
 game, I quickly gathered wood and had a great fire 
 burning; then pulled the carcase of the beast out where 
 I could get a good view of it. From nose to end of tail, 
 it was longer than I was tall six feet and over and 
 its weight was more than I could lift. What a robe it 
 would make ! As a rug for Mother Laing, how finely 
 it would finish off the living-room, stretched before the 
 fireplace ! Also, it had value either as a skin or a scalp. 
 The State of California would pay a bounty of twenty 
 dollars for the two ears and a strip of skin just wide 
 enough to hold them together; or the pelt could be sold 
 for forty or fifty dollars. 
 
 I brought up my blankets, built the fire larger with 
 fallen boughs, rolled in beside it, and was soon fast 
 asleep ; and my eyes opened at morning to look between 
 tree trunks at the wide blue waters of Eagle Lake. I 
 had slept so close beside it that I was almost upon its 
 banks. 
 
 It seemed something miraculous; so wonderful that 
 I lay a long while, still rolled in my blankets, my eyes 
 big, gazing across the sunlit surface to the mountains 
 beyond. It was as though the lake had been moved to 
 the place during the night. Remembering, I turned 
 
 73 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 quickly to my other side to find the now stiffened body 
 of the big eat. Jubilantly I leaped to my feet I hadn t 
 even taken boots off the night before and let out from 
 my lungs shouts of joy; the end of my journey; the be 
 ginning of adventure; and my first mountain lion! 
 
 The opening in the woods I had thought it a clear 
 ing last night was a rough semicircle with only a fringe 
 of trees between it and the water. My first business, 
 after walking once or twice proudly around my prey, 
 was to go to the edge of the lake and wash face and 
 hands. Whoo-eee! It was cold! I gave up the idea 
 of a swim. I went back, built up a fire, warmed myself 
 by getting the coffee-pot safely adjusted over it, then 
 sought out the spot where I had first lain down to sleep 
 the previous night, to get saddle and packs. Zim was 
 nowhere within sound of my whistle, and a bit anxiously, 
 I remembered he hadn t been hobbled; I had turned him 
 loose last night without the leg-straps that would dis 
 courage travel. 
 
 First breakfast; then to skin my cougar; last, to hunt 
 up Zim. The horse had been badly scared and would 
 run off his fright before settling down to graze on the 
 spring grass. I d probably find him not more than a 
 mile away. In the meantime, off with that big 
 pelt! 
 
 I tied the animal s hind legs together, reeved a rope 
 through the bonds and over a bough, and hoisted him 
 slowly till his nose cleared the ground. My large pocket- 
 
 74 
 
Back Trailing 
 
 knife had a skinning blade, and I was experienced in re 
 moving the hides of small animals. I went to the job 
 briskly, whistling merrily. 
 
 When, after rolling the pelt up carefully in salt, I 
 looked at my watch, it was after twelve; it had taken 
 nearly five hours, but I was proud of the job. The 
 paws, the head, those most delicate parts to separate 
 skin from other tissue, were perfect, and not once had I 
 slashed through the hide; and the finished product 
 when it had been dried and tanned would be well worth 
 the effort and time. I only hoped that Zim had passed 
 those five hours in eating grass not in travel. 
 
 I made a hurried lunch, and started after him. Ex 
 pecting to be gone but a short time, I took nothing with 
 me but a pocketful of oats as bait should my horse prove 
 obstinate and prefer freedom to carrying a pack. 
 Through the woods, his trail was easily followed, and I 
 found he had gone out of the forest as we had entered it, 
 on the old path, so all I had to do was to follow back over 
 our trip of the previous day, keeping an eye open to see 
 if he left the trail. 
 
 When I finally made up my mind that Zim hadn t 
 stopped to graze, but was headed back for either home 
 or Ophir Creek, I was too far from camp to return for 
 food and rifle. In a deep gloom at this setback in my 
 progress, I trotted steadily on, hot and panting, in the 
 afternoon sun. 
 
 It was twenty-six miles to the old camp on Ophir; 
 
 75 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 miles that had seemed plenty long enough on their first 
 passage; now with the fear of disappointment and the 
 eager desire for hurry, made doubly wearisome. I 
 took chances at cut-offs, usually finding I gained little 
 or nothing in time, at the cost of excessive work, for 
 the mesquite, sage and manzanita made a difficult bar 
 rier. Late in the afternoon I struck the upper end of 
 Ophir Creek canon, and began to keep my eyes open for 
 a sight of the missing horse ; then as I swung around a 
 curve in the trail, I saw Old Baldy again ; the mountain 
 that I had turned my back on so contemptuously; dry 
 Old Baldy, with its useless gold in the grass roots, its 
 tumbling, traveling float quartz, and I was viewing it 
 from a new angle. Its western slope had been familiar 
 to me all my life, but I was looking at it now from the 
 north, and it seemed softer, less rugged. The pink 
 glow on the southern hillside gave gentler coloring to 
 the huge rock masses; the patches of brush seemed 
 freshly green; the lower meadows were yellow and 
 orange with buttercups, mustard and poppies. 
 
 I was looking at the reverse side of the hog-back from 
 Summer s that I had traveled three days before, and 
 could see, as I thought, the giant mesquites in the gully 
 on Baldy, just a little taller, a shade darker of color, as 
 they profiled against the sky; and above them, seeming 
 only a few feet away at this distance, was a streak of 
 glowing fire, the reflection of the setting sun upon some 
 crystalline formation. Funny that I d never seen 
 
 76 
 
Back Trailing 
 
 that ledge before! Strange that I d passed close be 
 neath it, and never noticed it ! 
 
 I turned my eyes from the hillside, placed my fingers 
 between my teeth, and let out the shrill whistle which 
 was Zim s call. In the still evening, the sound carried 
 far, and I repeated it from time to time as I jogged 
 down the trail, crossing and recrossing the stream. I 
 had stopped for another drink, lying flat on the bank 
 with my face in the water, and looked up to see Zim 
 standing at the edge of the creek on its further side, 
 staring at me. 
 
 " Well, Zim," I said finally. " What you got to say 
 for yourself? Costing me a whole day s time and a pair 
 of tired legs. What s your excuse? " 
 
 He crossed the creek and rubbed his muzzle against 
 my shoulder asking forgiveness or smelling oats in my 
 pocket! And I petted him, so glad to find him again 
 that I was willing to forget his fault, as I told him. 
 
 " No, old horse ; you weren t to blame. The old moun 
 tain cat scared me, too," and I emptied my pocket of 
 the supper I had brought him. 
 
 I must find a supper for myself in my pockets, if I 
 was to have one. It came forth in the shape of a fish- 
 line and hooks, and a supply of matches. The same 
 pool that had served trout to Mr. Burchard and me once 
 before, gave me now the basis of a meal, and some fair 
 sized fish spitted on a green willow stick were soon broil 
 ing over the coals. With cress from the creek, and a 
 
 77 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 big handful of nuts from a digger-pine, my appetite 
 was satisfied. 
 
 I crawled into the pile of needles that had been my 
 bed before, and wished heartily for my blankets. A 
 high Sierran gully on a May night is not the warmest 
 place in the world, especially when an east wind off the 
 snow-capped mountain-tops blows down it; neither are 
 pine needles as thick a covering as wool. Before I 
 could get to sleep I was obliged to jump out, gather 
 wood, and build a roaring fire beside my bed; and as 
 soon as it burned low, I woke again with my teeth 
 a-chatter, my feet blocks of ice ; repeated the process to 
 thaw out. When I did sleep, I dreamed that I was 
 among the bergs in the frozen seas, or wandering clothes- 
 less in deep snow-drifts. It was a nightmare of a night! 
 
 The fourth or fifth time I had repeated the freeze- 
 and-thaw performance, I found the moon had risen, and 
 determined to take Zim and myself out of this chill and 
 back where there were blankets. My watch said it was 
 nearly three o clock. I whistled Zim up and led him out 
 on the trail ; then stopped as an idea struck me. 
 
 Necessity had brought me back to Baldy s side twice 
 since I had left it, once to pick a bit of gold float from 
 the ground, this time to find a new ledge on its side. 
 Wanting to be done with the mountain, certain that its 
 dryness made mining upon it impossible, it seemed that 
 fate brought me back again and again. I had no desire 
 to prospect the ledge that had shown as a crimson glow 
 
 78 
 
iBack Trailing 
 
 in last evening s sunset or to ever set foot again on 
 Baldy. But why not, being here, mark the spot where 
 I had found the float; locate definitely and permanently 
 the starting place for a gold-search? 
 
 I had no difficulty in finding the place; the moon gave 
 light, and the labor warmed me. I gathered heavy 
 stones and built a cairn on the exact spot from which I 
 had picked the quartz, a monument that would stand 
 for years. Then I went back, mounted Zim, and re 
 traced the long way to Eagle Lake. The moon sank; 
 dawn came; the sun rose and climbed to its meridian, 
 crossed it an hour; and I came into the woods and my 
 camp on the edge of the lake. 
 
 79 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE CABIN ON THE LAKE 
 
 THE trail I had followed from Ophir Creek to 
 Eagle Lake went on eastward, civilization- 
 ward, to Susanville, in Lassen County. For 
 Zim and me, it ended where, after skirting the water s 
 edge for several miles, it left the lake to take to the hills. 
 Here, next morning early, we parted with this last 
 thread that connected us with our kind human and 
 equine and started into the unknown. 
 
 Unknown is a comparative term. The east shore of 
 Eagle Lake has one habitation along its twenty-eight 
 
 80 
 
The Cabin on the Lake 
 
 miles, and that, I had been told, was deserted many 
 years ago. The west edge of the lake is precipitous 
 mountains, which, to the north, are snow-capped ten 
 months of the year. And there isn t another house 
 within forty miles of the lake. Except for the rare 
 traveler over the trail, an occasional prospector, and a 
 less frequent trapper or fisherman, the Eagle Lake 
 country is unknown. To me, entering it for the first 
 time, stepping off the trail into unbroken wilderness, it 
 was the land of romance and adventure. 
 
 It was a glorious morning; California s springtime; 
 May, the spring s ripest month; the south wind blowing 
 soft and warm; the sky its richest blue; the ground a 
 carpet of wild flowers. And that this was mineral land, 
 the great green stains on the dykes of rocks, the streaks 
 of white bull-quartz in the out-cropping ledges were 
 proof to the most unobservant eye. Old Baldy was 
 beautiful only while the snows melted and gave it mois 
 ture; in this country there would be water all summer 
 long, to keep the streams singing, the flowers bursting 
 into bloom. Now the slopes were yellow with cowslips, 
 buttercups, sunflowers, Johnny-jump-ups. A little 
 later its carpeting would change to the red and orange 
 of poppies, spice bush, scarlet gilia, and the Indian paint 
 bush. When Baldy was dry and sear, these hillsides 
 would be starred blue with iris, lupine and summer s 
 farewell. 
 
 I felt that I owned it; sunshine, flowers and all the 
 
 81 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 hidden ores. I swung along in front of Zim, walking 
 on air. I breathed deep, threw my cap high and shouted 
 to hear the echoes of the hills. This was my kingdom. 
 
 Then, as I passed through a little cluster of tan oaks 
 and sycamores, I came suddenly upon a gray log cabin 
 in its center. Its door was closed, the one window in 
 front shuttered, the stone and mud chimney smokeless; 
 a tangled jungle-growth of vines about it told me that 
 this was the deserted hut of the lake. I tied Zim, and 
 opened the door. 
 
 Within was one snug room, still fairly tight in its 
 shake-roof and chinked walls, with a hard dirt floor, a 
 crude corner fireplace, and two bunks, one above the 
 other, at the far end. Barring reasonable dirt accumu 
 lation, it was quite livable, and I decided promptly to 
 make it my temporary home while prospecting. I threw 
 open the shutters to let in the light, looked at the bunks, 
 knelt before the fireplace to see that the chimney was 
 sound and safe then changed my decision ! As quickly 
 as a burned nerve can record its hurt to the brain, I 
 changed my mind about living there. The house had 
 another tenant. My knee on the hearth had touched a 
 live coal. 
 
 I retreated quickly to the door, my eyes taking in 
 every inch of that small room. Only those who know 
 the wilderness can appreciate my fright ; those who un 
 derstand its law of open-armed, open-door hospitality, 
 with the fire built up and the pot placed to boil at the 
 
 82 
 
The Cabin on the Lake 
 
 first sign of the stranger s approach. The hand that is 
 not thrust forth with this hearty greeting is apt to be 
 against all men, and we of Jamesville had learned to 
 fear and avoid. 
 
 If I had found a bear in that cabin, it would have 
 startled me less than the evidence of my burned trouser 
 leg that one of my own kind was somewhere about ; my 
 arm went back of me and my hand found and pulled 
 from its boot the rifle on Zim s saddle, as my eyes 
 searched the room. 
 
 Nothing there to indicate occupancy; no place for 
 concealment of an occupant. The bunks were open and 
 empty, pine needles covering their bottoms. There was 
 a rude board table, chunks of logs for chairs, a small box 
 standing on end for a dresser. That was all ; dirt floor 
 ing, walls, shake-roof, fireplace, and this rude furniture. 
 I could not believe what the burned hole in my trousers 
 insisted, that there was fire in the chimney, and crossed 
 the room again to verify. There was an iron crane in 
 the fireplace; hot. The back stones were hot. A fire 
 had been blazing there not half an hour before, and its 
 live embers had been covered over with the ashes in the 
 attempt to conceal the fact of a fire. Somebody had 
 moved out of the cabin almost as I had come in. 
 
 My heart beating fast at this problem of the wilds, I 
 backed out of the cabin door and turned to peer into 
 the tangled clump of trees. Beyond the grove was the 
 lake, and into it came a gully which ran back a short 
 
 83 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 distance in the hills. Listening intently, I could hear 
 the purling of running water, a brook in the gully; then 
 something that moved stealthily in the brush there. 
 
 I took advantage of the hut s concealing side to find 
 a place from which I could, under shelter, look into the 
 little ravine. The stream was merely the overflow from 
 some spring higher up, but it lay in a deep cut worn by 
 flood waters, and bushes from either side grew to meet 
 and form a dark tunnel with foliage for its roof. It 
 was in this narrow channel that the movement I heard 
 had been. I strained my eyes trying to pierce its gloom. 
 
 At the lower end, where the brook came from the 
 gully, it had been roughly dammed with rock to make a 
 pool where water might be dipped with a bucket; and a 
 trail ran from the pool to the cabin door. Now as I 
 studied it, I saw the damp markings of water as 
 splashed by a pail that had been carried from the pool 
 to the house. There was no pail in the cabin or I should 
 have seen it; none in sight out here at the well. The 
 water couldn t have been spilled longer than an hour 
 back, for it would have entirely disappeared, sucked up 
 by earth and sun. 
 
 I stood at the corner of the hut a long while, listen 
 ing, peering. No further sound or motion. I wanted 
 a reasonable explanation of this strange tenancy of the 
 cabin, hunted my brain through for a consistent solution 
 that would exclude mystery. Might not the occupant 
 have left, not because of my coming, but to resume a 
 
 84 
 
The Cabin on the Lake 
 
 journey, having no knowledge that I was coming? 
 That could be possible, although the trail I d followed 
 around the end of the lake was in plain view from the 
 cabin door and window; and I had been shouting and 
 singing at the top of my lungs on that trail for an hour 
 or more before the fire was pulled or the water spilled. 
 Nor could anyone have left the clump of trees that sur 
 rounded the house to get to the main trail or into the 
 hills not openly without my seeing him. Besides, 
 that wouldn t explain the attempt to conceal the fire in 
 the hearth, or the movement I had heard in the gully. 
 Try my best, it was all too queer to be pleasant, and I 
 untied Zim, led out of the grove, and left the cabin for 
 someone else to live in or for nobody. 
 
 We crossed the little gully at its upper end, and I 
 looked at its lining bushes with apprehension, even 
 glancing back at it after we had passed; but there was 
 nothing to cause distrust. I was glad when the contour 
 of the lake hid it from view, and only then began to re 
 gain the gay spirits with which I had started the day. 
 
 Noon came, and I unpacked Zim for an hour s rest 
 while I ate a cold luncheon; then we swung around to 
 the east back from the lake to avoid rocks and steep 
 canons; climbed gradually into the mountain. I didn t 
 want to go this way. I hated leaving the blue waters, 
 the fresh, cool breeze that came across that shining sur 
 face; but the nature of the hills forced us back until I 
 could no longer see the lake. Most of the afternoon 
 
 85 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 we traveled through defiles, and I began to understand 
 why Eagle Lake was so little known. It was too rough, 
 too difficult of access; its banks could not be followed 
 except for short distances; then there were miles and 
 miles of rugged way on mountainsides. Zim was firm- 
 footed as a goat among these rocks, testing each step of 
 the way, keeping three feet on solid ground when the 
 fourth had lost its resting place by the fall of rocks into 
 a chasm ; pulling himself out by two legs, when his hind 
 footing was dislodged. Twice he almost fell when the 
 narrow ledge we were on gave way, but saved himself; 
 and I let him pick his own course, for he was more 
 knowing than I. At four o clock, we came to a creek, 
 high up in the mountains, a half dozen miles from the 
 lake. 
 
 It wasn t easy, but by wading in places, taking to the 
 banks in others, scrambling over rocks and steep side- 
 hills, we gradually worked down where the bottom 
 opened up into a redwood forest. Here the creek 
 hugged closely the southern wall of the canon, almost a 
 precipice; and the slope of a wooded mountain came in 
 from the north. The forest ran to the edge of the creek, 
 its great trees towering high above the canon s top. 
 Some of those redwoods were more than three hundred 
 feet high, some trunks over twenty feet through. They 
 were the Sequoia Gigantea, the " Big Trees " of Cali 
 fornia. 
 
 It was easy passage for Zim and me in the woods, like 
 
 86 
 
The Cabin on the Lake 
 
 moving through a deep carpeted cathedral with mam 
 moth columns. There was no underbrush, few small 
 trees, and the great red trunks stood quite far apart. 
 The leaves falling for a thousand years and more had 
 covered the rocky soil with a dense layer of soft earth, 
 topped with the recent fresher droppings from the trees. 
 On the larger, older trees and some, it is believed, were 
 alive when Christ was born in Bethlehem there would 
 be not a single branch from the main trunk for a hun 
 dred feet. I had seen redwoods before, scattered groups 
 of smaller size, but this was the first forest I had ever 
 been in, and its mellowed color, its quiet, and the 
 fragrance of it were as wonderful to me as the huge 
 ness of its trunks. 
 
 Soon we came to its lower edge, for it was but a spur 
 of the mountainside woods, an angle running over into 
 the bottoms, and I stopped Zim in the last of its shade 
 to look down the valley and over Eagle Lake. It was a 
 pleasing view to me, this cleft in the hills, an ideal spot 
 for my home while I prospected. From the cliffs to the 
 wooded slopes there was a wide stretch of bottom-lands, 
 covered with grass, with frequent clumps of laurel, lilac, 
 cascara ; while the stream, larger here, with stretches of 
 quiet water between the rapids, was lined with trees of 
 greater size. The flat narrowed quickly at its lake end, 
 the outlet of the stream being two stone buttresses some 
 fifty feet apart, towering high in air, like rude gate-posts 
 to this caflon garden. 
 
 87 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 I chose a pile of rocks on the creek s bank a short dis 
 tance from the lake for my camp, took the packs from 
 Zim, and turned him loose without hobbles. There was 
 little danger of his wandering from the flat, for the 
 steep bank to the south and the wooded mountain on 
 the north were Nature s fences to his pasture. As it 
 was already sunset, I hastened to build a fire for supper 
 and make preparations for the night. 
 
 There were quail in the brush beside the creek; I 
 could hear them whistling, calling to each other. In a 
 digger-pine on the side-hill a squirrel shrilled and 
 chuckled in his double-toned song or monologue, more 
 likely. A grouse was drumming somewhere up the 
 canon. Game. Food. To-morrow I should begin 
 conserving bacon by adding fresh meat and fowl to my 
 menu and fish. Trout in the stream, fish, many kinds 
 of fish, in the lake. Why should one eat salty, odorous 
 bacon in this land of plenty? 
 
 I should need a house, a fireplace, an oven; must 
 locate where grew the wild vegetables that were food, 
 the fruits and nuts that Nature provided. There should 
 be great stores of cowslip, mustard, dock, fronds and 
 cress for greens and salads, palatable bulbs, strawberries 
 and blackberries later, perhaps and mushrooms, toad 
 stools, puff-balls, besides the delicious nuts of the digger- 
 pine. What was there in Zim s pack not provided by 
 this little valley of mine? Flour? I could grind the 
 pine nuts into a meal that made delicious bread the 
 
 88 
 
The Cabin on the Lake 
 
 Indians used it in the old days. Sugar? As a sweet, 
 honey was better, and there were bees working among 
 the flowers for me. Bacon? Meats were here a-plenty, 
 with fat for their own cooking. Coffee? Willow bark 
 tea was almost as good. Salt? Yes, that least of the 
 foods was the one thing Nature could not supply me 
 here, and the lack of it would make all else without savor. 
 Fortunately, knowing the need of it for pelt preserva 
 tion as well as food, I had brought plenty. 
 
 So I ate bacon and a flour flapjack, coffee and sugar 
 for supper, and climbed into bed. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 BUILDING A HOME 
 
 MORNING; the pink rays of a rising sun, hid 
 den from me by mountain peaks, glowing on 
 the summits across the lake; my valley alive 
 with the songs of birds, squirrels and chipmunks ; cloud 
 less blue above; a world of green about me. 
 
 Work to do in plenty; food getting, house building. 
 I leaped from the blankets, soused the creek water over 
 face and hair, plunging my arms to the shoulders in its 
 icy coldness, starting the blood tingling with brisk use 
 
 90 
 
Building a Home 
 
 of the rough towel. Then a fire, a flapjack, bacon and 
 coffee. 
 
 This must be the last meal of purely civilized products, 
 I promised myself. My first labor should be the gather 
 ing of food, either fish or game. Because I wanted to 
 try the pistol again, with an idea that had come to me 
 before sleep last night, the decision was for hunting, and 
 I reloaded the chambers of the revolver, leaving the shot 
 loose, with only wad enough above to hold it in. Per 
 haps it would scatter now ; I hoped so. 
 
 Zim had grazed close, looking for companionship or 
 oats. As I started on my expedition up the creek, he 
 would have followed, but I sent him back with instruc 
 tions to watch the camp. Hardly had I gone a hundred 
 steps when a covey of quail ran briskly out of a thicket 
 ahead of me, crossed an open space in a trailing, scat 
 tered procession of nodding head-plumes and fluttering 
 wings, and disappeared in the lupin brush. I would 
 not shoot at them on the ground not with a shot 
 gun! I cocked the revolver and followed into the 
 brush. 
 
 Expecting it, the whir of their wings as they arose 
 did not startle me, and I fired into the midst of the 
 covey. Nothing fell; a clean miss. I might as well 
 have trusted to the rifle. The birds, scattered now, be 
 gan calling to one another from their hiding places. If 
 I could sight one sitting, I might bring it down. I had 
 lost all compunctions. This weapon was neither a shot- 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 gun nor a clean shooting rifle; it was an old, worn-out 
 army revolver of ante-Civil War times. 
 
 I moved cautiously ahead in the direction of the whis 
 tling; stopped when I feared I might raise the birds 
 again; peered long into the tangle of brush and vines. 
 The mountain quail is larger than the Bob White of 
 the valleys, almost as big as its cousin, the pheasant, but, 
 though I searched for many minutes, heard their calls 
 all about me, not one could I locate. 
 
 I went ahead, hearing their whirring flight, seeing the 
 flicker of wings, and came out into the open to continue 
 my way toward the redwood forest. A tree squirrel 
 scolded as he watched my approach. Coming within 
 easy range, I aimed carefully, fired and dropped him. 
 When I picked him up I found that my shot had carried 
 away the entire upper half of him. 
 
 I started back for camp and my rifle. I wanted 
 game, and to get game I must have a weapon that would 
 neither miss entirely nor blow the mark into tatters when 
 it landed. I might find grouse or jack-rabbit to bring 
 down with a bullet, and would not feel that a cartridge 
 was wasted on either. 
 
 With the rifle, I took the other side of the creek, 
 scaring up a second covey of quail. They were numer 
 ous in my domain! I must plan some way of capturing 
 them, as I could not shoot them. Then a rabbit scooted 
 out ahead of me and I raised the rifle, only to lower it 
 without firing. A cottontail; too small game for the 
 
 92 
 
Building a Home 
 
 cost of a cartridge. A less expensive way of adding 
 them to my larder should be found. I had just made 
 up my mind to turn back and trade rifle for fish-line, 
 when a jack-rabbit rocketed out, scared by my tread, 
 and began a straight-away flight, to stop and turn a 
 somersault as my rifle cracked. It was stone-dead when 
 I came up. 
 
 Good enough! The saddle and hind quarters were 
 all of the carcase I thought fit for food, but there was 
 enough for two hearty meals. I trimmed and carried 
 it back to camp. 
 
 The sun was well up, and it seemed time to have a 
 swim. Between the sentinel rocks, the flow of the creek 
 had made a little beach, and had shallowed the water at 
 its mouth by many years deposits of sand. Throwing 
 off my clothes, I ran in then ran out. The water was 
 shivering cold. The stream was bringing down melted 
 ice. The flow was so rapid that only a few hours sepa 
 rated frozen source and the creek s mouth at the lake, 
 and there was no chance for the water to warm. I ran 
 up and down the beach to get the chill out of me, and 
 stop the chattering of my teeth. 
 
 Even so, the lake looked inviting under the hot sun; 
 away from this flow of melted snow, it would be warmer. 
 Working my way along the rocky shore, I kept testing 
 with my toe until I found a warm current. Here would 
 be a fine bathing place, except that it seemed to lack a 
 bottom. I like tubs with bottoms reasonably close to 
 
 93 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 the surface of the water; not a thousand feet or so below 
 it ; and the bank went precipitously down as though con 
 tinuing so forever. 
 
 Either I must dive in or stay out. I could swim fairly 
 well, but I had learned, practiced, and had my entire ex 
 perience in Indian River, where my feet could touch 
 bottom any time I tired of kicking them. This seemed 
 to be a case of " Hang your clothes on a hickory limb, 
 but don t go near the water." I wanted to swim, was 
 prepared to swim, and didn t dare to swim. I glanced 
 along the shore line hoping to see a more suitable place 
 to launch myself. 
 
 A short distance ahead was a rock running into the 
 lake, and behind it seemed to be a shallower approach. 
 I started to investigate, wet feet slipped on smooth 
 stone, and instantly I was in the big tub, willy-nilly. 
 Sputtering out the water I had taken through an open 
 mouth, I swam to and around the jutting rock, finding 
 no difficulty in the depth, and at the other side of the 
 boulder was just what I needed; a shelf that ran out 
 gradually to deep water. And the sun-heated stones 
 warmed the lake above them ; a little too much close in, 
 just as the lake beyond was a whit too cold; but exactly 
 right in between. There were places to dive off the 
 boulder into deep water, steps to climb back out of the 
 lake, and knobs of rock on which to hang my clothes. 
 I spent an hour exploring its advantages and getting 
 gloriously sunburned! 
 
 94 
 
Building a Home 
 
 As I carefully traveled back to the creek mouth, 
 anxious for no second unexpected dive, I found that 
 with a few minutes pick-and-shovel work I could make 
 a safe, easy trail. I had added a bathtub to the ad 
 vantages of my selected home. 
 
 After a dinner of fried rabbit, I crossed the bottom to 
 where I had noticed a digger-pine on the further slope 
 and brought home a bed-mattress and dessert for supper 
 off the same tree; five enormous cones, nine inches long 
 by six through, holding the nut-like seeds, riding on top 
 of branches that I hauled sledwise, and cut up to weave 
 into a bed. I stopped on the way back long enough to 
 gather a mess of cowslip greens and fronds of the 
 brake the wilderness substitute for asparagus tips 
 and felt that Nature had begun to provide. 
 
 Before I started prospecting, I wanted a house, not 
 as protection from the weather, for there would be no 
 rain before September, but for the feeling of comfort 
 that comes with a roof and walls. I began work on it 
 next morning, using Zim to haul several loads of young 
 firs I felled, clearing them of branches after I had them 
 on the site. Two of these, set in holes, supported the 
 ridge, twelve feet long, and the roof was of poles slanting 
 from ground to ridge, covered with a thatch of the 
 boughs, laid on like shingles, beginning at the bottom, 
 one row lapping the last, all tied with grape-vine. Both 
 ends of the hut were closed by poles set tightly to 
 gether, and the front was left wide open. 
 
 95 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 By evening, it was complete; a room eight feet by 
 twelve, more than half of which was head-high, the 
 balance being used for bunk and table, not requiring 
 height. The floor I leveled with the shovel, made a 
 bunk of poles, moved my pine-needle mattress in, split 
 a redwood log to make a table, chopped from another 
 two chunks for chairs, and slept that night under cover 
 and behind walls. 
 
 The next day I became a mason, with rock and mud. 
 In selecting the site for my cabin, I had planned that 
 its open front came a few feet away from an enormous 
 boulder, the back of my fireplace-to-be. In front of 
 this rock I excavated for an oven, making a hole about 
 two feet square and half as deep, which I lined with 
 mud-plaster. Two thin rocks from the creek made a 
 removable cover, and served as the floor of the fireplace; 
 the theory being that the bread, meat, or whatever-to- 
 be-baked, should be placed in the cold oven, the rock 
 cover adjusted, a hot fire started on top, and I d guess 
 at the length of time it should cook. Then the fire would 
 be raked off, the oven opened, and I d discover how good 
 a guesser I was. 
 
 I daubed all that day with mud, building oven and 
 fireplace; but when it was done I had a place for frying- 
 pan, coffee-pot even a little chimney to carry the smoke 
 away. And that night, with a big fire in it, the heat re 
 flected back from the boulder made my room as com 
 fortable and warm as anyone could wish. I stopped 
 
 96 
 
Building a Home 
 
 using "squaw wood" that evening; began chopping 
 chunks and splitting them, instead of breaking up dead 
 limbs and pitch knots. I could time my oven better 
 with real wood. 
 
 I intended to give my stove a baking try-out next 
 day, biscuits and a haunch of jack-rabbit, but other 
 things intervened, and the mud in the oven had plenty 
 of time to bake hard and dry before I used it. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 GOLD 
 
 IT had been an effort for me to keep from gold hunt 
 ing and do these necessary homelier tasks. As it 
 was, I had inspected every stone I used in the chim 
 ney, had picked up and thrown away scores of smaller 
 likelier looking bits in my walks about camp, searching 
 always for " signs." I knew gold in the usual forms 
 found in these hills, in quartz or combination with other 
 metals, for my father had given me training, and I had 
 lived a good deal with miners and prospectors. 
 
 The first move in the search for gold must be a care- 
 
 98 
 
Gold 
 
 ful test of the creek sands. Next morning, carry ing- 
 pick, shovel and pan, I went up the stream to a place 
 I had noticed where the waters, making a sharp curve, 
 had worn a deep cut between rocks. If there was gold 
 in ledge formation above in the mountains, on either 
 side of this creek or its tributaries, here was a likely 
 place for a sink. The current carrying down dirt, 
 gravel, even rocks, torn and ground from earth and 
 ledge in the spring thaws, would be apt to deposit part 
 of this debris at the barrier that caused the stream to 
 swerve in its course. Naturally, the heaviest part would 
 be left behind, and that would include gold, the heavi 
 est of metals. 
 
 At the lower end of this curve, I waded in up to my 
 waist in the icy water, and with the pick cleared away 
 rocks to get below the later settlings to the accumula 
 tion of past years. I needed only to make a test for 
 gold, so did not try to get to bed-rock, where the gold 
 finally lands. The question for me to determine was 
 simply, was there or was there not gold in the lands 
 drained by this creek; if so, I should find " colors " in 
 the creek sands ; if I did not find an indication in a pan 
 taken near surface, then I should try a second at greater 
 depth; and continue until I found a trace of the metal 
 or became convinced at bed-rock that there was nothing 
 of value above the stream. 
 
 I loaded the miner s pan with gravel, placed it on 
 the bank, and followed it out. The metal bowl was as 
 
 99 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 big around as a dishpan, made of steel, and with its wet 
 contents was a heavy weight. The sides of the pan 
 sloped gradually almost from its center. My job was 
 to rid that great bowl of its six or seven pounds of 
 gravel without losing the one tiny flake of gold, per 
 haps no larger than a pinhead, that might be somewhere 
 in its contents. 
 
 The beginning was easy. I took out with my fingers 
 and threw away the larger stones and pieces of gravel, 
 trusting eyesight to make no mistake with them; then 
 shook up the remaining sand and thrust the pan beneath 
 the surface of the stream to let the current carry away 
 the top layer. There would be no metal in that, for the 
 shaking I had given it would have sent all the heavier 
 bits toward the bottom. Several times I repeated this 
 process, reducing the contents of the pan more than 
 half, then I sat down on the bank, my sleeves rolled up 
 above the elbows, and began the slow and serious process 
 of " panning." 
 
 With the metal dish just far enough under the sur 
 face of the water to be covered but still in plain view, I 
 moved it with a peculiar motion of the wrists which gave 
 the contents a slow, oscillating movement, half-way 
 around, then back. Each grain of sand shifted to give 
 the heavier particles the opportunity to settle lower, 
 deeper down ; while the current flushed away the lighter 
 debris. Back and forth, to and fro, slowly, regularly, 
 the pan s rim angled down to let the moving water have 
 
 100 
 
THERE WAS GOLD IN THE PAN ! 
 
Gold 
 
 its way ; the sands became fewer, as my muscles cramped 
 and ached. It seemed endless ; my bent back was break 
 ing, but I kept at the work, avoiding any abrupt or im 
 patient motion that might imperil the world-old law of 
 gravity, and make my test valueless. Care, time, atten 
 tion and patience; these were the essentials of gold- 
 panning. 
 
 Though I expected little or nothing from this test, 
 excitement came as more and more of the bottom of the 
 pan began to show through the decreasing sands. There 
 is always that pleasurable thrill in the " clean-up," 
 whether of sluice, cradle or a miner s pan. My reason 
 told me that the creek must have been prospected many 
 times before, and would never have been passed over if 
 it held gold in sufficient quantities for placer mining; 
 but nothing could keep back the agitation of quickened 
 heart-beats, as I brought the pan from the water and 
 began the last wash. 
 
 The pan, swinging back and forth, shifted debris to 
 the edge to wash out with the water; each moment the 
 contents lessened; then the sand began to stretch out in 
 a band, and I slowed the motion of my wrists. Only a 
 thin, narrow layer of the dirt left ; only enough water to 
 well cover it; and at the ends of the ribbon of sand, 
 glints of yellow gold ! There was gold in the pan ! 
 
 Restraining an impatience to rush the work and find 
 out all in a minute what those gold particles meant, I 
 worked slowly, steadily. I could not keep my eye from 
 
 101 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 searching out the shining flecks, but I could restrain 
 my hand from trying to separate what only water and 
 gravity could satisfactorily do. It was cruelly de 
 liberate, nerve-racking work, but it was certain. I for 
 got fatigue, the aches of my arms and back, and let the 
 law which holds the universe together, the earth to its 
 orbit, and brings the ripe apple from the branch to the 
 ground, solve for me the riddle of the creek-sands. 
 
 Now there strung out around the bottom a glittering 
 line of yellow particles, and I slowed motion to let the 
 last driblet of water wash over the rim the last grains of 
 sand. It was finished ; a shovelful of the creek s bottom 
 had been separated to reveal its hidden treasure; and 
 the result seemed to my staring eyes the wildest of 
 dreams. There was color half around the bottom ! 
 
 Coarse gold; " dust," it would be called by the miners; 
 the largest pellet not half the size of a pea. But, al 
 though I had no scales to weigh it, I knew there was 
 nearly two ounces in the pan. Should the creek bottom 
 hold in such proportion for even a short distance above, 
 I had made a rich find. And this sample was from near 
 the top, not from bed-rock, where I might expect richer 
 earth. It was wealth ! 
 
 I held a celebration then and there on the bank of the 
 stream, a joy-dance about the pan and its precious load. 
 In boyish spirit, I kicked my heels in air and shouted to 
 the echoing rocks. If the rifle or revolver had been 
 handy, I should have added fireworks to the fiesta, but 
 
 102 
 
Gold 
 
 fortunately for my limited supply of ammunition, the 
 guns were down at the hut. I had a longing to tell 
 somebody the glad news, share my happiness with a 
 friend, and wished Lem was there to join in the cele 
 bration even Lem Strong, whom I did not always like, 
 and could not always trust. 
 
 Then I remembered Zim, my good companion on this 
 search. Zim could celebrate; could kick his heels in 
 air, neigh quite heartily. He should share in my good 
 fortune to the extent of an immediate double-handful of 
 oats. I ran up the canon, whistling his call on my 
 fingers. 
 
 The horse gave no heed, nor was he on the meadow 
 below the redwoods where he usually pastured. I 
 skirted their edge, whistling, then crossed through the 
 trees to that little strip of bottom-land above. Not there. 
 For an hour I continued a useless search before I gave 
 over, and returned to my camp and dinner. It was a 
 bitter setback; I d have to stop mining, with its wild 
 excitement, and hunt up Zim. I assumed that he had 
 again started for home, or for Ophir Creek, at least, and 
 I d have to waste several days fetching him. 
 
 I returned to the scene of the celebration after dinner, 
 but I brought little of the spirit of it with me. I didn t 
 want to go hunt Zim; I wanted to get another panful 
 of the creek s bottom and watch the mud become riches. 
 Zim was a nuisance. If I had been sure he would find 
 home, I d have left him to wander back there; but that 
 
 103 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 was no certainty. It was a long, devious trail, and there 
 were too many mountain lions in the hills. 
 
 Well, I d get out one more pan before I started. 
 Again I waded into the creek and dug deeper where I 
 had taken out the first shovelful of sand. I washed it; 
 filled the pan again and washed it; and it was almost 
 sunset when I went back to camp, more than a hundred 
 dollars richer than when the sun had risen, in virgin 
 wealth of gold that had been new-born from the earth. 
 No one had lost that I might gain; I had brought this 
 new wealth into being. 
 
 Then Zim, poked away at the back of my mind by the 
 absorption of mining, became the main thought. I had 
 neglected him too long to start after him before morn 
 ing. He was probably right now grazing at Ophir 
 Creek. I d get away at daybreak to be there by noon; 
 ride him back in the afternoon and evening. I went to 
 get the bridle, for the halter that I always left on him, 
 the hackamore with its rope knotted up under the throat 
 strap, made guiding difficult. Saddle and bridle were 
 draped on a tree-trunk by the creek beside my hut. 
 
 Should be, rather; for neither saddle nor bridle was 
 there when I went for them. Gone. Stolen. In the 
 instant I realized that Zim had not strayed. He had 
 been stolen. He was not a runaway, but a thief s 
 booty. While I was working at the creek, panning 
 gold, someone had taken horse, saddle and bridle almost 
 from under my eyes. Had I glanced up, I must have 
 
 104 
 
Gold 
 
 seen the thief, for he would need to pass close to me 
 carrying the saddle to the horse, or leading Zim to where 
 saddle and bridle had been. 
 
 Back to mind rushed the suspicions of the past, the 
 hidden horseman on Old Baldy s trail, the broken lock 
 of my cabin there at the claim, the strange footprint in 
 the mesquite gully, and the mysterious occupant of the 
 log house down the lake. Did these unexplained inci 
 dents all connect with the stealing of Zim? And was 
 the theft of my horse the reason for them or only a 
 link in the chain of peculiar events? Would Zim be 
 coveted so much that I should be followed for days and 
 many miles through the rough mountains to secure him? 
 It did not seem reasonable. 
 
 While I was studying this disquieting problem, I got 
 supper ; and my rifle leaned against the rock within reach 
 of my hand. Nothing else was missing but Zim, his 
 saddle and bridle. The thief might as easily have added 
 my two guns and all my supplies. Why had he not 
 done so? Why had he not stolen Zim before? There 
 was opportunity enough any day or night since I left 
 Jamesville. Why had he waited till the day I found 
 gold gold in plenty? Did he know that thief that 
 I had discovered gold? 
 
 While I ate bacon and flapjack my eyes kept roving 
 over the landscape, prying into the lengthening shadows. 
 I was scared. It was all so inexplainable. There was 
 the feeling that I was being spied upon. Carrying the 
 
 105 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 rifle, I went down to the lake, climbed the higher of the 
 two rocks which made the portal to my valley, and from 
 its lofty summit gave a careful survey, north, south, 
 east and west, over land and water, in the clear light of 
 early evening. From below me, the lake stretched 
 away for miles to the north and west, barren waters 
 rimmed by barren hills ; back of me, my own little canon, 
 its ruggedness softened by the afterglow, its far end 
 curtained by the towering redwoods. Then my eyes 
 turned southward. The transparent air brought things 
 closer, shortening the miles, and I could see, like a thin, 
 yellow thread, the trail along the lake shore from where 
 it came out of the woods until it was lost in the hills on 
 its way to Susanville. 
 
 I followed it with my eyes, hoping to see the speck 
 which might mean Zim ; and suddenly stopped short, my 
 gaze riveted on a thin spiral of gray that rose in the 
 moveless air to a great height ; a streamer of smoke that 
 reached from a clump of green near the lake s edge to 
 be diffused high in the sky. It came from the stone- 
 and-mud chimney of the deserted log cabin. 
 
 For a long time I sat and watched that line of smoke 
 in apprehensive wonder. The queer tenant was still 
 in the hut; did he have my Zim? I had determined to 
 find out, to go there next morning openly and look, ask, 
 even demand, when a new idea, more disquieting than 
 any that had ranged through my brain before, came to 
 make me abandon the notion, and climb down the rock 
 
 106 
 
Gold 
 
 more quickly than I had come. If the stranger in the 
 cabin if the thief of my horse two men or the 
 same knew I had discovered gold in valuable quantity, 
 I must stay by my claim to protect it, or abandon it 
 completely. If I left to search for Zim, I should be 
 " jumped." 
 
 " My claim "? Why, it wasn t even a claim! I had 
 merely made a discovery, and there was not a single 
 witness to that! Should I be jumped should someone 
 by stratagem or force take the find from me I could 
 not possibly prove in a court of law that I held prior 
 rights of discovery. Nor did I dare mark the claim, 
 set a post or cairn of rocks at the curve of the creek 
 where I had found gold, for that would tell the thief if 
 he was not already wise just where the gold lay. No. 
 If I intended to keep what I had discovered, the only 
 way was to stay by it and refuse to be driven from it, 
 or be led away on rainbow-chases. 
 
 " If I intended to keep " it? Did I intend to keep 
 it? Was I willing to fight for it? At my hut again, 
 I debated that question, though all the while I argued 
 pro and con, I was drowning the embers of the fire so 
 it would not betray me by its flame, was filling the maga 
 zine of the rifle with cartridges, reloading the emptied 
 chambers of the revolver, gathering my supplies closer 
 to hand, making all safe for attack or siege. That find 
 of wealth was mine; it meant ease from labor and com 
 fort for Mother Laing, education for me. I wanted 
 
 107 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 it needed it. I had faced the raw mountains to get it. 
 I had earned it. Still, I was only a boy, and this other 
 who would take it from me was a man, ncf doubt armed 
 and ready to do anything to secure it. Life was very 
 precious to me; is to any boy; and I might find another 
 claim elsewhere some other day. There were plenty of 
 places to search, plenty of years for searching, if I was 
 alive to search. Suppose I gathered together what I 
 could carry on my back now and left the night-black 
 ened canon for the home trail, I d at least be sound in 
 health and body, alive, uninjured, and a hundred dollars 
 better off than I was this morning. 
 
 " He who fights and runs away, may live to fight an 
 other day." I had smiled scornfully at the jingle many 
 a time; but it was not my problem then. To-night it 
 was. As I sat in the dark, my back against the cold 
 rock chimney, the rifle across my lap, looking up toward 
 the curve in the creek where my gold lay under its 
 waters, I realized that there were two sides to the implied 
 argument of the rhyme. Fight or run away. Take the 
 chance of death perhaps or slip silently through the 
 night to Mother Laing s bright fire and wonderful cook 
 ing. 
 
 It was the one big issue, the determination of right 
 and wrong, that decided me finally, after I had mulled 
 over all the side-paths and by-trails half the night. The 
 find was rightly mine; who took it from me would do a 
 wrong. That right and that wrong affected not only 
 
 108 
 
Gold 
 
 him who stole and me who gave cowardly agreement to 
 that theft, but all the world as well. The right was 
 worth fighting for, whether my claim was or not; was 
 worth fright, privation, wounds, even death. I d stay. 
 And I fell asleep in a minute with my gun across my 
 knees. 
 
 I woke up, cramped and aching, to a cheerful sun and 
 a smiling blue lake. I climbed the sentinel rock even 
 before I washed, but there was nothing save the land 
 scape to be seen from there; no trail of smoke from the 
 hidden chimney. I ate breakfast in a quite happy frame 
 of mind, and went up creek to where pick, shovel and 
 pan lay on its bank. Carrying them with me, I went a 
 hundred yards or so above the place of discovery to 
 where I had already located the best spot to turn the 
 course of the creek, and began work on a dam that 
 would uncover the bottom of the stream for a long 
 stretch above my sink. 
 
 The construction of this barrier was the crudest pos 
 sible. I rolled up and dumped into the stream the 
 largest rocks I could handle with the pick and a long 
 sapling for levers, stones so heavy that the current could 
 not carry them down, and shoveled gravel and dirt from 
 the bank to fill the cavities between them; a rock and 
 dirt dam. But it was hard work and slow work. To 
 resist the force of the swift waters, it had to be a wide 
 structure, and though the stretch was narrow, it meant 
 a great amount of filling. All that day I worked, 
 
 109 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 loaded rifle close at hand, eyes frequently cast around 
 to overlook the canon, and when I finally went home to 
 get supper, I was not half finished. Again I climbed 
 the sentinel rock to find no sign of human habitation 
 anywhere. 
 
 Two days more I gave to the building of the dam and 
 a ditch from above it through which the stream would 
 flow to return to its old bed below the spot where I had 
 found gold. Twice I had to deepen the ditch to relieve 
 the pressure on the dam, which, without mortar, I could 
 not make strong enough otherwise to stand the current; 
 and it was the evening of the third day that I closed the 
 last gap in the barrier, and watched the water start its 
 mill-race course through the new trench. By morning a 
 long strip of the bottom, including the place where I had 
 taken out a few shovels of rich sand, would be compara 
 tively free from water, and I could begin mining. Even 
 as I looked the stream lowered to a mere trickle, in the 
 midst of a series of puddles. 
 
 I wheeled at the sound of a whinny behind me to find 
 Zim standing at the end of my new dam looking at me, 
 and I jumped for him, shouting: 
 
 "Zim! Zim, old horse! Where how did you get 
 here? " There he was, just as if he d never been away, 
 hackamore on, but without saddle or bridle, maybe a 
 few more burrs in his tail, perhaps a bit droopier of 
 head; but dear old Zim, trying to stick his muzzle into 
 the pocket where I sometimes carried oats. I hugged 
 
 no 
 
Gold 
 
 him and jumped up and down for joy. I was so tickled 
 that for a time I did not begin to wonder at this strange 
 return, more mysterious even than his going. Enough 
 that he was back with me again. When the thought did 
 come, I looked quickly toward my hut to see smoke 
 rising from behind the little building. Astonished, my 
 eyes went to that place in the thicket where I had kept 
 Zim s saddle and bridle. Even at this distance I could 
 see them! Slowly I went and picked up the rifle, 
 pressed down the lever to load and cock it; then, lead 
 ing Zim, fear stalking beside me, I walked down the 
 gully to my lean-to. 
 
 in 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 I FIND A PAETNEB 
 
 I D like to be able to say that I walked boldly up to 
 the open front of my shack, and ordered the in 
 truder off the premises. I can t, honestly. It was 
 from a considerable distance and after wetting my lips 
 twice with my tongue that I managed a weak and 
 quavering hail: 
 
 "Hello, there! Who s inside? " 
 There was no answer; I hadn t been loud enough. 
 I chose a gruff voice and put more lungs behind it, re 
 peating my call. Then, around the corner of the 
 
 112 
 
I Find a Partner 
 
 lean-to, yelling at the top of his voice, bounded Lem 
 Strong. The rifle almost slipped from my hands. I 
 lowered the muzzle, let down the hammer, and laid it 
 aside to grab Lem in a bear-like hug that almost cracked 
 his ribs. Relief and joy had driven from mind all my 
 old doubts of him, as I shouted: 
 
 " Lem you old tow-headed shiedpoke! How in the 
 hemisphere did you get here? " 
 
 But Lem wasn t answering questions just then. He 
 was hanging on to me, his wide grin a bit trembly, say 
 ing over and over: 
 
 " Ted, I found you at last found you at last! " 
 
 " Yes, yes you ve found me, though how you did 
 it beats me! What did you do? Give Zim the rein 
 and let him bring you? " 
 
 " Zim? " I caught the question in his tone. " No. 
 I asked Mrs. Laing where you d gone and she said to 
 Eagle Lake. So I came." 
 
 " But Eagle Lake is a big field to find one boy in. 
 You didn t come on that wild chance? " 
 
 " Yes, Ted, on just that. I didn t know. I suppose 
 I thought it would be easy as pudding. Only last night 
 I saw the light of your fire up the lake, and I ve been 
 getting here ever since. Say, Ted, the sidewalks around 
 here sure need fixing! " 
 
 I laughed. We were at the shack now, where the 
 blaze Lem had started was cracking briskly. As I 
 pulled the side of bacon from the burlaps, I asked: 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 "Why didn t you ride? Zim would have carried 
 you easy over all the roughness." 
 
 Again that look of surprise. "Zim? Zim? What s 
 all this Zim stuff, Ted? " 
 
 " My horse. That s his name. The horse you 
 brought back." I was cutting many thick slices of the 
 salt meat, for I knew Lem would be hungry as a mid 
 winter coyote ; but I looked up on a long silence to find 
 his freckled face staring at me in perplexity. 
 
 " Quit your kidding," he said. " I didn t bring a 
 horse." 
 
 My distrust came back in force. Lem s arrival and 
 Zim s return were firmly linked together in my mind. 
 Was he joking now, playing some trick on rne? I 
 placed the skillet over the fire and started mixing flap 
 jack batter. Lem broke the silence, asking anxiously: 
 
 " What about Zim, Ted? " and I came back bluntly: 
 
 " He was stolen." 
 
 " You think I stole him? " Lem came to his feet 
 with a bound, then sank back on the bed. " Why, Ted, 
 I " 
 
 " No, no. I think you brought him back. Didn t 
 you? " 
 
 " Not. N-o-t, not ! I put all horses behind me when 
 I quit my job at Wayne s stables. But, Ted, so long 
 as Zim s back, you should worry." 
 
 I did worry; had reason to. If Lem was lying, I 
 must worry over why; if he was telling the truth, then 
 
 114 
 
I Find a Partner 
 
 what was the explanation of Zim? While the coffee 
 gurgled in the pot, I flipped a pancake in air and studied 
 the situation, to ask finally : 
 
 " Was there anybody in the log cabin down the lake 
 when you passed it? " 
 
 " No. I pried in. Bare as a dog-bone." 
 
 There had been an occupant of the cabin when I first 
 struck the shore of the lake, and as recently as three 
 nights before. He had quite possibly taken Zim and 
 returned him. Lem might have been that occupant. 
 It had taken me four days to get to the lake. Lem 
 could have made it in less than two. If he started from 
 Jamesville within forty-eight hours of my leaving, he 
 might have been hiding at the cabin when I arrived. 
 If I could find motive for such action, for concealment 
 and furtive spying upon me, the taking and returning 
 of Zim, I must believe that Lem was lying to me 
 now. 
 
 He might have read the suspicion written on my face, 
 had my back not been toward him as I worked at the 
 fire. As it was, he seemed to sense my distrust, for he 
 spoke at last, and in his voice was something that made 
 me turn and stare at him. 
 
 :< Ted, if you ve got any hunch that I m fibbing, slant 
 your eye at those clogs," and he poked out two feet 
 whose flimsy shoes were worn to tatters, the socks to 
 rags, the flesh scratched, cut and bleeding. I looked 
 dismay, as I gasped: 
 
 115 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 " For tHe love of Mike, how long have you been on 
 the trail? " 
 
 " On the trail? " he echoed, and his pale face broke 
 again into a grin; "not enough on the trail to get 
 acquainted. Off the trail, in the brush, over it and un 
 der it, dodging rocks and climbing em, I ve been five 
 days and nights." 
 
 I drew in my breath with a long whistle. I could not 
 disbelieve the evidence of those feet. I looked across 
 the creek to where Zim grazed; at the cottonwood where 
 hung the saddle and bridle; then at Lem Strong s big- 
 toothed smile. Was there really no connection between 
 horse and boy? Had their simultaneous arrival been 
 mere coincidence? I dropped the matter for the mo 
 ment to ask: 
 
 " When did you last eat, Lem? " 
 
 " I don t remember." He spoke slowly, and very 
 low. " It may have been yesterday morning or the 
 day before. I " 
 
 "Quit talking and eat!" I shouted, throwing the 
 flapjack on a plate with bacon atop it, thrusting them 
 across the table to him. " Not another word out of you 
 till you get that into you. Eat! " 
 
 He needed no urging; and I poured another and 
 thicker cake into the hot skillet, then began tumultu- 
 ously to mix more batter, muttering, " No food for two 
 days maybe three; and can t remember!" I knew 
 what the mountain-hunger was, and I kept piling his 
 
 116 
 
I Find a Partner 
 
 plate until he cried quits. At last he leaned back con 
 tentedly, a tin cup of black coffee in his hand, and com 
 manded: 
 
 "A perfecto, Jeems." 
 
 " Just out, your lordship," I laughed. 
 
 " No smokes? No cigarettes? Not even the mak 
 ings?" 
 
 " Not one grain of tobacco about, Lem. I don t 
 smoke, you know." 
 
 "Christmas Eve! And here s where I begin this 
 reform-wave stuff. No more cigarettes for Lemuel P. 
 Strong. It s a croo-el, croo-el woild ! " He gave a deep 
 sigh, then grinned. Always my suspicions lost force at 
 that wide, wholesome smile. Reassured, I began my 
 more leisurely supper off the same plate there was only 
 the one with the same knife and fork there were no 
 others while I waited for coffee until Lem was through 
 with our lonely cup. Housekeeping would have its 
 difficulties with this increased family. 
 
 Lem told the story of his runaway as I took the edge 
 off a very fair appetite. On the morning Zim and I 
 left Jamesville to hunt gold, he had determined to find 
 and join me. As he put it, I was about the only friend 
 he had in the world, and my bungling excuses for not 
 taking him with me had been misconstrued. 
 
 " When I began to work my think-tank," he said, " I 
 saw just how you felt. You was scared it might be 
 wrong to help me away, but you d like to have me if it 
 
 117 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 wasn t crooked. If you had no hand in it, you d be 
 tickled to see me; so I asked Mrs. Laing where you d 
 gone, and I waited my chance to follow. Wayne used 
 to lock me up nights, and have Fong or Pon Sing 
 watch me daytimes, for he got the hunch I was trying 
 for a getaway. 
 
 "My opening came last Thursday; both the Chinks 
 were off somewhere. Along late in the afternoon, Pon 
 rode up to the hotel and got Wayne, and they started 
 away on horses. Old Wayne was so excited about 
 something the Chink told him that he forgot me; and 
 that was my dandy chance. I went to the barn and got 
 the grub I d been saving sneaking it off my plate into 
 my pocket at meals and I lit out for Engals." 
 
 " Then you came the Engals trail? " I interrupted. 
 
 " Don t ask me how I came, Ted; I don t know. I 
 walked to Engals that night, and next morning a 
 rancher who seemed to think I belonged in a circus tent 
 or an asylum for nuts, showed me the beginning of the 
 path to Eagle Lake. And I ve been coming ever since, 
 plugging along nights to keep warm, snoozing a few 
 hours in the middle of the day. I hit the end of the 
 lake about four o clock yesterday afternoon, and was so 
 dog-tired I dropped down on the sand beach and 
 slept. When I woke up, it was night, and I saw your 
 fire." 
 
 " Saw my fire? " I repeated his words. " You 
 couldn t have seen my fire from the end of the lake." 
 
 118 
 
I Find a Partner 
 
 Lem looked at it, gazed at the canon s sides, at the 
 two rock pillars; then shook his head and said vaguely: 
 
 " I saw a fire, Ted; I ll swear I did. It couldn t have 
 been yours not unless you built one on the shore. And 
 it wasn t so far up the lake, I know now. It was nearer 
 where that house is " 
 
 " It was in that cabin. Someone is living there. 
 You saw the blaze through the window or door." 
 
 " I guess maybe, but things look so different at night. 
 When I came to that house this morning and found it 
 empty, I thought the fire had been further north, and 
 pretty soon I saw a horse s hoof -prints and I followed 
 those till they brought me here." 
 
 If his story was true, he had followed Zim back to me, 
 had been right behind whoever rode the horse. He had 
 no sense of location, could read nothing from an animal s 
 track. That he had ever found me was marvelous 
 the one chance in a hundred. I might have been any 
 where in a stretch of hundreds of square miles of hard 
 country. To come was preposterous enough; but to 
 start without supplies, weapon, frying-pan or tin cup 
 without even a blanket was too crazy for any but a city 
 boy to think ! 
 
 Still telling details of his story, Lem fell asleep as he 
 sat, nor did he wake as I lifted him gently, laid him in 
 my bunk, pulled the blankets about him. I un 
 rolled the cougar skin, fairly dried, spread it before the 
 fire which I built into a hot blaze, and knew that I could 
 
 119 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 keep warm enough on this couch. Before I could sleep, 
 there was another thing to do. Taking a pine knot for 
 a torch, I crossed the creek to where I d seen a group of 
 firs, cut open balsam blisters in the bark, drained them 
 into the tin cup, and returned with a quantity of the 
 crystal fluid. I lifted the blanket from Lem s poor, 
 torn feet, and rubbed them with the soothing, healing 
 salve that Nature places in her wildest places to cure the 
 wounds made by her roughness. He was too tired to 
 know or heed. 
 
 120 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 SOLVING THE FOOD PROBLEM 
 
 " T F you ll tell me where things are, Ted, I ll get 
 
 breakfast," Lem said to me next morning, as I 
 
 came up from the stream. " I looked, but I 
 
 couldn t find any oatmeal, or ham n eggs, or such. 
 
 Where do you keep the food? " 
 
 I placed my willow rod against the rock, smiling 
 rather weakly. I d been out since daylight, and though 
 I d whipped a dozen likely pools, and changed bait for 
 hoppers, grubs, worms and even artificial flies, not a 
 single trout. The fish must have sought the warmer 
 
 121 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 waters of the lake, for they were certainly not in the 
 creek. 
 
 " I ll get breakfast, Lem," I answered. " Bacon and 
 flapjacks again. You ll have just time for a plunge in 
 the lake." 
 
 "What! Plunge! Lake!" Lem s eyes stared big 
 at the blue waters. " That lake s ice ! " 
 
 " How do you know? " I asked quickly. " Have you 
 tried it?" 
 
 " I ve eyes in my head. Up there," he pointed, " is 
 snow. Here s a lot more of it melted. No iceberg 
 swims for mine." 
 
 I laughed. " Well, you ll not freeze with a little of 
 it on your hands and face," I conceded, and turned to 
 the fire, while Lem, with a shrug of his shoulders, went 
 down to the stream, returning in a minute wiping his 
 hands on the front of his shirt. I tossed him the towel. 
 
 " I never knew folks washed camping out," he pro 
 tested, shivering before the blaze. "A cup of hot coffee 
 will save my life." 
 
 While we were having our coffee I had emptied the 
 baking-powder into a piece of paper to make a second 
 cup of the can I was doing some hard thinking, and 
 food was the subject of my reflections. More than half 
 the bacon, two-thirds of the sack of flour, most of the 
 rice, a large part of the coffee gone, and this expedition 
 barely launched. Hereafter we were going to eat twice 
 as much, being two; and those cheery dreams of quail, 
 
 122 
 
Solving the Food Problem 
 
 grouse, squirrel and rabbit additions to the larder hadn t 
 begun to materialize. As for fish, I d had a heart 
 breaking setback this very morning. 
 
 Lem broke in on my thoughts, speaking from a full 
 mouth that had just semieircled a large piece of flap 
 jack; but his face was sober enough as he said: 
 
 " Look here, Ted; I m a bone-head to dump myself 
 here on you without bringing eats or a blanket. You 
 slept cold last night, putting me up as the star boarder ; 
 and I know grub s low in the refrigerator and pantry." 
 
 " Don t worry " I began, but he hadn t finished. 
 
 With a wave of the knife, he stopped me. 
 
 " I never thought of that before I started; didn t know 
 what it meant here in the wilderness. I d saved eight 
 dollars and four bits from tips I picked up, and I sup 
 pose I had the idea if I had an idea at all that I could 
 run out to the meat market and grocery and buy food. 
 I m a fool and a bum. What do you want me to do, 
 Ted? " 
 
 " Two in a bed ll be warmer than one, Lem," I said 
 thoughtfully, " and it won t take half an hour to widen 
 it. We ll use the fur under us, and the blankets for 
 coverings. We ll " 
 
 He stretched his arm across the table to grasp my 
 hand, and his grin was a bit twisted as he cried: 
 
 " Then I do stay? That s the best word I ve heard in 
 months. I ll work like a why, I ll even take that morn 
 ing swim, Ted! " 
 
 123 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 " We ll get at the food question first," I said, pump 
 ing his arm as I laughed at his enthusiasm. " We have 
 to eat every day, and three times are few enough. I 
 hardly suppose you could find your way to town? " 
 
 He sank back on his chunk of wood with a groan. 
 
 " Christmas Eve! I ll go without food, but don t 
 send me back to Jamesville ! " 
 
 " Jamesville? I wasn t thinking of Jamesville. 
 Susan ville is as near and bigger." He brightened at 
 once. " But you d never find it in a thousand years, 
 Lem." 
 
 " Couldn t I stay here while you went? " 
 
 " I can t go." I didn t tell him, didn t want to tell 
 him, that I was tied to a gold mine that might be 
 " jumped " any day. " No, Lem, we ve got to dig our 
 food out of the country here, and we ll start at it now." 
 
 " Fine! " He jumped to his feet. " Let s have fish 
 for lunch." 
 
 " I d say so, only the trout don t bite." 
 
 " I ll show you how," Lem cried unexpectedly. " Got 
 plenty of line?" 
 
 "A hundred yards of it. What s the idea? " 
 
 " Listen, Ted. When I was a newsie in San Fran 
 cisco just a tad three-four years ago I started up 
 housekeeping; built me a res dence on North Beach 
 foot of Taylor Street, close to Fisherman s Wharf. 
 That house was on a lot where a warehouse had burned 
 down, and its front wall was the fence, its door was a 
 
 124 
 
Solving the Food Problem 
 
 board that I d pull out to get in; and all its other sides 
 and the roof were old corrugated iron that had been on 
 the warehouse. I had a stove inside just another bit 
 of corrugated iron, bent into shape, with a few lengths 
 of rusty stovepipe, but it was a dandy cooker! " 
 
 He was working with the fish-line I d brought him, 
 putting short leaders at intervals of about two feet along 
 it, tying hooks to the leaders. I watched him with in 
 terest as he went on talking. 
 
 " I lived there a long while before the bull on that 
 beat got wise and kicked me out; and I lived high! 
 Fish? I ate every kind and variety of fish that the 
 Pacific Ocean knows! Gee, Ted! I ate squid and 
 shark sea serpents, likely. Those Italian fisher 
 men hundreds of boats, pink and blue and white, with 
 lateen sails or chuffy little gas engines brought in tons 
 and tons of fish every morning, and all I had to do was 
 to look wistful while they were unloading. They d give 
 me odd ones for a joke, but some of the strangest look 
 ing fish were the best eating. What I m making here is 
 a trawl, and we ll set it in the lake across the creek s 
 mouth. It s one way the Italians fish, only they ll have 
 maybe a mile of trawl-line with thousands of hooks." 
 
 " How do they ever pull it in? " I asked. 
 
 They don t. The ends are anchored by Heavy 
 weights, and buoyed to bring the line up the right dis 
 tance from the surface, and to mark it, so they ll know 
 where it is. There are other buoys along it, holding it 
 
 125 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 up. The fishermen go to one of the end buoys in their 
 boat and move along the line to its other end, lifting it 
 up, taking the fish off, and rebaiting. One man takes 
 off the fish, another baits. Maybe that boat ll handle 
 twenty trawls." 
 
 " And you re going to trawl in the lake without a 
 boat?" 
 
 Lem laughed. " We ll have to haul in our line. It 
 won t be so heavy with fish but we can. I want a rock 
 about as big as my fist for an anchor; a rough one, so 
 the line won t slip off. The other end we ll tie to a rock 
 on shore." 
 
 I found him one, then took the axe and went after 
 bait ; white grubs from rotting pine logs ; and we had the 
 trawl set in short order. Lem wasn t going to be such a 
 drag on my resources, not if he could think up food- 
 getting schemes like this; and his trawl-line had given 
 me an idea. If fish could be trapped, why not game as 
 well? Every day I had seen coveys of quail, scared up 
 bunnies, been scolded by tree squirrels. I couldn t hit 
 them with the pistol, dared not waste rifle cartridges on 
 them, but I could make traps. As we hitched the end 
 of the trawl to a jag in the sentinel rock, after Lem had 
 sent the rock whizzing to carry the line far out across 
 the creek s mouth in a wonderful throw, I suggested: 
 
 " Did you ever trap quail, Lem or rabbits? " 
 
 He grinned. " Not in San Francisco. They only 
 grow in the markets there, and you trap em with silver 
 
 126 
 
Solving the Food Problem 
 
 bait gold, more likely. No. I never had the bait, 
 Ted." 
 
 " Then I ll show you," I said. " Come on," and get 
 ting the axe, I led the way to a thicket beyond my dam 
 where I knew there were usually quail. It was a dense 
 chaparral of manzanita, mesquite and gooseberry bushes. 
 From its center I cut a six-foot circle clear to the ground, 
 using the brush of the clearing to build a tight cage that 
 rimmed it, supplementing the manzanita with willow 
 wands Lem brought from the creekside. Woven in 
 with the long, tough vines of the morning-glory, the 
 upper end brought together, it made a dome like a bird 
 cage, or an Eskimo hut, tight and strong enough to 
 hold any small bird or animal. At one side, so close to 
 the ground it was nearly level with it, we left an open 
 ing, and by sticking brush in the earth, built a funnel- 
 shaped lane from the opening, the large mouth of the 
 funnel at the edge of the chaparral. The idea was to 
 throw bait in the lane and cage, let the quail follow it 
 up, pecking away, until they entered the narrow 
 entrance. 
 
 " But what s to prevent them walking out the same 
 way? " Lem asked, when I told him it was finished. 
 
 "Nothing in the world, Lem; only they won t. 
 They ll hunt for a hole in the roof and all about the 
 sides, but not at the bottom. It s their way the way 
 of all birds to look up, not down. Hunt me an armful 
 of lettuce, and we ll set the trap." 
 
 127 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 " Where s the garden? " asked Lem, innocently. 
 
 " Garden? I mean miners lettuce." 
 
 " You ll have to show me, Ted; I never saw any to 
 know it," and I laughingly led him out to where it grew 
 rank on the flat. Already it had seeded, and I knew the 
 quail were partial to it. Each with an armful of the 
 grasslike plant, we went back to throw it, seeds and all, 
 in the cage and approach. 
 
 " Now for the cottontails," I said, starting off for the 
 bigger growth that lined the creek, axe over shoulder. 
 " Twitch-ups for bunnies." 
 
 Lem s face looked as though my language was Greek 
 to him, but he asked no questions, and after watching 
 me make the first rabbit-spring, he went to work and 
 we had six done by noon. The twitch-up is the simplest 
 of traps. A small tree or the branch of a larger one is 
 bent down and held bent by a cord tied to a spindle 
 which fits in a trigger the old " figure four " con 
 trivance. When the baited trigger is touched, the 
 spindle is released, the sapling leaps to straighten its 
 curve, and a second twine pulls taut a slip-noose about 
 the neck of Sir. Cottontail, lifting him high in air with 
 a snap! The proper approach for the animal is made 
 by a little twig enclosure, across the opening of which 
 hangs the noose. 
 
 " Well, Lem," I said, after testing the ones he d made, 
 and setting them with Indian turnip for bait, " I ll say 
 that s a rattling good morning s work! I ve been here 
 
 128 
 
Solving the Food Problem 
 
 a week, and this is the first real start at the food problem 
 I ve made. Thanks to you," I bowed to him gravely, 
 " we have crossed the Rubicon." 
 
 " I ve never met the Rubicon, but if it s good to eat, 
 lead me to it ! I m starved," and we started back for the 
 shack and the last dinner, I felt certain, that would de 
 pend on bacon and flapjacks. Hardly had we gone a 
 dozen steps before I found an article of food that re 
 lieved us of salt meat for that noon meal at least. As 
 we passed a large live-oak, I saw growing from a cavity 
 in its trunk a bunch of blood red fungi. With a shout 
 of joy, I ran to the tree and began breaking it off. 
 
 "What in time you got there?" Lem demanded, 
 watching me pry loose the crimson growth. And I an 
 swered, mouth watering: 
 
 " Wait till you taste it. Yum, yum, yum ! This is 
 the best luck ever! " 
 
 " Looks more like a Fourth of July celebration than 
 food, but if you say it is, here s more. I ll bring a ton 
 or two." 
 
 " Don t, Lem," I cried. " I ve all that we can eat, 
 and more would spoil on us. Leave it on the tree for 
 next time. It s the beefsteak fungus." 
 
 " Looks a bit rare, doesn t it? A trifle underdone? " 
 
 " Wait till you taste it," I repeated. " I ll fry this 
 for dinner, but it s a corking stew, and good plain 
 boiled." 
 
 " Sure it isn t poison? " Lem asked a trifle anxiously. 
 
 129 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 " I am. It s perfectly good good as any toadstool 
 you can find." 
 
 " Toadstool? You mean mushroom. Toadstools are 
 poison." Lem spoke the generally accepted idea of the 
 relative qualities of the two varieties of fungi, with the 
 same decision that nine people out of ten always do. 
 But I knew toadstools that I could eat and enjoy as 
 well as the finest mushroom, and I had none of the fear 
 of poisoning that robs the pleasure of eating for most 
 people. I knew a few varieties that were safe food, and 
 knew them well; all other kinds I left strictly alone. 
 From my father I had learned that there was no test for 
 the edibility of mushroom or toadstool; that the silver 
 spoon or coin that discolors if the cooking dish holds 
 poisonous contents is no more than a superstition, and 
 that the test by peeling the skin from the cap is not much 
 better. I never tested fungi; if I wasn t familiar with 
 it, not for me ; I passed it by. So, as we walked up to 
 the shack, I reassured Lem, who shortly was sniffing de 
 lightedly at the odor from the frying-pan. 
 
 This afternoon we must bake bread," I said while we 
 were hungrily putting the beefsteak which earns its 
 name by its taste into busy mouths. " I ve never had 
 a chance to try out the oven." 
 
 Lem paused in his labors long enough to look at my 
 fireplace with wide eyes. Then he turned them on me, 
 with: 
 
 ;< Where s the oven? Or are you joshing? " 
 
 130 
 
Solving the Food Problem 
 
 " Under the stones there," I pointed. " I wish we 
 had something else to roast while the bread s in." 
 
 " There may be a fish on that line. Let s haul her in 
 after dinner and take a look? " 
 
 " Suits me. But all the fish I ve caught are frying- 
 pan size. I don t know what s out there in the lake." 
 
 We found out three things that were in the lake when 
 we brought in the trawl three Dolly Varden trout, the 
 smallest of which weighed four pounds or better, the 
 biggest being large enough to crowd the oven for length. 
 I d never seen lake trout before, and these whoppers 
 made me shout for joy! Lem, who was used to seafish, 
 didn t get so excited, although shining eyes told me how 
 pleased he was with this initial success of his suggestion. 
 All three fish were dead when we hauled them out, had 
 drowned themselves in the struggle to get free. 
 
 " We ll bake the two biggest," I said, as we toted them 
 back to camp. The small boy we ll fry for supper 
 to-night." 
 
 " You got plenty of salt, Ted? " asked Lem. 
 
 " Most of a big sack left. Why? " 
 
 " Let me show you how to put down fish for future 
 eating the way the Italian fishermen showed me," he 
 said. " If we bake those two big ones, half of em will 
 be thrown away, spoiled. Bake the middle-sized one, 
 and lay these others away for a rainy day." 
 
 " Good, Lem! That s the idea," and I dug a small 
 pit in the ground at his command, while he drew the fish 
 
 131 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 and placed a handful of salt in the cavity. Scales, head, 
 tail and fins were left on; and he placed them in the hole 
 I d made and told me to fill it with dirt. I wanted to 
 wrap the fish in green leaves or something, but he 
 thought that might start them wrong. " Just salt and 
 dirt," he insisted. 
 
 We added one other important food product to our 
 supply: pine nuts. That night, supper over, stomachs 
 full of perfectly roasted trout stuffed with mushrooms, 
 biscuits that were only slightly burned on the top, when 
 I considered the results of the day s work, I could hardly 
 believe that at morning I had dreaded a famine. 
 
 132 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 " JUMPED !" 
 
 HEN I was housekeeping in my tin res - 
 dence on North Beach," Lem remarked 
 that night before sleep, a reminiscent qual 
 ity to tHe tone of his voice, " I started a garden, and 
 if the cop on the beat hadn t happened to lean up 
 against that fence just at the place where a loose 
 board would spring out to crack him in the calves, 
 I d a had some garden ! Potatoes I d planted the par 
 ings two onions that were started rotting, and a whole 
 package of peas that I bought in a store. I found out 
 
 133 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 afterward that they were sweet peas, and not vegetables 
 at all, but as it turned out, that didn t matter. 
 
 " Over across the street where there was a factory 
 with a hydrant out in front, I d get water to wet my 
 plants, and they came up fine. Every night I d give 
 them a five-gallon tin of water, and hoe them with a 
 piece of iron which I nailed on a lath. When I was 
 caught, that garden was up and thriving, and the peas 
 were almost ready to blossom." 
 
 " What were you caught for, Lem? " I broke in. 
 
 " I don t know. Incorrigible delinkacy, they said. 
 That s why the judge sent me to old Wayne." 
 
 " For making a garden? " I asked blankly. 
 
 That and building the house; for living, too. And 
 I didn t go to school. And for stealing water from the 
 hydrant." 
 
 That last would be the crime; I could understand that, 
 for the flumes at the mines, and irrigation ditches on the 
 ranches are protected. Water is wealth at times, and 
 in the big cities, which I knew as well as Lem knew the 
 mountains, it would have unusual value. Although five 
 gallons a day or night, rather wasn t much for a 
 ditch or flume, it might be serious to a city fac 
 tory. But Lem was continuing his garden reflec 
 tions. 
 
 " I d like to try it again. I was mighty fond of that 
 farm of mine. Do you suppose, Ted, that I could have 
 a farm here?" 
 
"Jumped!" 
 
 "A garden? We haven t any seeds, Lem." It 
 started me thinking, though. 
 
 " No potato parings? No onions? " 
 
 I smiled in the darkness. " Your one onion bulb 
 would have grown no additional onions, if it grew at all, 
 Lem. And we haven t either onions or potatoes any 
 how. Beans we can plant, but they re slow. What 
 you need are seeds from the store, radishes, lettuce, peas, 
 turnips, carrots, and all the garden truck. You could 
 spade up a piece on the flat below my ditch and irrigate 
 from it, and there s no doubt you d have a good crop, for 
 the soil is rich in the bottom, wherever there is soil at 
 all. Somehow, you must get to Susanville on Zim." 
 
 " I ll go; and I ll get there," he cried eagerly. " I ve 
 money, and, Ted, we ll have a farm! " And most prob 
 ably he dreamt of gardens all the night, for after we d 
 visited the traps next morning, without finding them 
 disturbed, and had pulled in two more lake trout on the 
 trawl, he wanted me to show him the place for his 
 " farm." 
 
 I hadn t told Lem that I d found gold in the creek. 
 Though my suspicion of him had gone from my mind 
 rather, had been put away in a dark back corner of my 
 mind caution had kept me from either speaking of the 
 discovery or showing him the work I was doing there. 
 Whenever we had occasion to pass the dam, I led a wide 
 detour and Lem had not been in sight of it before. 
 Now I took him there, wondering if I were wise in do- 
 US 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 ing so, and anxiously waited his comment as he looked 
 over the work. 
 
 " What s the big idea? " he said finally, when his eye 
 had taken in dam, ditch and diggings. " Didn t you 
 like the way the creek went? " 
 
 " I m changing it a bit," I accepted his suggestion. 
 
 " Bringing it around to the house for private baths 
 and running water in every room? " he continued. 
 " Turn the faucet and get a shower." 
 
 " So you needn t bathe again in the lake," I laughed. 
 " There d be the place for your garden, Lem," and 
 pointed below to a plot of perhaps half an acre of thick- 
 tangled bushes and vines. 
 
 He whistled. " In that mess of brush, Ted? Why 
 not one of the grassy places around it? " 
 
 " The brush most of it s wild roses, by the way 
 proves that there s good soil underneath, deep enough 
 for things to get roots down, and it is flat enough so you 
 can irrigate. It will clear easier than it looks. I be 
 lieve it s the best piece under the ditch." 
 
 Lem wanted to start at once on the clearing, but I 
 had to disappoint him. I had planned to get out boards 
 for sluices, and that would necessitate using the only 
 axe also Lem. I haltingly suggested it. 
 
 " I have to build a long box to carry the water, and I 
 wanted to split planks from redwood to-day. Maybe 
 we could start that clearing to-morrow." 
 
 " Sure," Lem said cheerfully. " Get the water fixed 
 
 136 
 
"Jumped!" 
 
 right first. Won t it be swell not to have to carry it in 
 a can? " 
 
 I felt mean and small holding back the wonderful 
 news of my gold find, and he so willing to do anything 
 I asked; but I was bred to caution by the hills, where 
 one tells little of his affairs until he fully trusts then 
 tells, perhaps, too much. Several times I had caught 
 myself on the point of spilling everything to Lem, and 
 always had been stopped by the remembrance of Zim, 
 the saddle, and Lem getting here the same day. So we 
 went up into the forest where I felled one of the smaller 
 of the redwoods, taking out a log about two feet in 
 diameter and fifteen feet long, without a limb or knot 
 on it, and a grain as straight as a chalk-line. With the 
 axe and wedges I made of oak, I first quartered this 
 log, then split planks from one section. It took Lem 
 and me all day to get out two, and it was hard work. I 
 needed six boards, sides and bottoms for thirty feet of 
 sluices, and I felt sure another day would finish it. As 
 we walked home, I explained to Lem. 
 
 " Well, there s no hurry-ups about the garden," he 
 agreed cheerfully. " We haven t any seed to put in, if 
 it was cleared. When ll I start for Susanville, Ted? " 
 
 " Soon," I promised vaguely. " We ll go back to 
 the redwoods as soon as we ve looted at the traps in the 
 morning." 
 
 At noon, when we d been at the sHack for a pick-up 
 lunch, Lem had asked to be allowed free hand at getting 
 
 137 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 supper, and I d agreed, smiling a bit and wondering 
 what he could concoct from the limited supplies. I gave 
 no attention as he puttered about the fireplace during 
 the nooning. Now, as we came close to the lean-to, he 
 said: 
 
 " I ve sort of planned a surprise for supper, Ted. 
 Keep your eyes off things till I call you, will you? " 
 
 " Sure. I m going to climb up Sentinel Rock, 
 and take a look-see," I replied. " How long will it 
 be?" 
 
 " Half an hour, I guess. I ll yell when it s ready," 
 and he ran ahead to the shack while I went on to mount 
 my observation post. 
 
 Every day, once a day at least, I had been up to the 
 summit here, and looked anxiously down the lake at 
 the little grove, searching for smoke. As on these for 
 mer occasions, to-night discovered no sign of a fire in 
 the log cabin, and my eyes came away to travel the cir 
 cuit of lake and land. It was a beautiful evening. As 
 May crept closer to the edge of summer, the days 
 seemed to hate leaving the world, and each hung on a 
 little longer for a later twilight. The sky was the blue 
 of the wood violets, shot with golden bars of sunset ; the 
 lake was the sky s mirrored image; and the hills held 
 all the tints and colors of the world. 
 
 Always there was peace for me in the magnificence 
 of beauty of the mountains. Now I lay back in a hollow 
 of the sun-warmed rock and feasted on its wonders, till 
 
 138 
 
"Jumped!" 
 
 my eyes came to rest on a moving speck against the still 
 hill, miles away, across the lake. Another and yet an 
 other of those tiny points, coming from a defile to move 
 downward toward the water. Bears, I thought; then 
 changed decision to deer, a buck and two does, prob 
 ably, on their way to the evening drink. Lem hallooed, 
 and I brought my eyes from the distant specks, to find 
 foothold for the clamber down. 
 
 Supper Lem dignified it with the name of dinner 
 started with a thick soup of beans, served in the tin cup 
 and can, and it was fine! Thinking this was the sur 
 prise he had promised, I ate more than I should, for it 
 was one of the changes in diet I had not thought to pre 
 pare. In fact, my principal kitchen utensil was the 
 frying-pan, which someone has called " the advance 
 guard of civilization." Lem taught me, then and after 
 ward, its proper minor place in camp cooking. 
 
 After we had finished the soup, Lem brought on in 
 the miner s pan a concoction of fish, rice, nuts chopped 
 fine, and brown gravy over all, that seemed the best food 
 I had ever eaten. It didn t have more than a hint of 
 the too familiar taste of fish, nor of anything I d ever 
 eaten. At the first mouthful, I turned a happy face to 
 cry to him : 
 
 Why, this is grand, Lem! What is it? 
 
 " Chopini," he grinned. " The Italian fishermen 
 taught me, when I was keeping house there by the docks. 
 Only, they use corn-meal polenta, they call it and 
 
 139 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 have clams, mussels, and other sea things. Like it, do 
 you? " 
 
 " Best ever! And the bread is fine." 
 " Want to turn the cooking over to me? " 
 " Do I? Lem, if you ll take over that job, I ll wash 
 all the dishes and make the bed and everything." And 
 that was the arrangement we made, much to the benefit 
 of our meals, as well as the safeguarding of our digestive 
 apparatus. 
 
 We went armed next morning on the trip to the trap. 
 If there were deer around that lake, it was wisdom to 
 have a weapon close at hand. It was out of season, but 
 there is an unwritten law miners law, it is called 
 that permits a prospector to shoot for his own eating, 
 not to sell or even give away, during the closed months. 
 It was the same about trapping quail, or, I believe, 
 catching trout on a set-line; the law on the statute books, 
 and the law as practised in the courts of a mining county, 
 were very different. Nobody would think of charging 
 any wrong in this method of preserving life in the wil 
 derness, any more than I should consider for a minute 
 shooting even a dove out of season if I were down in 
 the valley. 
 
 A twittering in the heart of the thicket where our 
 cage-trap was set, started a twittering in the hearts of 
 Lem and me as we came to the opening we had made, 
 and we approached cautiously to look through the withes 
 to find four birds, a cock and three hens, running around 
 
 140 
 
"Jumped!" 
 
 inside, poking their heads between the twigs, and never 
 once thinking to look down at their feet where escape 
 lay. Lem looked big-eyed at the gray cock, with its 
 black hood, white-banded, and long feather crest, the 
 hens, brownish of body, shorter plumed; all four birds 
 round and fat as butter-balls; whistled, and said: 
 
 " Now we ve caught em, how we going to catch em, 
 Ted? " And it was a fair question. There was but the 
 one opening to the cage, and it was not nearly big 
 enough to admit either of us. I lay on the ground and 
 reached an arm through, but the quail kept out of my 
 reach, and when Lem tried to scare them toward me, 
 they ran and flew every place else inside the enclosure. 
 It seemed finally that I d have to use the revolver, which 
 would be a pity, as it might blow a bird nearly to pieces 
 at so short a range, besides it would waste four precious 
 rounds of ammunition. 
 
 " Let me try," said Lem, and when I d given him my 
 place in the narrow approach, he got a shoulder through 
 the entrance, and I saw he had in his hand a piece of fish- 
 line with a noose at the end. " Now keep quiet, and let 
 them settle down," he instructed, and a moment later, 
 the loop was cleverly tossed, a hen dove into his hand, 
 assisted by a jerk of the cord, and Lem passed a bird 
 back to me, with, " You do the killing, Ted. I can t." 
 
 One by one he lassooed them all, while I wrung their 
 necks and drew them, and then we went over the line of 
 twitch-ups. One had been sprung, but there was noth- 
 
 141 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 ing dangling in the noose. I guessed some animal had 
 managed to touch the trigger from behind, or reached 
 with a long paw across the enclosure, for the bait was 
 gone, and a rabbit couldn t have taken it without being 
 caught. There were so many cottontails in the gully 
 not interested at all, seemingly, in our traps that I de 
 cided to change the lure. As they didn t care for Indian 
 turnip, I offered a kind of mushroom that I d seen them 
 nibbling greedily, now and then. 
 
 That day we finished splitting out the planks and by 
 noon of the next, we had them hauled and piled beside 
 the ditch, Zim with the lariat tied to the saddle being 
 the motive power. And that was as far as I could go 
 with construction till we had nails, and nails were a 
 part of the long list of things to be bought at Susan- 
 ville. 
 
 As day after day had gone by without sign of anyone 
 coming to dispute my right to the gold-find, without a 
 single streamer of smoke rising from the deserted cabin 
 at evening, my apprehensions had left, just as the sus 
 picions of Lem had gradually been lulled to sleep. I 
 climbed Sentinel Rock twice a day, but I did it more 
 from habit than the expectation of seeing anything to 
 worry me. And so with Lem now, as he sat on the pile of 
 planks, wiping perspiration from his brow with his shirt 
 sleeve, I had forgotten to be cautious, as I said: 
 
 " You can get away early to-morrow morning, on 
 Zim. I ll go down the lake with you, and get you 
 
 142 
 
<c 
 
 Jumped ! 
 
 started right, and with this map I ve drawn, you 
 shouldn t lose the trail. Maybe somebody has been 
 over it already this spring, so following the tracks will 
 make it certain. The list of what s to get is on the back 
 of the map," and I handed him the paper. With a 
 glance at it, he cried: 
 
 " Seeds? But seeds are mine, Ted. I buy the seeds." 
 You buy everything on the list, Lem," I said, reach 
 ing down in my trousers hip-pocket for my poke. 
 
 " But, Ted " Lem s voice was troubled. " I 
 
 haven t I haven t money enough I didn t know " 
 
 I held out the heavy poke. " There s five or six 
 ounces in here, more than you ll need; and plenty more 
 where that came from." 
 
 He took it, wondering, and loosening the leather 
 thongs, pulled open its mouth; and his mouth opened 
 wider, as his eyes saw the contents. 
 
 " Gold ! Why, it s gold ! " he cried. 
 
 " It is, Lem; gold-dust. Use what you need, and if 
 you see anything else you think we ought to have, not 
 on the list, you can get it." 
 
 " But how do you use it, Ted? " Again I had for 
 gotten that he was from the city, where they don t buy 
 things with gold-dust. " They ll just take it away from 
 
 me." 
 
 I laugfied. " At the store wherever you buy 
 there ll be a balance scales, and they ll weigh out what 
 gold you owe." 
 
 143 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 " But they ll cheat the eyes out of me. How ll I 
 know what they take? " 
 
 " Don t worry. They ll be honest enough, but if you 
 want to check up on them, figure an ounce of gold at 
 twenty dollars. That s close enough; each pennyweight 
 a dollar." 
 
 " Sounds like a drug-store," Lem groaned. " But 
 I ll do my best. And the seeds for the garden I buy 
 myself." 
 
 I looked Lem over. He d been nearly a year saving 
 up that eight dollars and a half, a nickel and dime at a 
 time. I d taken out a hundred dollars from one little 
 hole in the ground in a few hours ; and Lem was insisting 
 on buying the seeds for our garden! 
 
 A flush of shame came to my face at the thought of 
 my distrust of him; the suspicions that had kept my 
 tongue stilled from telling him the truth. I turned 
 away, pointing, as I said quickly: 
 
 " See that hole in the creek bottom, Lem? That s 
 gold; lined with gold. I took what you have there from 
 it; three shovelfuls of the bottom mud. I ve, maybe, 
 thousands and thousands of dollars of gold in the sands 
 I ve uncovered. That s what the dam s for; the planks 
 will make a sluice-box; the ditch is the runway. I m 
 rich, most probably." 
 
 " I m glad, Ted. Glad for you." It came instantly, 
 and Lem had grabbed my hand and was shaking it hard. 
 "What was that?" 
 
 144 
 
"Jumped!" 
 
 We both heard it; both turned to look. Voiceless, 
 both of us stared. 
 
 A man came from our lean-to, his arms loaded, and 
 walked down to the flat. Again came the crash of 
 things dropped, as he carelessly flung his burden to the 
 pile on the ground. Another man right behind him 
 tossed my skillet and the gold-pan onto the heap. 
 
 " Why, they re taking your things out of the hut ! " 
 Lem whispered, his hand clutching my arm. 
 
 " Yes," I said bitterly. " They re jumping my claim 
 and I forgot to bring the rifle! " 
 
 145 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 A QUESTION OF EIGHTS 
 
 THE men down there by the hut had seen us. 
 Quickly, one of them turned and hastened in 
 side. The other waved an arm to us, and hal 
 looed. 
 
 " Maybe they re not after your claim," Lem sug 
 gested, nervously. " Maybe they re after me," 
 
 I had not thought of that; it was possible. " Run for 
 the redwoods," I said. " Hide there in a hollow tree. 
 I ll find out what they re up to, then I ll get you to 
 night." 
 
 146 
 
A Question of Rights 
 
 " N-o-t, not! " he cried. " We stand together on this. 
 Come on; let s get down to em." 
 
 There seemed nothing else to do. I started, leading 
 Zim, while Lem with the pick over his shoulder followed. 
 As we approached the man who waited us, I called out 
 in as natural a voice as I could manage: 
 
 " Hello there, mister." 
 
 " Hello you." He answered in a high-keyed voice 
 that quavered as much as my own. " You boys been 
 living in this linter? " 
 
 "Yes. That s our hut." 
 
 " What s it doing on my land? " 
 
 The surprising question took away my breath for a 
 moment. "Your land?" I gasped, finally. "Your 
 why why, this is government land! " 
 
 " Not by a jugful, it ain t. This here strip of valley 
 belongs to me James G. Gallup, of Susanville, Cali- 
 forny which is me. You boys are trespassing on my 
 property. I m orderin you, accordin to law, to git off 
 pronto understand? " 
 
 All my castles in the air came down in a tumble about 
 me. The find that was to make me rich was on an 
 other s land on this man s property. It was his, not 
 mine. 
 
 " I I didn t know," I said, almost choking. " I 
 thought it was government land that all this lakeside 
 was government land." 
 
 " This half-section, includin the creek flats, an way 
 
 H7 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 up to them redwoods, is my homestead filing, and I don t 
 want any campers on it, either. You an the other kid 
 git off quick see? " 
 
 " We can stay the night? " I asked, trying to gather 
 my scattered wits. " It s too late to get anywhere before 
 evening, and " 
 
 " Tain t too late to git off my property." Gallup s 
 voice was growing stronger as mine weakened. " Pack 
 and hike; that s what you kids do. Me an my pard- 
 ner ll need the hut here." 
 
 " But I built the hut. " 
 
 " Yes; built it on my land without right or permit. 
 Get that? Without right or permit." He repeated the 
 words with a sort of sleek pleasure at their sound. Lem 
 had said no word during the discussion, standing at my 
 shoulder, but upon his face was that look which had 
 caused me to distrust him, a hard glint of the eye, the 
 same cunning, fighting light I have caught in the eyes 
 of a trapped animal when he makes his last strike for 
 freedom. Now he spoke for the first time, with a firm 
 ness I had never observed in him before, and his voice 
 was cold as the ice on the peaks. 
 
 " You have papers to prove what you re saying? " he 
 asked. 
 
 That s none of your business " 
 
 " Hold on." Lem shifted the pick from his sHoulder 
 in a suggestive way that made Gallup start nervously. 
 " That is business our business. You re taking the 
 
 148 
 
A Question of Rights 
 
 house we built, and we want better than just your say-so 
 that you have a legal right here." 
 
 " What you want is a clubbing, and you ll get one." 
 Gallup s words were bolder than his actions. He made 
 no move toward Lem, who leaning on the pick-handle, 
 watched him through half-closed eyes. I could see a 
 glitter behind the lids. His life had taught him to fight 
 men, had given him keen wits, had placed on his face 
 the stamp of the continual battle of wits. But I did not 
 distrust it now; that little doubt of him that had lingered 
 always at the back of my mind disappeared as he began 
 this fight for me. He answered Gallup s threat with a 
 quiet: 
 
 " Don t start anything you re not sure you can finish, 
 Mister Gallup. We re asking only what s fair. If you 
 own this creek, show us." 
 
 The man hesitated, but he was evidently impressed 
 by Lem s voice and the pick. After a muttered some 
 thing I couldn t catch, he turned toward the hut, say 
 ing: 
 
 " I ll show ye proofs, dang you! Wait here and I ll 
 get em." 
 
 " We ll wait, all right," Lem promised, and as soon 
 as the man was out of hearing, sent me an undertone 
 from the corner of his mouth, " Look through that pile 
 they brought out. Find your rifle quick! " 
 
 I ran to the little heap I had watched them dump, 
 caught up the rifle, threw the lever to see that it was 
 
 149 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 loaded, and came back to Lem. He seemed to be think 
 ing deeply, that curious, keen face screwed up into a 
 deep scowl. I stood beside him and waited. Only Zim 
 seemed free from care and apprehension, as he nibbled 
 the grass and looked at the little donkeys that had 
 usurped his pasture lands. 
 
 Gallup came out of the shack and walked swiftly 
 toward us. In his hands was a rifle, and at sight of it, I 
 lifted the one I had been leaning on, its butt to the 
 ground. Gallup saw the action, paused for an instant, 
 then came on more slowly. He shifted the gun to his 
 left hand, and then I saw he was carrying some legal 
 looking documents, which he held out as he approached. 
 Still holding the rifle, my right hand about its breech, I 
 took them and opened the topmost paper. In the first 
 glance, I saw that he was telling truth; he was the right 
 ful possessor of the property; and I was a trespasser. 
 It was a notice of a homestead filing, a form with which 
 I was thoroughly familiar, for I had seen many at 
 Jamesville. 
 
 I passed the paper to Lem, and looked at the second 
 slip, the land office receipt for the fees, an unimportant 
 detail ; and the last was an affidavit of some kind, a more 
 lengthy writing. I had only glanced at it when Gallup s 
 queer, high-keyed voice broke in: 
 
 " Enough, ain t it, to prove you ve got no business 
 here?" 
 
 I looked at him. " It seems to be all correct, Mr. 
 
 150 
 
A Question of Rights 
 
 Gallup." I handed Lem the two sheets. " We ll get 
 off your property at once." 
 
 " In a minute in a minute," from Lem, never look 
 ing up from his reading. " Give me time to p roose 
 these, can t you? " 
 
 While we waited, Gallup impatient enough, I studied 
 him. He was not a mountaineer or a valley rancher. 
 He was small, thin, wizened, with the face of a rat, run 
 ning strongly to nose ; shifty eyes, and a slit for a mouth, 
 the lips working nervously all the time to show a few 
 long, yellow teeth; his chin ran back so fast that one 
 couldn t tell where it started to be neck, a protuberant 
 Adam s apple helping the deception. And his clothes 
 were never made for wear in the hills. The shirt had 
 been white cotton, the sleeves with starched cuffs held 
 up by elastics above the elbows; trousers, gray, badly 
 soiled and spotted; a derby hat; and shoes of russet 
 brown, now almost white with dust. Man and rig-out 
 gave me the impression of a merchant or professional 
 man in a small town, and not a prosperous man or town. 
 Not honest, either, I d have added, only I felt that I 
 was hardly in a position to judge. It didn t seem square, 
 his taking my claim and hut, even though legal formali 
 ties had been complied with. 
 
 " Guess these are O. K.," said Lem finally, but al 
 though Gallup promptly put out his hand, Lem passed 
 them to me. And I saw that his finger indicated a place 
 on the upper paper. He went on talking, as I read 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 what was tKere. " Mr. Gallup, you ve got a fine piece 
 of farm land. I ve had some experience farming, and I 
 advise you to put in potatoes, onions and sweet peas," 
 mechanically I was listening while my eyes followed 
 the script " on that wild rose thicket there up the creek, 
 about half an acre in it. Miner s lettuce and beefsteak 
 mushrooms grow wild, so you won t have to put them 
 in. However, sir, if you ll let me suggest " he held 
 the bewildered Gallup, who must have thought him 
 crazy, a hand on his shirt-sleeve, and was pointing his 
 gaze across to the slope " I d suggest that the pine-nut 
 orchard be put in on yonder hill." Lem was making 
 time for me to read every word of the affidavit. 
 
 I did read it, while he talked absurdities to a man who 
 was no more dense or confused than I ; for I did not find 
 in my careful perusal of the document what Lem s eyes 
 had found in a glance. When I handed it, with the 
 other papers, to Gallup, I knew only that it was the 
 copy of a petition and affidavit, asking that the govern 
 ment throw open this section of the National Forest 
 Reserve to settlement. It was hours later that I learned 
 what Lem knew, and was glad he had given me oppor 
 tunity to study it. 
 
 " We ll be on our way," Lem finished with Gallup. 
 " Pack and hike, as you put it. Come along, Ted." He 
 was quite cheerful. 
 
 " You ll find your stuff all together there," squeaked 
 Gallup. " We piled it for ye. We aim to be all legal 
 
 15* 
 
A Question of Rights 
 
 and square, and if anything s missing, sing out an we ll 
 make it right. Glad you re going to take it sensible, 
 and no fuss. Good-bye," and he went back to the hut. 
 
 Sadly enough I led Zim to the little stack, all that was 
 left of my dreams; together we packed him, neither say 
 ing a word; and set off down the lake toward the trail 
 that led back to Jamesville. We had gone some dis 
 tance when Lem, walking beside me, glanced back, then 
 said: 
 
 " Notice how Gallup s pardner kept out of sight all 
 the time? " I nodded. I couldn t find words yet. " I d 
 like to know what he s done to make him afraid to show 
 his face." 
 
 I gave no answer. Back there, I could see the smoke 
 from my stubby little chimney, the green sides of my 
 hut against the brown rocks beyond. Even in the short 
 time that lean-to had sheltered me, it had grown to seem 
 like home, and I was sad enough at leaving it. Lem 
 seemed to read my thoughts, for he bleated: 
 
 " Be it ever so humble " 
 
 "Shut up! "I snapped. 
 
 " There s no place like our hut," he finished, 
 laughing. " Come out of it, Ted. Take a brace. The 
 worst is yet to come." 
 
 " I ll be all right in a minute." 
 
 " Take your time. Ted, are you game to follow 
 me?" 
 
 "Whereto?" 
 
 153 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 Take a chance, can t you ? Follow and say nothing. 
 
 " Very well," I agreed. He couldn t lead me any 
 where I hated worse to go than Jamesville. There was 
 even a little urge of hope in his suggestion. " Go ahead, 
 I ll follow." 
 
 But there was no change in our direction with him 
 leading. All the short balance of the afternoon, Lem 
 strode around the side of the lake toward the trail at its 
 end. When I had come out of my grouch and was 
 anxious to question, he had seemingly just entered his, 
 for he shut me up with: 
 
 " Talk later on, Ted ; regular gab-f est then. I want 
 to work my think-factory now." And he relapsed into 
 silence. 
 
 It was nightfall when we passed the deserted cabin, 
 dark and grim in the black oaks ; and the stars were out 
 in full brilliance as we came into the main trail where 
 it rounded onto the lake s edge. I broke the silence to 
 suggest: 
 
 " Better camp here, eat a bite, and wait for the moon 
 to come up." 
 
 " Later," Lem answered, shortly, turning toward the 
 west and Jamesville. Despondently I followed. 
 Somehow, I d hoped, he would find a way that didn t 
 mean the back-track and failure. He added, " Can t 
 you make that nag walk beside you, instead of behind? " 
 The trail s too narrow." 
 
 " Let him walk in the grass. It won t kill him/ 
 
 154 
 
A Question of Rights 
 
 " Why should he? " I was in a mood to argue. 
 
 " To make hoof-prints. He isn t leaving* any on the 
 Hard trail." 
 
 " Hoof-prints? " I echoed. " What do you want of 
 hoof -prints? " 
 
 " For James G. the G standing for Goober, a pea 
 nut Gallup, and Pardner Man-Af raid-of-His-Shadow 
 to follow. They re going to make sure we re gone, and 
 we want them dead sure of it. So let there be tracks." 
 
 " And we aren t going to Jamesville? " I cried joy 
 fully. 
 
 "Whoa!" Lem commanded, and Zim stopped 
 abruptly. " Ted, you old snail, would I be going back 
 to old Wayne? Would I lead to Jamesville? " 
 
 I was so happy at the hope he gave that I didn t care 
 what discredit he threw at my intellect. It was true that 
 he thought more quickly, more readily than I, and his 
 experience had been with people, while mine had been 
 with things. Unconsciously, I had looked to him as the 
 leader from the moment we began talking to Gallup. 
 Now I questioned eagerly as to his plans, to be met with 
 a firm, " Leave it to me. You keep your eyes peeled for 
 a place where we can double back without being followed 
 by a trailer. That s up to you, for I don t know how 
 keen their eyes are, or what tracks they can see." 
 
 " You want to swing back, but leave Gallup, if he 
 follows, to believe we have gone on to Jamesville? " 
 
 " Yep." 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 " Easily done, Lem. About half a mile ahead is 
 where Zim broke into the trail the night he ran away 
 from the mountain lion. We ll bring Zim up to that 
 place to hitch up the tracks, and if Gallup or Pardner 
 want to follow, they can keep right on Zim s trail to 
 Ophir Creek. Is that far enough? " 
 
 " Plenty. How do we turn back without its show 
 ing?" 
 
 " I ll fix it," I promised, and we went ahead. At the 
 place where Zim had come from the woods, we turned 
 in, and I went back to straighten out the broken brush 
 and remove all signs of our leaving or Zim s old en 
 trance. Lem looked on, approved the result, then sug 
 gested camp and supper. I took the packs from Zim, 
 and was about to open out the blankets, but Lem 
 stopped me. 
 
 " Just here till the moon rises," he said. " Time for 
 a snack of cold biscuits, and a pull at the canteen. Rest 
 your legs while you can, for we ve a long tramp before 
 dawn." And he dropped on a fallen log. 
 
 Where are we going, Lem? " I asked, handing him 
 his share of the food. But his reply was the same as 
 before. 
 
 " Leave it to me." 
 
 After a time spent in munching and meditation, I 
 asked another question. 
 
 " Lem, do you suppose Gallup is the man who was 
 hiding in the deserted cabin? " 
 
 156 
 
A Question of Rights 
 
 " No. Bears would eat him. The chipmunks would 
 scare him to death. He d be worse off than I d be, for 
 James Goober-peanuts Gallup is from the city and 
 his city is that metropolis of the mountain peaks, Susan- 
 ville." 
 
 " But his partner " 
 
 " Pardner hid in the cabin, and now hides in your 
 hut. A grand little old hider is Pardner. And he stole 
 Zim, and brought Zim back. He knows where your 
 gold lies in the creek, spied on you when you was pan 
 ning it out. Pardner can t take a homestead, can t do 
 business for himself, can t do much else but hide out, so 
 he rides Zim away to dig up Gallup, who can. Pardner 
 is a very silent pardner for a reason." 
 
 " What s the reason, Lem? " 
 
 " When I was keeping house in the Italian quarter 
 of San Francisco, I kept a tin can full of water beside 
 the stove and used to grab it suddenly at times and dump 
 it all over the stove; or if I was out weeding my garden, 
 I d drop on all fours and scurry under a pile of cor 
 rugated iron. The reason was the same as Pardner s, 
 or I miss my guess. The bulls. The cops. The min- 
 yons of the law." 
 
 " You think he s dodging arrest? " 
 
 " He acts as I acted when I wasn t anxious to meet 
 a policeman. But leave go this Sherlock-Holmesing 
 stuff till we get into permanent camp. Think all you 
 can now, hike when you can and as hard as you can, but 
 
 157 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 let s hold the chatter till we get fixed for to-morrow s 
 business. Then, if it isn t time to be doing, I ll talk 
 you black and blue," and his face lighted up with that 
 irresistible grin. 
 
 As the moon was beginning to show, we started, 
 headed back to the lake, but making a wide circuit to 
 cross the trail to Susanville far to the east. I knew now 
 where Lem was leading. He was going to our valley, 
 but aiming to hit it above the redwood forest. As this 
 was the route I had taken that first day, I made quick 
 time over the rough going, and we came into the ravine a 
 little after midnight, and had soon entered the big trees. 
 Here in the shadows we stumbled along till Lem said 
 finally: 
 
 " Any good place now will suit me for a camp. I m 
 tired of kicking down these trees." 
 
 " Hold Zim till I look about a bit," and I began pok 
 ing around the bases of some of the larger trunks. Soon 
 I found what I wanted, went back and helped Lem un 
 pack the horse, tied him, and told Lem to follow me. 
 
 " Duck your head here," I said. " Now you re in 
 your house," and scratching a match, I held it above my 
 head to illumine a great hollow center of a tree, ten feet 
 across its greatest diameter, and running up indefinitely. 
 " As soon as I hang a blanket over the door, we ll have 
 a fire." 
 
 A few minutes later, a little blaze in the center of our 
 floor was lighting the interior, and Lem was almost 
 
 158 
 
A Question of Rights 
 
 chortling with glee at this house with a chimney all pre 
 pared for us. 
 
 " Why," he cried, " it s almost as fine as my place on 
 the bay front in San Francisco! Let s have coffee? " 
 
 " Keep us awake." 
 
 " That s why. We ve got to keep awake. You re 
 going to listen ask questions if you want. I m going 
 to talk. Then we re going to do. Put that pot on the 
 fire." 
 
 I filled it from the canteen, placed a big handful of 
 coffee in, then as it began to sizzle, Lem started to talk. 
 
 159 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 A CONFERENCE IN A TREE 
 
 44 TT\EANUTS GALLUP has just one good argu- 
 
 r"^ ment for taking your claim, Ted," and Lem 
 Strong, seated on an end of the blanket beside 
 the fire, had begun the conference of the hollow red 
 wood. 
 
 " What s that? " I asked promptly. 
 
 " A rifle. That rifle is his right, law, and legal pos 
 session. And, if he knows how to use it, it s a good ar 
 gument." 
 
 " It s not an argument no right at all," I declared 
 
 160 
 
A Conference in a Tree 
 
 hotly. " You can t just steal things even in the moun 
 tains with or without a rifle." 
 
 " Goober Gallup and Pardner did this afternoon." 
 
 " But he had the papers a legal filing " 
 
 " Nothing but a rifle that carried any weight not 
 with me, anyhow. Did you read what I stuck my thumb 
 on?" 
 
 " I did. It was a petition the customary form of 
 petition and affidavit for a homestead filing on Forest 
 Reserve." 
 
 " Where I pointed, did you read it there? " Lem in 
 sisted. 
 
 " Yes. He swore that to the best of his knowledge 
 and belief the land was of more value for agricultural 
 purposes than for timber or mineral." 
 
 " Or mineral," Lem repeated. " And that, so far 
 as he knew, there was no mineral of value on the, 
 tract." 
 
 " Yes; but maybe he didn t know." 
 
 " The date of that filing was May twelfth, this month. 
 What day did you find the gold, Ted? " 
 
 "Last Saturday. That would be the tenth." I began 
 seeing light. " You mean he knew there was gold be 
 fore he made the filing? " 
 
 " He did. That affidavit is just a bunch of lies. How 
 much good farm-land is there in that half section he s 
 homesteaded? " 
 
 " A few acres, maybe twenty out of the three hundred 
 
 161 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 and twenty he claims. The rest is too rocky for any 
 
 use." 
 
 " Then he don t get it, Ted; and you do," Lem de 
 clared positively, and got up to pour us the coffee which 
 had boiled sufficiently. I sat, tin cup in hand, and 
 thought. Theoretically, Lem might be right; but I 
 knew of a number of hillside homesteads that were no 
 better farm-land than Gallup s ; that had been taken-up 
 because of their mineral chances ; that the Government 
 had given title to, regardless of this clause in the law 
 of settlement. I told Lem of them. 
 
 " That s another story," he replied. " Those farms 
 were never on a Forest Reserve, and that makes the 
 difference." 
 
 "How?" 
 
 " Before Gallup s application is accepted, the Govern 
 ment must hear protests against the opening of the land 
 to settlement, and the applicant must prove that his 
 affidavit is facts. I learned that from the fine print on 
 the paper, Ted." 
 
 "And I must protest?" 
 
 " As loud as you can yell. You re to be the protest- 
 ingest protester in all Plumas County. You re going to 
 get somebody from the land-office somebody in author 
 ity to look over this tract, and he ll learn just how true 
 that affidavit is." 
 
 " That ll be the forest ranger." 
 
 "Very well. We ll show him over the place, and 
 
 162 
 
A Conference in a Tree 
 
 we ll show him valuable minerals, and unvaluable rocks. 
 We ll make Gallup s farm look like a hunk of Swiss 
 cheese full of holes." He tested his tin of coffee to 
 find it too hot. " Why didn t Gallup file a mine claim, 
 Ted? " 
 
 " He couldn t. You have to discover mineral, de 
 scribe the find and mark your claim." 
 
 " I see. But you can." 
 
 " No-o." I hated to say it. " I haven t marked my 
 find, Lem." 
 
 "You haven t! Why for the love of Mike, why 
 not?" 
 
 I stammered, but I got it out. " I was afraid to. I 
 didn t want you to know. I d have done it to-morrow 
 after telling you about it." 
 
 Lem sat down again at the far end of the blanket. 
 He gulped at the coffee, then sputtered it out of a 
 burned mouth. I heard, but I wasn t looking at him. 
 My eyes were on the ground, ashamed. Here Lem was 
 saving my claim for me, and I d been afraid he might 
 steal it. 
 
 " I guess you were wise, Ted," he finally broke out. 
 * When they arrested me for keeping house in my tin 
 shanty on Taylor Street, the cop proved in court that I 
 was incorrig ble. That s pretty bad. But, Ted, I never 
 stole candy from children. I never shoved a legal docu 
 ment into a baby s face and made him give over his gold 
 teething-ring." 
 
 163 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 I deserved it. " Lem," I explained, " your getting 
 in the same afternoon Zim did, and what they said about 
 you back at Jamesville, and your running away from 
 the court order, and all, it made me afraid to trust you. 
 I was wrong; felt wrong all the time. And I m not go 
 ing to kick at paying for being wrong. First, I want 
 to apologize to you. I m sorry, Lem. Will you forgive 
 me?" 
 
 " Will I? " He was shaking my hand so heartily it 
 made my fingers ache. " Forget it, Ted. Wow! This 
 coffee s hot!" 
 
 The face he made as he tried to swallow the scalding 
 liquid relieved the tension, and we both laughed. When 
 he had recovered his breath, he asked: 
 
 " Just how do you mark a gold claim? " 
 
 " A post or cairn of rock at discovery, with the notice 
 buried at its base. Then four corner posts, smoothed on 
 their outer surface and plainly labeled." 
 
 " And what time is it now? " 
 
 Eagerly I looked at the watch. I caught the idea. 
 Again Lem was going to save me the claim. Ten 
 minutes of one," I cried, jumping to my feet. We ll 
 have time, Lem. Let s go." 
 
 " Finish your coffee," he laughed. " A few minutes 
 more won t matter, and I m not through talking. We ll 
 mark your claim before they do, and by daylight you ll 
 be on Zim headed for Susanville and a land-office. 
 You ll make a mineral filing, put in a protest against 
 
 164 
 
A Conference in a Tree 
 
 Gallup s homestead claim, ask for a forest ranger to look 
 it over, and buy me some garden seeds." 
 
 " I ll do all that," I agreed. " And you ll come with 
 me and help." 
 
 " N-o-t, not! In the first place, I can t walk as fast 
 as Zim can gallop ; in the second, I m going to prevent 
 Mr. Goober Gallup and Parclner from finding gold on 
 their farm.^ 
 
 " How? They know of my find can walk right to 
 it." 
 
 " Oh, cut it, Ted! Listen. At daybreak, when you re 
 galloping Susan-wards, I m going to be lying some 
 where up in these rocks with that shooter of yours, and 
 whichever of Gallup and Pardner gets within a hundred 
 yards of that dam is going to think steel hornets have 
 broken loose. I m going to stop gold-finding and claim- 
 marking with the rifle. Why not? " 
 
 I began shaking my head before he was half through 
 this speech, shaking a negative as decided as words could 
 be. Whatever Gallup had done of dishonesty against 
 me and my claim, I was not ready to resort to such 
 means to save it. I answered Lem with a quiet: 
 
 " I won t stand for any killing, Lem." 
 
 " Killing? " his eyes were dancing. " Who talks of 
 killing? I couldn t hit a man with that rifle if he was 
 fifty feet away, let alone fifteen hundred. I ll promise 
 you never to kill a one of em." 
 
 I laughed as I poured him another cup of coffee, with: 
 
 165 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 "Drink and forget your wild dreams of slaughter. 
 Rather than get back here to find you shot, or the shooter 
 of someone, I d lose a million claims." 
 
 " I wasn t bothering over your claim; I was thinking 
 of my garden," Lem sighed, forgetting again that coffee 
 comes hot. "Christmas Eve! Molten lead!" and he 
 dropped the can and its contents. I picked up the for 
 mer, straightening out its dented rim, with: 
 
 " I ll need this. Wonder where I put its cover? " 
 And I began a search through the sack. 
 
 " But that s my drinking cup," Lem protested. 
 
 " Use mine. This tin baking-powder can has ceased 
 to be a lowly drinking vessel, and from now on, is the 
 container of the notice that makes you and me rich, 
 Lem." I had found the top, also a piece of paper and 
 the stub of a pencil. " What do we call our claim? " I 
 finished, as I brought the writing materials to the light 
 of the fire. 
 
 " Our claim? " Lem s eyes were popping. 
 
 " Sure ours. What do we name it? It has to have 
 
 a name." 
 
 The Hot Biscuit," Lem suggested promptly. And 
 I wrote: 
 
 " The Hot Biscuit gold placer claim, on a creek not 
 named, on the east shore of Eagle Lake, about eight miles 
 from its southern end. Discovery made here of placer 
 gold on the tenth day of May, 1919. We claim one 
 hundred feet above discovery, and five hundred feet be- 
 
 166 
 
A Conference in a Tree 
 
 low discovery, as marked by cairns and posts. 
 
 Signed " and I scrawled my own name and handed 
 
 the paper to Lem. " Put your sig right below mine," I 
 said. 
 
 "But I me 
 
 I thrust the pencil into his hand. " You re half -owner 
 of the Hot Biscuit ; you re my partner. Sign." 
 
 With eyes that were dancing and a trembling hand, 
 Lem placed a large Lemuel P. Strong upon the paper. 
 Then he slipped a hand into mine and said soberly: 
 
 " I thank you, Ted Wilson. I ll never forget you did 
 this. Now I ve got a home." 
 
 167 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 A LYNX INTERFERES 
 
 AN hour later I had added another baking-powder 
 can to the thousands in rock cairns, and in the 
 ground at the foot of posts, marking the hopes 
 of prospectors throughout the Sierras. The " Hot Bis 
 cuit " placer claim had been officially located. I had 
 worked, while Lem, rifle in hand, watched the hut where 
 the jumpers slept; and I had been quiet. 
 
 The moon, though low hanging in the west, still man 
 aged to cut into the brush so that Lem s suggestion that 
 we wind up the night s adventures with a visit to the 
 
 168 
 
A Lynx Interferes 
 
 traps was reasonable and wise. I intended to leave him 
 the bacon and flour, but a little fresh food would im 
 prove conditions in the redwood pantry. 
 
 " And the set-line," he added. " Let s haul it in, and 
 see what s on it." 
 
 I vetoed that promptly; as Lem would say, I didn t 
 want to start anything, and we d need to pass close to 
 the sleeping men to get to the trawl. " We ll make em 
 a present of that," I said, leading the way to the quail 
 trap. 
 
 It was empty, and we separated there, to meet at the 
 hollow tree. Lem was to look at the twitch-ups on the 
 north side of the creek, I the others, for we needed to 
 hurry, as daylight came early. 
 
 I watched Lem safely into the thickets, then cut across 
 to the first of my string of traps to find it empty and un 
 sprung. Just beyond, in a growth of lilacs and cascara, 
 was the trap which once before I had found dangling 
 without visible reason. As I came up to it now, I could 
 see that the strong sapling was held down part way by 
 some weight which low brush kept from view. I was 
 pushing through to it when a noise and the shaking of 
 the sapling stopped me. More cautiously then, I 
 worked my way to where I could see the contents of the 
 trap. In the noose was a lynx, caught by the neck and 
 shoulder, one front paw through the line preventing the 
 slip-knot from tightening to choke him. Too heavy a 
 weight for the sapling to lift clear, his hind paws rested 
 
 169 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 on the ground, and he was making vicious swings 
 with his loose foreleg in impotent efforts to free him 
 self. 
 
 Never had I seen an animal so enraged. His 
 struggles had merely tightened the hold of the trap. 
 The strong fish-line and stout sapling held him so he 
 could not squirm loose, nor was he able to reach and 
 cut the cord with his claws. With eyes contracted, 
 tufted ears laid back, hair of the spine standing up, he 
 snarled and spit at me in venomous hate. He was as 
 large as a good sized dog, with all the power and muscle 
 a cat that size would have. 
 
 Instinctively I took a backward step or two, a bit 
 startled. Then, laying aside the rifle, I lifted the shovel 
 I carried in both hands, intending to bring its blade 
 down on the beast s head and brain him. That swing 
 would have ended matters then and there, had he not 
 dodged like a cat. Instantly he sprang at my throat. 
 The sharp edge of the shovel had cut the cord. 
 
 I went backward down to my knees with the force 
 of the impact, but the shovel handle I still held kept 
 him from my neck, and his teeth closed in the flesh of 
 the left shoulder, while his rear claws ripped into the 
 thigh. Dropping the shovel, I reached for the throat, 
 and my two hands met in the thick fur that ruffed his 
 neck like heavy whiskers. Desperately bracing myself 
 with one leg behind me, I closed thumbs and fingers 
 upon his throat. If I could only shut off breath to make 
 
 170 
 
A Lynx Interferes 
 
 him unlock his teeth before the ripping claws found a 
 more vital part of me. 
 
 The long fur blocked the power of my clutching fin 
 gers. The muse 1 \s of the left arm were being paralyzed 
 by the stinging pain of clenched teeth at the shoulder. 
 Slowly I was being forced back and down by the 
 strength of the attack and the beast s weight, and once 
 down I was lost ; a quick shift of his teeth to my throat 
 would end it. 
 
 Breathing in gasps, I strained every muscle to re 
 cover my balance, to strengthen the hold of the bracing 
 leg, slipping in the grass, to find surer grip for my fin 
 gers in the tough neck muscles. With all the reserve I 
 could muster, I forced the big cat away from me so that 
 his claws could not rip the flesh. Though his teeth still 
 held in my shoulder, and the claws of his forepaws were 
 sunk in my back, I was free for the moment from the 
 agony and danger of those slashing hind legs; and my 
 thumbs, shifting lower beneath the jowls, found better 
 grip to close against fingers on windpipe and jugular. 
 
 Now it was a question of endurance ; could I maintain 
 the pressure? Would my muscles obey the impulse 
 long enough to force loose that locked jaw? Every 
 ounce of strength I had was already in the effort, and I 
 was weakening fast. Then I felt my antagonist give an 
 inch, and somehow I strengthened. There was relax in 
 the surging paws. I took new hold on the sod with the 
 foot that supported the brace, and I gained that inch 
 
 171 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 the lynx gave. My thumb against the larynx stiffened 
 to dig a bit deeper. In the cat s strained sinews was the 
 tremor of clogged breath. If I could hold a minute 
 more I had won. But a minute was eternity. 
 
 Then my left arm refused longer to obey my will. 
 Just as I had felt the slackened effort of the beast, so 
 now he felt mine, and releasing his teeth from their hold, 
 struggled forward for the throat-grip. A few inches 
 was all the gain he needed, and my left arm, helplessly 
 dangling, gave him claw-hold to climb. I looked into 
 red eyes so close to mine that I could see the desperation 
 in their bloodshot, popping gaze, as I added a last mite 
 of pressure to my hand in his throat. What his eyes 
 read in mine I do not know, but I had won. Not the 
 fraction of an inch nearer did he come, and I watched 
 his tongue curl back between the open fangs, the slaver 
 drip from his jaws, the eyes roll up; felt the struggle 
 cease in a convulsive final tremor; held him, inanimate 
 at arm s length for an instant; then toppled over on his 
 dead body. 
 
 Lem found me there just at daybreak, after he had 
 gone back to the hollow tree and waited for what seemed 
 hours to him. A hatful of water in my face brought me 
 to, and with him on one side and the shovel for a cane, 
 I was able to limp to the redwood. Though I had lost 
 considerable blood, and the flesh of arms and leg was 
 badly torn, no bones had been crushed, and the only 
 serious wound was the bite in my shoulder. Already it 
 
 172 
 
A Lynx Interferes 
 
 was inflamed, purpled, and the punctures of the teeth 
 were not bleeding at all; nor could I raise the arm. I 
 knew that something must be done to start the flow of 
 blood, and cleanse the wound of infection. 
 
 " Help me off with these rags, Lem," I said. " Strip 
 me quick and get me into the creek." 
 
 " To freeze? " His face was white, his grin had gone. 
 " Why, it ll kill you, Ted. You re clawed wide open." 
 
 " This bite has to be started bleeding, and in a hurry. 
 
 Don t talk I was already loosening buttons. 
 
 " Get busy and help." 
 
 He shuddered, but went at the job with nimble fin 
 gers, cutting away with a knife where cloth had closed 
 with the wound too tightly to be lifted. Some of the 
 scratches on my forearm were clear to the bone, and the 
 thigh had been deep-ripped in a number of places. Both 
 bites and scratches needed cold water, and lots of it. 
 Stretched out in a shallow pool, shivering so that my 
 teeth rattled like the seeds in a dry gourd, I let the icy 
 current flow over all my body to open the wounds that 
 had clotted and start the blood again. It soothed the 
 pain, but on the bank Lem suffered for me. 
 
 " Christmas Eve! " he shivered. " If I was you, I d 
 be an icicle ! " 
 
 " Lem," I said, " light a fire inside the tree, a big fire, 
 and put a full pot of coffee on to boil. Then bring me 
 a blanket," and I lay and wondered how long I could 
 stand the cold. When finally he helped me from the 
 
 173 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 water, wrapped my big blanket around me, and half 
 carried me to the side of a blaze that was fast making an 
 oven of our hollow tree, I was sure that I had washed 
 away all danger of poison in the wounds. With my 
 spare shirt ripped up for bandages, the wounds were 
 rudely dressed with fir balsam to soothe them, and I be 
 gan to regain control of my chattering teeth. 
 
 Lem had found two cottontails in the traps he had 
 visited, and after we had drunk our coffee, he started 
 making them into a stew. I showed him how to skin 
 the little animals, and then suggested that he slip away 
 down to the place of the struggle and bring back the 
 lynx. " It ll make a dandy skin," I said, " and help for 
 bed covering." 
 
 " But I couldn t get it off," Lem objected. " Why, 
 Ted, I couldn t even skin-the-cat ! " 
 
 " That s just what you ll do," I laughed. " It s as 
 easy as a rabbit easier, for the hide is tougher. Go 
 get it, Lem ; it s too valuable to lose." 
 
 He turned to the door, then stopped. " Ted," he 
 said, " would you mind wising me as to why you didn t 
 shoot that lynx, instead of letting him use you for a 
 beefsteak? " 
 
 " They d have heard the shot Gallup and Pardner." 
 
 He went away, muttering something that had to do 
 with my intelligence, and half an hour later, slipped 
 through the blanket-curtain lugging the carcase of the 
 big cat. And I questioned him as I told how to hang 
 
A Lynx Interferes 
 
 it for the job of skinning; could he see the smoke from 
 our fire? No, the chimney flue, the hollow of the tree, 
 ran to a great height and the light wood made but little 
 smoke. Had he found any indications of Gallup and 
 Pardner? 
 
 " Sure," he replied. They were down at our hut 
 getting breakfast." 
 
 " They didn t see you? " I asked quickly. 
 
 " Naw ; I couldn t have been seen with a microscope. 
 I was the smallest, hiding-est thing in the mountains, 
 insect, bird, snake or beast. But I want to get a good 
 squint at Pardner, Ted." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " He looks sort of familiar from a distance as 
 though I d seen him before somewhere." 
 
 " Is he a city man? " 
 
 " Naw; a hill-billy; corduroys, black shirt, boots and a 
 felt hat. I m probably mistaken about having ever seen 
 him; just a resemblance. They brought in some kind 
 of a wooden contrivance on those little donkeys; looks 
 like a mighty healthy baby s crib." 
 
 "A cradle! They ve brought in a cradle!" I ex 
 claimed. 
 
 " No, no, Ted. I was joking. It couldn t be a cradle, 
 unless they have a giant baby to stick into it. It ain t set 
 up yet, but the parts of it looked like a crib. That s all." 
 
 " But it is a cradle a gold cradle a rocker. It s for 
 mining, Lem. How big was the bed? " 
 
 175 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 " It was more like a bed " 
 
 " The bed; the box where the pay-dirt is put for the 
 washing? " 
 
 " Oh! Maybe half the size of a good, big wagon-box. 
 It was pretty far away, you know." 
 
 This was important news, and conclusive proof that 
 Gallup s agricultural claim was a fraud, his affidavit a 
 pack of lies. These men had come here prepared not 
 for farming, but for mining; ready to rob the creek- 
 bottom of its hoarded gold. To prevent this, we must 
 act with promptness. A lynx had made it impossible 
 for me to go to Susanville with my application for filing; 
 but Lem could. I glanced at him as he worked with the 
 skinning-knife effectively, as he seemed to do every 
 thing, and thought that he would do better with the trip 
 than I could myself. If he could only keep to the trail 
 and then the thought came that three donkeys had 
 solved that problem. I shot it at once at the back of 
 Lem s head. 
 
 " Drop that work. You re going to Susanville as 
 quick as you can get started." 
 
 The knife fell with a clatter. He turned to me with: 
 
 "And you chewed up to a pulp? What you talking, 
 Ted? " 
 
 " Business. I m all right for here, but I can t ride a 
 horse. You can " 
 
 " You ve never seen me ride." He grinned widely. 
 
 " Zim s easy. The trail s wide-open, now those three 
 
 176 
 
A Lynx Interferes 
 
 burros have been over it. All you have to do is follow 
 back. You ll make our filing, enter our protest, and 
 buy " 
 
 " Garden seeds," Lem finished. 
 
 " Give me a paper and that pencil. I ll write down 
 what you re to buy. It s about seventy miles to Susan- 
 ville, and you re going to ride fast getting there. Say 
 by noon to-morrow Friday. Get our notices recorded 
 first thing at the land-office. Then rest up over night, 
 at a hotel. Better get someone to pack Zim for you. It 
 has to be done right, or it ll come to pieces on the trail. 
 And you start back Saturday morning. Take it easy, 
 for Zim will be heavy-loaded. Three days coming back 
 Saturday, Sunday, Monday. I ll expect you Mon 
 day evening, and I ll probably be somewhere up the trail 
 waiting for you." 
 
 I was writing while I talked, making the list of things 
 to be purchased. Lem listened, and I saw was getting 
 it all fixed in his mind. When I finished, he said : 
 
 " I ll make it, Ted; Monday evening or bust! " 
 
 " You make it easy so as not to bust either you or 
 Zim," I enjoined. " If you don t get in by nightfall, 
 keep right on coming, for I ll be looking for you all 
 night. Slip out now as quietly as you can so Gallup and 
 Pardner won t know. Good lucK, Lem." I gave him 
 the list and clasped his hand. He held my paw a min 
 ute, looking down at me as I lay beside the fire. 
 
 " I just hate to leave you, Ted. But what you say, 
 
 177 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 I do," and ducked under the curtain. I lay and listened 
 for a long time, but I heard no sound of either Lem or 
 Zim. Silently they had gone, and I was alone. 
 
 178 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 RECONNAISSANCE 
 
 I WOKE from a refreshing sleep to find that it was 
 nearly two o clock in the afternoon, and that I 
 was feeling stronger and less a mere mess of pain 
 ful wounds. The balsam, quick in its healing action, 
 was getting results. I got up, stiffly enough, dressed, 
 and ate rabbit stew; then began packing. I was going 
 to move. 
 
 Spreading out my blanket, I placed in it what food 
 was left a few cold biscuits and the remains of the 
 stew the rifle, revolver and all the ammunition; filled 
 
 179 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 the canteen from the creek and added it; then tied the 
 four corners together, hoisted it painfully to my un- 
 wounded shoulder, and said farewell to the hollow red 
 wood. 
 
 I slipped away southward to the edge of the canon, 
 and climbed its side. That took time, and brought sev 
 eral groans from between my teeth, but finally I man 
 aged, and made a detour toward the lake. I kept in the 
 brush all I could, and well back from the valley s rim. 
 When I was forced to cross an open space, I recon- 
 noitered, then made a dash for it. 
 
 Almost midway between my hut and the dam, sitting 
 close on the cliff s edge to overlook all the lower part 
 of the bottom-land, was an enormous boulder that had 
 rolled down the mountainside in some past age, either 
 to stop miraculously there, or to watch, later on, the 
 earth torn away at its foot. On the side from which I 
 approached, its top was twelve or fourteen feet from 
 the ground, but it was five times that height from the 
 valley floor. It had split in its fall, and there was a 
 lower section separated from the other by a crevice. On 
 the lower ledge, entirely concealed from the gully by 
 the taller half of the boulder, I fixed my blanket, hung 
 the canteen in the shaded cleft, then climbed slowly and 
 painfully to the summit of the other and peeked over 
 into the canon. I needed to keep my head down, for 
 Gallup and Pardner were at the dam not two hundred 
 yards away. As I located them, Pardner had just torn 
 
 iSo 
 
Reconnaissance 
 
 my notice to bits, and now with a laugh, he tossed the 
 bits in the air. The baking-powder can he hurled vi 
 ciously into the creek bed. The action told me plainer 
 than words the contempt he felt for me and my rights 
 to the creek claim. Gallup, down on his knees before 
 the cairn, had evidently just taken can and notice from 
 its place. Now Pardner gave the monument a kick that 
 sent the rocks tumbling over the bank. I hoped it hurt 
 his toes! 
 
 Pardner s loud talk was audible even at the distance, 
 his words borne on the wind, though I could not hear 
 Gallup at all. Pardner was big, uncouth, with a great 
 stooped back, long arms, enormous hands at the ends of 
 them, and a red face topped by hair almost as red. I 
 could not make out his features clearly, but I was sure 
 I had never seen him before. 
 
 They had brought up the cradle, knocked down for 
 conveyance on the burros, and were at work setting it 
 in place below my ditch. Gallup seemed to have no idea 
 of its construction, but Pardner knew, and was more 
 inclined to boss than to work, although he made a bluff 
 at it which might satisfy Gallup. I learned quickly and 
 without effort that Pardner was lazy and hated work; 
 and that Gallup was willing but ignorant. 
 
 I watched them, while I fried on the boulder. Two 
 rifles leaned against a rock close to the cradle. At in 
 tervals, one or the other of the men, usually Pardner, 
 would stop work, pick up a rifle, climb to a better posi- 
 
 181 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 tion, and make a long, deliberate survey of all the coun 
 try above and below the dam. I d keep my head down 
 against the stone these times, raising it only when I heard 
 his voice again after he d returned to Gallup. 
 
 It was still early in the afternoon, and I was watching 
 them bolt the bed on to the supports, when suddenly 
 there came a sharp snap from the thicket a little dis 
 tance above them. I heard it plainly, and it must have 
 been much louder at the creek. Both men jumped and 
 grasped their rifles, but Pardner never stopped an in 
 stant after getting hands on his ; he slid behind the bank, 
 and I saw the quick movement of his hand as it worked 
 the loading lever, even as he wormed into the scrub. 
 Gallup, mouth hanging open, rifle at a ready, stared at 
 the place where the sound had been. 
 
 I had guessed at once what the noise was; one of my 
 twitch-ups had been sprung, the sapling snapping back, 
 and there was probably a venturesome rabbit swaying 
 now at the end of the line. I smiled at the unimportant 
 cause of so much fright, and wondered if Lem and I 
 were held as dangerous enemies by these men. Anyhow, 
 I was glad that neither Lem nor I walked out of that 
 thicket, for I was certain whoever did would be met by 
 bullets. 
 
 There was no repetition of the sound naturally; and 
 of course, nothing came from the brush. After maybe 
 fifteen minutes waiting, Pardner crawled from his hid 
 ing place, joined Gallup, and they talked together; then 
 
 182 
 
Reconnaissance 
 
 started for the thicket to investigate the cause of the 
 alarm. I was afraid they would find trap, bunnie and 
 explanation, but they only skirted its edge, peering in, 
 and continued up the bottom, searching the fringing 
 woods of the creek. 
 
 I watched them out of sight, then made a shift of 
 position. There was but one conclusion to draw from 
 what I had seen; if found, I was in danger of my life. 
 Pardner was a desperate man, with some better reason 
 for objecting to spies than his seizure of the claim. He 
 was hiding from a greater menace than Lem and me. 
 I threw the blanket and contents into the crevice be 
 tween the boulders, gave the place a careful inspection 
 for rattlesnakes, then with grunts and groans lowered 
 myself into the cleft. Here was hiding place and for 
 tress. From the opening at one end, with a little careful 
 trimming of the bushes, I could see what was going on 
 below, myself screened by foliage. The other end of the 
 split was choked by stones. There was room to lie down 
 in a rather cramped position. And it was gloriously 
 cool ! 
 
 I heard Pardner s loud voice before I could see the 
 men, as they returned, and I knew a noisy argument 
 was on, for stray words came to me; Pardner insisting 
 that it was foolishness to bother about us, saying we d 
 probably not stopped running till we got to Jamesville. 
 " Scared stiff," I heard him shout, and wondered if we d 
 been any worse scared than he was at a rabbit trap. 
 
 183 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 Gallup, I could tell from the part that was audible^ 
 wanted to make sure; follow back our trail aways and 
 see that we hadn t turned back; and I was certainly 
 glad of Lem s device for deceiving them, for Gallup 
 started out on our tracks. 
 
 Pardner, loudly telling Gallup how many kinds of a 
 fool he was, went back to the cradle; but not to work. 
 After looking it over a few minutes, he loaded a pipe 
 and sat down in the shade beside the creek, to rest and 
 smoke until Gallup s return. Even then, he never re 
 laxed, and I could see his head turn continually to look 
 into the thickets. The rifle lay across his knees. Pard 
 ner may not have been afraid of Lem and me, but he 
 was afraid, frightfully afraid, of something or someone 
 else. 
 
 It was late afternoon when Gallup came back, and I 
 gathered from Pardner s mirth and sarcasms that the 
 small man with the thin voice had followed our trail 
 farther than we had gone. He was satisfied we had not 
 retraced our steps, and without finishing the cradle, they 
 went down to the hut and their supper. 
 
 The low slanting sun had lost its sting, and I was 
 glad to haul myself up from the crevice, and roll up in 
 my blanket on the ledge. In the interest of watching, 
 I had forgotten at times the pain of the wounds, but 
 now they began to trouble, and I used what water I had 
 to dampen the bandages. I had been badly hurt, and 
 the exertions of the day gave little chance for healing. 
 
 184 
 
Reconnaissance 
 
 As night came down, a fever set in, and I began a rest 
 less tossing on the hard rock. Things seen assumed 
 strange shapes, shadows came and went, grew to enor 
 mous size; and the familiar noises of the night were 
 changed and magnified. Alternately, I burned and 
 shivered ; and my confused mind in its delirium gathered 
 the strands of my wrongs and twisted them into a rope 
 of anger and hatred against the cradle beside the stream. 
 In that inanimate object, the mounting fever centered 
 all my enmity. 
 
 It seemed to me that it stood there, a hateful live thing, 
 reaching out to grab the gold that was mine from the 
 mud of the creek, stealing it from me, robbing me of 
 everything. And I must kill it, break it, demolish it. 
 I climbed down from the rock in the blackness of night, 
 my stiffened leg and arm protesting with twinges of 
 pain, ran staggering and falling down the hill, and 
 splashed across the creek without the least attempt at 
 secrecy. With fists and boots, I attacked the cradle as 
 though it were alive, knocking it over, kicking it, bruis 
 ing my knuckles and opening the old wounds to bleed 
 again. I wanted to destroy, demolish; and I did not 
 care whether I was heard or seen, and the consequences 
 of my acts were nothing to me. 
 
 The rocker would have resisted all my efforts to break 
 it, for it was stoutly built, had I not stumbled over the 
 stones of my cairn, and the idea of a weapon worked 
 through the haze of my mind. I picked up a great piece 
 
 185 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 of granite, hammered the box of the rocker into 
 ters, and broke the standards to bits. It was kindling 
 when my fevered rage was satisfied, and I had made 
 noise enough to awake the Seven Sleepers. I remember 
 hearing shouts, even rifle shots, I m sure; but I went 
 calmly back to the rock, climbed to its ledge, and wrap 
 ping the dry blanket about my soaked body, dropped 
 into quiet slumber, while two men searched high and 
 low for me. 
 
 Many hours later, much refreshed, I woke to a bright 
 morning, and the sound of voices close beneath me. The 
 fever was entirely gone, and I had sense enough to lie 
 absolutely quiet. Gallup and Pardner were under the 
 rock, and they were talking of me of Lem and me. 
 
 " Probably hiding way up the canon in the brush at 
 the headwaters," came Gallup s thin, quivering voice. 
 And Pardner, with a curse inclusive of Lem, Gallup and 
 me, boomed: 
 
 " There s a thousand places to hide in the gullies and 
 hills. If it was two months later, with the chaparral 
 dry, I d start a fire ripping up the canon that would 
 drive em out, I ll warrant or burn em to cinders." 
 A grunt from Gallup ; and Pardner went on, " We ve 
 got to find em, that s all ; and fix em. Should have done 
 it first off, but you had to try your legal bluff. Next 
 time, you ll take my advice, p raps." 
 
 " No use kicking now," Gallup answered. " Let s 
 get breakfast." 
 
 1 86 
 
Reconnaissance 
 
 ?< You, with your slick lawyer-games ! Give em back 
 their hoss, hand em their guns and grub; pass em 
 everything to make em dangerous, and able to hang 
 around and pester. That s your way." Pardner was 
 peeved for lack of sleep. 
 
 " Oh, shut up ! " Gallup s voice went up another 
 octave. " We ll eat, then we ll find em, and you can 
 have your way with em. Only I don t see it, mark that! 
 I keep my hands clean of such doings." 
 
 " Come on," grunted the other. " I ll do it, and I ll 
 do it right. Eat and find em," and their voices died 
 out in the direction of the hut. 
 
 My mind held a hazy, dream-like picture of the events 
 of the night, enough so that I understood the anger of 
 the men and had a realization of that which I had started 
 by my fevered actions. There was no question of what 
 would befall Lem and me if we were discovered now. 
 Pardner s words were significant. The disappearance 
 of two boys lost in the mountains would create but a 
 passing interest in a country where prospectors start out 
 frequently to fail of return. I shuddered as I recalled 
 the destruction of the cradle, and lifted my head cau 
 tiously to see if it was true, or a dream. 
 
 The rocker lay in ruins beside the creek. Surely, in 
 my plans to retain the claim, I had intended no violence 
 such as this, no infraction of the law, as this certainly 
 was. Had I retained control of my actions, I should 
 have been the last person to take the law into my own 
 
 187 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 hands. Now, the fever had made me an outlaw. TKese 
 two men had legal authority to hunt down the one who 
 had come upon their property and demolished machin 
 ery of value belonging to them. My excuse, that I was 
 delirious from fever, would be hard to establish, even 
 supposing there was a chance to make excuse. It was 
 a serious situation, a weighty responsibility for my boy- 
 shoulders. I tossed and squirmed there on the rock, 
 borne down by the burden of it. 
 
 Then it lifted, cleared away as once before, by the 
 simple solution that right is right. I rolled over on the 
 side that held the fewer pains, closed my eyes, and went 
 to a long, health-giving sleep. 
 
 188 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 FAUSTINA 
 
 IF I d spent a week in careful search, I could not 
 have found a better hiding-place than my split 
 boulder on the rim s edge. It was so close to the 
 hut, below the dam, that the men overlooked it from the 
 first. It was almost in their back-yard, a thing so usual 
 to the eye as to be non-perceivable. They came to it, 
 leaned against it to talk, passed it, but they never really 
 saw it; and not once in those two days I stayed there, 
 resting up, letting my wounds heal, was I in danger. 
 But its very security gave me many anxious minutes* 
 
 189 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 Gallup and Pardner, standing so near me I could have 
 dropped a piece of granite to break their heads, would 
 discuss possible places for Lem and me to be hiding, 
 planned ways to trap us, and promised vague horrors 
 when we were found. My heart would hammer so nois 
 ily at times I feared they would hear it. 
 
 The first day after I d smashed the cradle Saturday 
 they spent most of its hours in the search; but Sunday 
 Gallup hunted alone; Pardner had tired; and the little 
 man discovered Zim s tracks where Lem had led the 
 horse up the canon s side, and followed the trail far 
 enough to believe we had gone on to Susanville. He 
 returned about noon with that information, and the two 
 men spent the rest of the day building sluices from my 
 lumber. They had decided to mine, as had been my in 
 tention, by running the pay-dirt over riffles to separate 
 its contents ; and they had nails. Peering over the boul 
 der s top, I saw them use my split planks to build the 
 machinery to steal my gold. 
 
 I must get away during the night. Lem, who would 
 be returning in the afternoon or evening of the next day, 
 must be met and warned; also I was hungry and thirsty, 
 without food or water. I could slip quietly away after 
 dark and go far along the trail over which Lem must 
 come. 
 
 That would be the safe and easy way; that was what I 
 wanted to do; but as I watched the men complete the 
 sluices and set them in the ditch I had dug with so much 
 
 190 
 
THE TWO MEN SPENT THE REST OF THE DAY BUILDING SLUICES. 
 
Faustina 
 
 labor for that purpose, as I realized that all day while I 
 was traveling the trail to meet Lem they would be run 
 ning my creek sands over those riffles, robbing me, I 
 changed easy plans for hard, a safe program for a dan 
 gerous one. 
 
 In the crevice, working noiselessly that afternoon, I 
 made a neat pack of my belongings to lug at my back, 
 and I cleaned, oiled and reloaded the rifle ; then snugged 
 down in the cleft, curling about its corners, and forgot 
 thirst and hunger in sleep. So, alternating slumber and 
 waking hours of weary waiting, the day wore out. 
 
 Pardner, I was sure, would meet night with snores, 
 for he had worked hard for him; but I was afraid of 
 Gallup. That nervousness, which was his most obvious 
 characteristic, did not promise the deep sleep that would 
 make my plans less dangerous. I was going to be noisy ; 
 I expected to wake people up, but I didn t want them 
 awake too soon. I was willing they should rest till the 
 big noise came. 
 
 So I waited hour after hour in the night, so thirsty 
 that the gurgling of creek waters passed from an irrita 
 tion to a misery, and went over and over my plans. 
 Then as my watch hands came together at the top of the 
 dial I had unscrewed the crystal so I might feel the 
 time telling me it was midnight, I slung the pack on 
 my back, threw the rolled blanket over one shoulder, 
 climbed carefully down the bank to the flat beside the 
 creek, and worked my way up to the dam. I could hear 
 
 191 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 the stream singing across the riffles of the sluices, see 
 vague outlines of the boxes themselves where they raised 
 their red sides above the ditch banks, but they were not 
 my objective. The planks were too heavy and strong 
 to be smashed as I had the rocker. I intended to destroy 
 its usefulness, not the box ; make the sluice a dry ditch. 
 
 I laid off blanket and pack on the bank s edge, close 
 to the dam ; set the rifle against them ; hunted cautiously 
 about till I found a stout sapling that I had cut for use 
 as a pry while dam building; took it, and waded into the 
 pool directly above the dam. The water, icy cold, came 
 up almost to my arm-pits ; I bent my head to drink deep 
 and long; then, with the sapling for a lever, a rock in the 
 pool for a fulcrum, I snubbed in close to the bottom of 
 the stonework, and laid the weight of my body and all the 
 force of my muscles against the long end, forcing down 
 with short, sharp jerks. The water stored behind the 
 dam was working with me; its pressure seconded my 
 efforts, but it did not have the same regard for silence 
 that made me work so cautiously. As I loosened the 
 mass of rock and dirt, the current started some of the 
 uppermost stones rolling noisily into the dry channel. 
 It was enough to bring Gallup from the hut. I heard 
 him shout a warning to Pardner, saw lights spring up 
 down there, and I forced the lever in for a firmer hold, 
 caught its extreme end with both hands, and swung my 
 weight on it. There was a moment of suspense, then a 
 great crash and the roar of liberated waters, hurling 
 
 192 
 
Faustina 
 
 rocks, flying chunKs of granite, as I sat abruptly in 
 water that covered my head. The dam was down. 
 
 I had no time to celebrate success. I floundered 
 ashore just as a shot came from below to hit a rock and 
 ricochet with a dismal whine over me. Slipping on 
 pack and blanket, I grabbed the rifle, took to the water, 
 and ran up-stream. More bullets and shouts from the 
 men spurred me; wild shots that spatted into the bank, 
 or sizzled through the thick foliage of the chaparral. 
 Turning my head, I saw they were running with torches, 
 and I made a quick dodge to the right, scrambled up the 
 creek bank, dropped flat on my stomach at its top, and 
 cocked the rifle. 
 
 I was too shaken by nerves and the hard run to aim. 
 For a minute or two I lay there panting. The men had 
 stopped at the dam, and were talking excitedly as they 
 brandished torches over the destruction I had done. 
 Pardner was cursing Gallup, Lem and me with impar 
 tiality. Lifting the rifle to my shoulder with hands that 
 had stopped their trembling, I aimed at the torch-lit 
 rock over Pardner s head and sent three bullets to spat 
 ter him with granite chips. Instantly the blazing light- 
 wood was thrown into the water. All was dark. Fear 
 ing they might have seen the flashes of my rifle, I rolled 
 away to tHe right a dozen feet as soon as I fired; but 
 there was no answer. Whether they caught the warn 
 ing I intended to give, or were too astonished at my ac 
 ceptance of the gauge of battle to reply, I heard or saw 
 
 193 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 nothing more of them ; and after a wait of so long a time 
 that I was chilled and shivering, I went cautiously up 
 the gully, through the redwoods, and started over the 
 trail Lem and Zim had followed down the lake to the 
 narrow way over the hills to Susanville. Many miles I 
 put behind me, one quite lofty ridge I wedged between 
 me and the claim-jumpers of Eagle Lake, before I 
 made camp, built me a fire, drank from the canteen, 
 rolled in the blanket, and forgot hunger in sleep. 
 
 A bob-white, sitting on a manzanita root, whistling 
 its mating call, woke me to bright sunlight and the 
 intense relief of freedom and safety. For three days I 
 had been practically a prisoner; for two of those three, 
 had been in constant danger of my life. I threw aside 
 the blanket and leaped to my feet, forgetting scratches, 
 bruises, hunger, in the joy of being far away from the 
 menace of the valley. Bob-white, a perfectly good 
 breakfast, gave a sharp warning call, and a covey of his 
 mates on the ground whirred off on swift-beating wings. 
 I had forgotten quails were food. 
 
 I built up a great fire, for J was still damp and cold 
 from the sleep in wet clothes, hung up the blanket to 
 dry, set the coffee-pot on, took the revolver, which I had 
 never given over as hopeless, and started out after the 
 quail. I had marked them down in a little open place at 
 the edge of the mesquite. As I came carefully up to it, 
 I heard the birds calling. Bending low, moving slowly 
 forward, I peered through the growth of sage and lu- 
 
 194 
 
Faustina 
 
 pine, trying to make out from their whistling where they 
 were located. Gray and brown, they merged so per 
 fectly with the shades of the ground as to be almost in 
 distinguishable, but finally a waving little black plume 
 caught my eye, and with this bird found, the others were 
 easy. More than a dozen I picked up with my eye, 
 scattered in pairs over the small patch, cocks and hens in 
 almost equal numbers. 
 
 I waited, as quiet as any rock on the hillside, and soon 
 they began feeding, running about to mingle in groups ; 
 and their calling stilled. I raised the pistol, training its 
 sights on a large cock, but waited, following the bird s 
 every movement with the muzzle of the gun. As I ex 
 pected, he soon was joined by a closely-bunched group 
 of six, and I fired at once. The report sent the covey 
 flying, with a second shot from my pistol to hurry them ; 
 but four of their number, the cock I had aimed at, and 
 three birds too closely around him to be missed, were 
 little plump, round bunches of flesh and feathers on the 
 ground. My ancient firearm had earned its passage. 
 
 That would be breakfast and dinner. I carried the 
 game back to camp, placed an old strip of bacon-rind in 
 the skillet for frying grease, and was soon picking the 
 bones of sage-fed quail, as delicious food as anyone ever 
 eats; with good, strong, black coffee, drunk from the 
 nose of the pot. It seemed to me that I neyer could re 
 member a happier meal; the good flesh well cooked and 
 seasoned; the hot drink; the long hunger; the relief from 
 
 195 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 fear; the hope of Lem with me again before the day s 
 end. The mounting sun, growing stronger each hour it 
 climbed, had dried my clothes and warmed my bones. 
 I felt like a brand-new boy! 
 
 Two of those birds I ate, one after the other; the first 
 rapidly, ravenously; the second more and more slowly 
 and satisfactorily; big, fat, juicy quail. I even pulled 
 a leg from a third, but I had lost enthusiasm for food. 
 I had filled up the cavity of two days abstinence from all 
 things eatable, and was ready for whatever might come. 
 Brave? I could have faced Gallup and Pardner right 
 then, and quite likely my voice wouldn t have quavered 
 hardly at all ! 
 
 But I was going ahead, not back; farther on toward 
 Susanville. I wanted to find a stream beside the trail 
 to wait for Lem s coming at nightfall. I packed the re 
 maining birds with my kit, rolled the dry blanket, and 
 started on. A stream was not far to seek. Before I 
 had trudged a mile, I saw ahead the fringing woods of 
 a watercourse, and I hurried toward its now grateful 
 shade. 
 
 I was in the sycamores and tan-oak that lined the 
 creek, when I heard the strangest animal-call that I d 
 ever heard in the wilderness. "Ma-a-a-a!" A long 
 bleat came to me from out the scrub in front. 
 
 I dropped flat, pack, blanket and all ; squirmed side- 
 wise into the undergrowth; cocked the rifle and poked its 
 muzzle out before me. Then I waited. " Ma-a-a-a! " 
 
 196 
 
Faustina 
 
 " Can that bleat, Faustina." It was Lem s voice in 
 an imperative command. 
 
 With a wild shout, I came to my feet and ran for the 
 creek, at each step shouting, regardless of grammar, 
 " Lem! It s me! It s me, Lem; it s me! " 
 
 In the creek, drinking and pawing, pack on back, was 
 Zim ; behind him, a rope from Zim s tail connecting with 
 its horns, was a goat; and on that goat s back was a 
 pack; and Lem Strong stood on the shore, mouth hang 
 ing open, eyes wide, and held Zim s halter rope; and 
 Lem also had a pack on his back. For a moment he 
 stood speechless, then we collided in a joyful embrace. 
 
 197 
 
B 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 BATTLE PLANS 
 
 UT what is the goat for, Lem? " I voiced my 
 wonderment, when the first swift inquiries as 
 to my wounds and Lem s errands had been an 
 swered, and I had helped remove the burdens from 
 Lem s shoulders, and the backs of Zim and Faustina. 
 " Why have you brought a goat? " 
 
 " On your list." Lem s raised brows showed surprise 
 at my question. 
 
 " A goat on my list? Never once, Lem." 
 " Milk. You had milk on the list." He was feeling 
 
 198 
 
Battle Plans 
 
 in his pockets to find the paper and prove his authority 
 for purchase. " I couldn t bring a cow, so I did the 
 next best. Faustina is milk." 
 
 I roared with laughter, rolled over and over on the 
 creek bank in glee, nearly went over its edge into the 
 drink. And I stuttered, through tears of merriment: 
 
 "Lem oh, Lem! Canned milkl I wanted ex 
 pected you to get canned milk! " 
 
 " Why didn t you say it then? How should I know 
 milk comes in cans? When I was keeping house at the 
 foot of Telegraph Hill in San Francisco, the Italians 
 nearly all had goats that they milked. I learned how. 
 Besides, Faustina is canned milk. She was eating a tin 
 can when I bought her; and she s a perpetual tin can." 
 Lem s indignation at my mirth was wearing off, and a 
 grin had come to light up his face. " Besides, Faustina 
 will look well on the farm; and she s not so worse as a 
 packhorse, when it comes to that." He plumped down 
 on the bank beside me. 
 
 I had seen that the goat carried a pack; also Lem. 
 Now I asked about them, and in his reply I found how 
 it was that he had gained eight hours on the schedule, 
 was meeting me in the morning instead of the night. 
 
 " You see," he said, " I got to Susanville just as we 
 planned, at noon Friday, but Zim wasn t so tired as we 
 expected, because I had run beside him a good bit of the 
 way to rest myself. I took him to a livery stable and 
 had them look after him right ; rub him down, oil him up, 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 and feed him all he could eat; while I went out and did 
 the errands. I filed your claim," he dug out the re 
 corded petition and receipt for fees " entered the pro 
 test, and got the land-office man to promise a ranger in 
 to look us over the last of next week." 
 
 " So far ahead? " It would be a delay of ten or 
 twelve days. 
 
 " The best he could do. The ranger is up north on the 
 Reserve, letting in sheep on the Government pastures, 
 and won t be back to Susanville until the middle of next 
 week. But your filing is all right, Ted; the land-office 
 man said there w r asn t one chance in a hundred the Gov 
 ernment would open the lakeside to farm settlement; 
 he said it was far too valuable as a water-shed." 
 
 " How about mining? " I asked anxiously. 
 
 " Mining is different. Mining doesn t interfere, he 
 said. They ll patent mineral claims, whatever that 
 is " 
 
 " Give title to them; the Government will grant own 
 ership." 
 
 " Well, they ll give ownership to mines but not to 
 farms. Just the same I bought the garden seeds," he 
 pulled a handful of the little envelopes with their gaily- 
 colored covers from his pocket, and ranged them on the 
 grass before him. " Lettuce look at the size of it, 
 Ted ! Some salad that ! And round radishes, and long 
 radishes. Artichokes, too with mayonnaise, yum, 
 
 yum!" 
 
 200 
 
Battle Plans 
 
 " Did the land-office know Gallup or Pardner? " I 
 said, after admiring the lithographs. 
 
 " He knew James Goober Gallup. He s a peanut 
 lawyer living near town there. A shyster with nary a 
 client. I learned by asking around here and there, 
 quietly, that Goober Gallup had a visitor last Monday 
 night who rode into town on a bay horse " 
 
 "Zim! Pardner!" 
 
 " So I guessed, first guess. He came and went by 
 night. But next day Tuesday Gallup filed that 
 homestead petition, and began getting an outfit to 
 gether. Wednesday morning, he and three donkeys 
 left town. Is he mining your claim yet, Ted? " 
 
 " He s not! He s probably rebuilding the dam," and 
 I told Lem what had taken place in his absence, how I 
 had smashed both cradle and dam, Lem applauding with 
 chuckles of glee. 
 
 " Bully ! " he cried when I finished. " That s the way 
 to keep them from robbing you. But, Ted, you ve not 
 asked where I found Faustina." 
 
 " The goat? You bought her, of course." 
 
 " Yes, but I ll give you a dozen guesses who I bought 
 her of. It was Mrs. Gallup who owned her." 
 
 "Mrs. Gallup?" I echoed, vaguely worried. "Is 
 Gallup married? " 
 
 " Yep. And she keeps goats. She supports Gallup, 
 too, when he isn t stealing mines. She s a real nice lady, 
 and her kids are nice, too." 
 
 201 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 "Goat kids?" I was getting more worried with 
 every word Lem spoke. 
 
 " Human kids. Boy and girl, seven and five. Cuties, 
 both of em, curly hair, big eyes. They think their 
 daddy is fine. Maybe Mrs. G. has doubts, but those 
 kids haven t a one. They re why I started back Satur 
 day night instead of waiting for Sunday morning." 
 
 I had reached out and pulled a weed, which I tore into 
 bits, scowling all the while, as I studied the problem of 
 Gallup with a wife and two little kids. Lem went on 
 talking, not looking at me. 
 
 " I knew you d want to know that just as soon as you 
 could. It makes a difference, doesn t it? " 
 
 " It does. Of course it does, Lem." 
 
 " And we won t shoot Gallup? " 
 
 I leaped to my feet. " Not for a hundred claims! 
 We ll give up and get out first! " 
 
 " Sit down, Ted. We re not going to give up your 
 claim." 
 
 " Our claim. It s yours as much as mine." 
 
 " Our claim, then; not to anybody. We re going to 
 hold it. And we re going to send the human peanut 
 back to his family, sound, whole, and not a dirty thief! 
 Shall we, Ted? " 
 
 I gave him my hand on it, sank down again beside 
 him, and asked: 
 
 " Why did you split the pack into three? Zim could 
 have carried it all." 
 
 202 
 
Battle Plans 
 
 " Zim had traveled seventy miles, and I was starting 
 back before he d rested enough; so I cut his pack down 
 to a hundred pounds, gave Faustina twenty-five, and I 
 took fifty. That seemed fair enough, and Zim never 
 made a kick all the way. Faustina has objected, but 
 we ve traveled six hours and rested two, with all packs 
 off at the rests; and Faustina and I slept quite a 
 lot." 
 
 " It s a wonder you aren t dead, lugging fifty pounds 
 all this way. And Faustina, if she never sheds a drop 
 of milk, has earned her room and board." 
 
 Lem s eyes went to where the goat was nibbling grass 
 in a circle at the end of her tether. " She s a good goat, 
 except for her voice. If she * Ma-a-a-a-a-s all the 
 time in the valley, Gallup and Pardner will soon be 
 eating goat flesh. What ll we do with the nanny, 
 Ted?" 
 
 " That ll be all right. I ve a plan that I want to talk 
 over after dinner. I suppose you re hungry? " 
 
 "Always. I ve had plenty to eat, but all cold snacks, 
 and no coffee. Suppose we have coffee? " 
 
 " Lie still, while I build a fire." I pressed him back 
 into the grass, and started a hot dinner, with the two 
 quail warmed over for him. There was plenty of food 
 in the packs, and extra plates, cups and utensils. It 
 was while we were eating that Lem remembered some 
 information he d picked up, not important to his mind, 
 but decidedly so in mine. Wayne, the Jamesville hotel 
 
 203 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 man, had been in the Susanville land-office about a 
 month before, looking up my title to the Black Boulder 
 claim. 
 
 The time must have been shortly before my return 
 from the clean-up, and Wayne s offer to buy the work 
 ings. The hotel man had made a long trip to find out 
 whether I had complied with the law in every respect to 
 hold the claim. I knew I had done the assessment work 
 regularly and properly, and had filed my proofs. Evi 
 dently, Wayne found out the same thing, for he had 
 subsequently tried to purchase from me. But what was 
 his interest in the Black Boulder? Why would he travel 
 a couple of hundred miles on horseback to satisfy him 
 self that I had neglected nothing required by law? 
 What did he see of value in the gravel claim on Baldy 
 that I didn t and couldn t see? 
 
 I had to give it up. I put it out of mind, and turned 
 to the more immediate proposition of the Hot Biscuit 
 claim. I laid that matter before Lem as he stowed quail 
 away and drank coffee with sugar in the cup. 
 
 "All we ve got to do," I began, " is to keep Gallup 
 and Pardner from mining the creek bottom until the 
 forest ranger comes in. I d hoped he could get here 
 quicker, but we can stick it out ten days. Gallup and 
 Pardner will get that dam rebuilt as soon as they can, 
 and start the sluices. My job is to make it unhealthy 
 at the sluices. That s why you lugged all those rifle 
 cartridges, Lem." 
 
 204 
 
Battle Plans 
 
 " I wanted to buy another rifle, but it wasn t on the 
 list." 
 
 " No; and I didn t want you to have one. I m pretty 
 sure when I pull the trigger just where the bullet s go 
 ing. You wouldn t be " 
 
 " I d know it wasn t going where I aimed; that s a 
 pipe." 
 
 "And you might hit a man maybe kill him. I don t 
 intend to kill anyone, and won t need to. Still, I can 
 keep em from mining with your help." 
 
 " Where do I come in? " 
 
 I told him, and set him chuckling. I explained every 
 detail of my scheme, and that afternoon for we were 
 not to start until twilight we rehearsed it, practised on 
 the hillside until we were perfect. Every few minutes 
 Lem would have a suggestion to better the plan, and 
 we added to it, and tried it out. If anybody had come 
 over the Susanville trail that afternoon, and had passed 
 the creek where we camped, they d have thought two 
 boys were crazy, or else a Boy Scout detail was at work 
 in the wilderness. But there were only Zim and Faus 
 tina to witness our gesticulations, and they were too 
 busy feeding to give us more than an occasional eye. 
 
 After we had practised till we felt perfect, we wrote 
 it all down in duplicate, so we couldn t go wrong if we 
 did forget, and each stowed a copy in a pocket; then 
 curled up in the shade and went to sleep. Directly after 
 supper, we repacked, filled the canteen, and I ahead 
 
 205 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 with Zim, Lem following with a " Ma-a-a-a "-ing goat, 
 started back toward Eagle Lake. Remembering how 
 I had seen from Sentinel Rock three burros to mistake 
 them for deer, I intended that darkness should be com 
 plete before we came into eye-range of a possible 
 watcher on the peak at the lake s edge. 
 
 It was plenty dark enough to suit me when we turned 
 off the trail into the rough side-hills, and I was glad I 
 had traveled them so often, day and night, and knew 
 their difficulties. As it was, we had to make frequent 
 stops for rest, and it was during one of these, when we 
 were at a spot midway between the deserted cabin and 
 our valley, that Lem whispered, pulling my sleeve: 
 
 " Look, Ted ! A light at the cabin ! " 
 
 But I was looking at another light that puzzled me 
 more than any illumination of the log house could, even 
 a conflagration ; my light was in our valley, and it was 
 a big fire. I d have said it was our shack burning, but 
 it seemed too far from the lake. Its flames lit up Sen 
 tinel Rock, and the peak at the other side of the creek s 
 mouth, but it also was reflected against the redwood 
 foliage. 
 
 " What are they burning there, Lem? " I asked. 
 
 " I don t know," impatiently. " Who d you think s 
 in the cabin, Ted?" 
 
 " I can t guess. Have they set fire to the chaparral? " 
 
 " It s steady as a candle ; maybe a fire in the chimney." 
 
 " It s getting bigger every minute. Look, Lem ! " 
 
 206 
 
Battle Plans 
 
 " Now it s gone. Went out in a flash. What was it, 
 Ted?" 
 
 " I don t know. Look at my blaze. What do you 
 think? " 
 
 Lem, his little flicker gone, looked at last toward the 
 illumination my finger pointed to, studied it a long min 
 ute, then said: 
 
 " Gallup and Pardner have a bonfire to guard their 
 rebuilt dam, Ted. See, it s right at the top edge of my 
 garden. They ve built a big blaze so they can see you 
 if you come down to tip over their work." 
 
 That was so reasonable an explanation that I accepted 
 it at once, and turned to Lem s light problem; but his 
 must be taken on say-so, for there was nothing to indi 
 cate there d ever been a light in that direction now. 
 From his description, I guessed he had seen the fireplace 
 glow through door or window. Anyhow, someone was 
 in the cabin. Possibly Gallup, or Pardner, or both, al 
 though Lem wouldn t allow that supposition to stand a 
 second. * They re down below the bonfire, rifles in 
 hand, guarding the dam," he insisted. " There s a third 
 man at the cabin. And, Ted, it may be he s been there 
 all the time. Maybe Pardner wasn t in it when you first 
 went by. Maybe someone else is hiding out on Eagle 
 Lake." 
 
 He was still maybe-ing when we headed again for the 
 valley, but I was too confused by all the possibilities to 
 listen much. At about midnight, we came down the 
 
 207 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 gully side above the redwoods, watered Zim and Faus 
 tina in the creek, and I led off at right angles, straight 
 up the stream s bed. It was hard going, over rocks and 
 in water, but Zim was almost as sure-footed as Faustina, 
 who could stand on a stone not much bigger than my 
 hand, four hoofs together, and leap lightly to the next. 
 An hour or more we kept to the water, leaving no tracks, 
 then turned at the forks into a little flat about the size 
 of Lem s garden patch, and made camp. I risked a 
 small fire, after unpacking and tethering the animals, 
 for Lem and me to dry out, and again we boiled coffee. 
 It s wonderful how much coffee a boy can drink when 
 he s making day out of night, and working hard at the 
 job ; and how little that coffee will affect his sleep. Lem 
 was snoozing before he d finished a second cup, and I d 
 have been, but I just had to keep from sleep; we must 
 be out before the first sign of dawn. 
 
 So I stayed awake, and worried over who was in the 
 cabin down the lake, what Wayne wanted of the Black 
 Boulder, and whether my plans for the day would work 
 out as well as they looked in scheming. 
 
 I awoke Lem at three; the sun rose about half-past 
 four at that time of the year; gave him the luncheon I d 
 packed for his nooning, and watched him away; then 
 picked up the rifle, threw the pistol by its cord over my 
 shoulder, and started down for my old friend, the split 
 boulder. 
 
 As daylight came, I scanned eagerly the mountain- 
 
 208 
 
Battle Plans 
 
 side across the valley, even before I could pick pine from 
 fir in the gloom, hunting for the signal that would tell 
 me Lem was in position, ready to do his part. I found 
 it just as the sun behind the peaks sent its bright colors 
 aloft to give promise of its coming. High up on the 
 north slope of our valley, in the heart of the pine forest, 
 from the scraggied top of a lofty trunk, fluttered a little 
 white rag; Lem s dirty pocket handkerchief. A long 
 half mile away, a valley between ; but it told me that my 
 friend was watching every movement of two enemies 
 asleep now in our shack, and that I should from conceal 
 ment watch them through his eyes. 
 
 209 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 THE BATTLE OPENS 
 
 THIN rays of an early sun were slanting down 
 the canon, making rubies of rocks, rose bloom 
 of foliage, when the white rag on the pine van 
 ished. I could not see the arm that removed it, but I 
 knew that Lem, perched up there, probably straddling a 
 branch on the other side of the trunk, had signaled the 
 arising of one or both of the men at the hut. An instant 
 later came a flicker of white from the right of the trunk, 
 meaning Gallup; then from the left; Pardner. I was 
 informed by my observer that the enemy were both out 
 of bed, both under his eye. 
 
 210 
 
The Battle Opens 
 
 Even had I been on top of the boulder where I might 
 be seen, I would have been unable to get such a view of 
 them as Lem had from his tree. In the crevice, of 
 course, they would not be visible to me until they were 
 half-way to the dam, but all the while they were in the 
 valley, from the lake s shore to the redwood forest, or if 
 they climbed the slope of the hill I was on, Lem could 
 watch them. He was well concealed. Knowing where 
 he was, all I had seen of him was the flutter of his hand 
 kerchief, and hereafter he would use his cap, dark col 
 ored and much less conspicuous in the gloom of the 
 pines. Should he be located by Pardner and Gallup, he 
 was out of range of their rifles, and long before they 
 could close up to shooting distance, he d be down and 
 hidden in a safe place already selected. 
 
 Almost an hour went by without sign from Lem or 
 sight of anyone. Then an arm with a cap at its extrem 
 ity came from the right side of the tree, stayed a moment 
 perpendicularly, then wig- wagged, one, two, three; Gal 
 lup was moving eastward. Cap raised, lowered to per 
 pendicular; Gallup carried a rifle. I looked for another 
 signal from Lem s left hand; his Pardner hand; but it 
 didn t come. Pardner was remaining at the hut. I 
 poked my face through the brush at the cleft s opening 
 and looked down to see the little lawyer, pick over shoul 
 der, rifle in hand, coming jauntily toward the dam. 
 Evidently a night s freedom from attack had been reas 
 suring. 
 
 211 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 I let him ramble on until he was within a hundred 
 yards of my hiding-place, then, aiming carefully, raised 
 a puff of dust right in front of his feet, and greeted his 
 ear to the wail of a mangled bullet taking the rebound. 
 Gallup stopped as abruptly as if hit, dropped the pick 
 with a clatter, grasped the gun in both hands, and 
 jumped over the creek s bank. I saw the splash of his 
 landing, then turned my eyes back to Lem. 
 
 Both arms out perpendicular; cap in one hand, hand 
 kerchief in the other. I wished he wouldn t use the 
 white once white rag. It was too conspicuous. But 
 he was signaling with it at the left; Pardner was run 
 ning to join Gallup, who had hid behind the stream s 
 bluff bank. I threw the rifle lever, sending a cartridge 
 home, looked down and waited. No one came into view. 
 Lem was wig- wagging, and I counted; six waves of 
 the handkerchief; Pardner was coming up the creek- 
 bed. 
 
 My cue was to remain quiet there, keep my head 
 back, and watch for Lem s signals. There was nothing 
 in the shot I had fired to tell the men where I was hiding. 
 I was using smokeless powder, and the echoes of the re 
 port made location by ear impossible. Nor could they 
 tell from the ricochet of the bullet any more than its 
 general direction. So long as I kept tight in my hole 
 and watched Lem, I was as safe as a flicker in his hol- 
 lowed-out nest. But it was the hardest thing I ever 
 tried to do. 
 
 212 
 
The Battle Opens 
 
 An arm each side of the trunk wagged four times ; the 
 men were moving westward; then six times, meaning 
 they were keeping to the creek. On their way back to the 
 shack, I guessed. If I climbed up to the ledge I could 
 see them as they cut up from the stream. That wasn t 
 in our plans, but it suited me better than lying in a crack 
 of a rock, waiting for Lem to talk with his hands. 
 
 I learned then the reason discipline is so necessary in 
 an army; why the soldier who disobeys is punished se 
 verely. Plans are made beforehand when time is ample 
 for careful thought by cool brains and concentrated 
 minds ; the break from the plan is usually an inspiration 
 of the moment. It may gain a point, just as I expected 
 to learn something of advantage from a perch on top 
 the rock; but it endangers the carefully-laid plan just 
 as my move busted ours wide open ! 
 
 When I d pulled myself up to lie on the ledge, Lem 
 was signaling, but I had missed the beginning and its 
 message was meaningless. I hoped he d repeat, lifted 
 my head to get a clearer view of him, and spat! A 
 bullet hit the rock not six inches from my nose. I 
 ducked, rolled sidewise, and flopped back into the crev 
 ice. It was so close a squeak that I was trembling as 
 badly as Gallup ever had. And, worst of all, I d told 
 the enemy where I was hid. 
 
 My being discovered wasn t anywhere in our plans. 
 We had arranged what to do if Lem was located, but I, 
 with my traceless nitro-powder, my concealing echoes, 
 
 213 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 was to lie hidden all day long and keep the jumpers 
 jumping. Now they could train their artillery on my 
 boulder and make it more interesting for me than I 
 could for them. If the crevice had been wider and 
 longer, I d have kicked myself for this stupidity. 
 
 Lem would be scared stiff up the tree, not knowing 
 whether the bullet had hit me or not. I must relieve his 
 mind at once by firing a shot; and as long as I was going 
 to shoot anyhow, I might as well do some good with the 
 bullet. Squirming on my stomach, to present as small 
 a target as possible, I crawled to the opening and looked 
 out. 
 
 There was no signal from the pine; no indication of 
 Gallup and Pardner. The shot that had sent me scur 
 rying from the top of the rock came from the mouth of 
 the creek. I d seen the smoke of black powder. I 
 looked hard down that way, then came the simultaneous 
 slap of a bullet on rock and the crack of a rifle, while a 
 little puff of smoke floated above the bank of the creek. 
 
 I waited. The tiny white cloud from the burnt black 
 powder had given me the general location of the rifle 
 men, and I adjusted my globe sight for a range of four 
 hundred yards, cocked the weapon, and lay ready for a 
 quick shot. A movement above the brow of the bank; 
 then an arm and shoulder exposed; one of the men tak 
 ing position to shoot. I aimed well to the right of the 
 target, not wanting to hit, and pulled trigger. With 
 the report the target vanished. A moment more I 
 
 214 
 
The Battle Opens 
 
 watched there, then turned my glance to Lem s observa 
 tion post. 
 
 Both hands out straight; the men had not separated. 
 One, two, three; then six, very slowly with both hands; 
 together they were moving up the stream, keeping be 
 hind its edge. I saw what their game would be. The 
 lilac bush before the boulder was hiding both me and the 
 mouth of the crevice, leaving only the top of the rock as 
 a target. They had to guess where I was in the mass of 
 stone and brush. But if they could get opposite, where 
 lower foliage exposed the trend of the cleft, they could 
 place bullets with much greater accuracy. It would be 
 a dangerous position there for me should the men gain 
 cover close to the dam. 
 
 To reach the dam, they must pass a space of a hundred 
 feet where the stream ran shallow and the bank was low, 
 exposed to my fire, or else they might take to the thicket 
 and risk stopping bullets sent at random through the 
 brush. Either way, it was a ticklish stretch; just how 
 dangerous they couldn t know, for Lem would see them 
 all the time, and keep me posted. He was watching 
 them now, semaphoring. I read, " Both men going up 
 the creek, in the channel, moving slowly. They stop. 
 They talk," and I knew the decision of whether to cross 
 the open space or make the detour would come quickly. 
 My eyes left Lem to find the shallows. 
 
 Pardner led out, his broad back hunched over, head 
 pulled down between shoulders. He was trusting to 
 
 215 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 slip by unseen. I could have put a bullet through that 
 mess of red hair, for he was not two hundred yards 
 away; and I should have been justified in doing so; but 
 I could not bring myself to kill. I drew fire on his 
 crimson thatch, but I was set at four hundred yards, and 
 the bullet must have passed a foot or more directly over 
 his head; close enough for him to hear its angry, hornet 
 buzz. He dropped as though it had hit him. 
 
 Gallup, who had just poked out into the open, 
 jumped back like a Jack-in-the-box, as I sent a ball 
 singing over him, and Pardner squirmed along on hands 
 and knees to join him, while I spattered water over him 
 to urge haste. Lem began announcements as soon as 
 the two were out of my sight ; one, two, three, four, both 
 hands ; slowly, then faster, faster ; then halt. They had 
 run down the creek as rapidly as legs would take them, 
 not stopping until they reached the place of start 
 ing. 
 
 Then, in a minute, the signal that I dreaded came 
 from Lem; both arms held high in air. It meant that 
 the men were separating. I looked across to see Pard 
 ner make a run to disappear in one of the many defiles 
 of the lake s shore. I could not see Gallup, but Lem 
 was pointing him as going southward. The enemy had 
 split forces, one to reach the high places to the north, 
 where he could hide in the pine woods and pot me when 
 I poked a head from the crevice to look for Lem ; Gallup 
 on a detour southward to come up from behind. It was 
 
 216 
 
The Battle Opens 
 
 good tactics ; we had planned that they would do it ; but 
 we hadn t planned that they should know exactly where 
 I lay hid. Now, if they acted with promptness and en 
 ergy, I must either become a prisoner in my hole or a 
 dead Ted Wilson. 
 
 Still, I wasn t so badly discouraged about the situa 
 tion. In the first place, Gallup was not only a poor 
 rifleman, but a coward; and Parclner, bolder and a bet 
 ter shot, was lazy. It would be just like the big, red- 
 faced claim-jumper to get tired before he found a good 
 position to do his potting of me and leave the matter for 
 another day. He was a " Mariana " man, as the Mexi 
 cans say; putting off till to-morrow what ought to be 
 done to-day. 
 
 Besides, Lem was my good watch-dog, could follow 
 Gallup s every movement, perhaps keep tabs on Pard- 
 ner, although he d be among the pines and probably con 
 cealed from Lem. I d try to watch the big man. Even 
 now, Lem s right hand, holding the cap, was telling me 
 the story of the snooping Gallup. He had gone along 
 the lake shore, made a wide circle, and come into a posi 
 tion higher and back of me, where he expected, I sup 
 pose, to rake the crevice with his fire. My human sema 
 phore told me he was getting set to shoot. Very well. 
 He couldn t know that the cleft was as crooked as a 
 snake, and the bullet that got to me from his direction 
 would have to turn corners. I only hugged the floor a 
 little tighter, listened to the report of the rifle and won- 
 
 217 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 dered where the bullet went. Probably he missed the 
 boulder. 
 
 Suddenly Lem s left hand shot out ; he d seen Pard- 
 ner ; but instead of waving code signals, he was pointing. 
 I strained my eyes to make out what his hand indicated, 
 and finally determined it was either the stump of a dead 
 pine or a large fallen log, both at the lower edge of the 
 forest, one of which sheltered the big man. " Ready to 
 fire," Lem signaled warning, and I moved back out of 
 danger before a bullet struck the wall inside the mouth 
 of the cleft, too close for my happiness. If Pardner 
 had not found the best location, it wasn t as bad a one 
 as I d like him to have. He was behind the down log, 
 powder smoke told me. I guessed the distance, set 
 sight for three hundred yards, and shot a bit under. 
 Drawing coarser sight, I saw the dust of rotted wood 
 leap from the log. Because of Lem and the claim- 
 jumper s use of black powder, I had prisoned him, in 
 stead of being caged up myself. Unless he wanted to 
 take the chance of a fifty-foot dash, he was tied there. 
 Lem was waving his cap, and it wasn t a signal; it was 
 three cheers ! 
 
 The red head lifted above the log for a return shot, 
 but I was waiting for it. The bark my bullet spattered 
 must have struck his face. With this rifle of mine, a 
 wonderful weapon and familiar to me, I have killed 
 deer at five hundred yards; not every time, but now 
 and again. Now I was shooting prone, with plenty of 
 
 218 
 
The Battle Opens 
 
 time to aim, tested range, and no wind; it would be 
 strange if I couldn t place the bullets just where I 
 wished. I might have put a leaden slug into Pardner s 
 head just as easily as into the log before him. He 
 probably realized it, for he kept covered after that 
 shot. 
 
 Lem s Gallup-arm began to wave, one, two, three. 
 Gallup was moving farther east. Plunking another 
 bullet into Pardner s log to insure his staying there, I 
 climbed up on the ledge and looked for the lawyer. He 
 was a half mile or more away, headed for the redwoods, 
 having tired, probably, of rifle practice. Let him go. 
 He was not seriously dangerous at any time, and I could 
 guess where he d show next. I took my lunch, climbed 
 up on the higher boulder s top, laid the rifle across my 
 knees, and ate with the appetite of mountain air and no 
 breakfast. I kept an eye on Lem, the other on Pard- 
 ner s log, and wondered if Lem would see me eating, 
 take the hint, and secure some nourishment in this 
 respite. 
 
 I was washing down the last crumb with a long pull 
 at the canteen when I heard a sound that stiffened me 
 into a flat line on the rock. It came from our lean-to, 
 or close by it; was the noise of someone moving things 
 about there. Another minute, ana it came again and 
 louder; something heavy had fallen with a crash in the 
 cabin. 
 
 Cautiously I lifted my head and looked. Nothing in 
 
 219 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 sight to explain the sound. It could not be Gallup, for 
 I had seen him disappear far up in the redwoods. Was 
 it possible Pardner had slipped from behind his log and 
 returned? My eyes went across the valley to Lem, who 
 raised his left arm, then pointed; the big man was still 
 there. Something or somebody was in the hut, and it 
 was neither of the claim- jumpers. 
 
 For a long time I watched the lean-to between lilac 
 leaves, seeing nothing, hearing no more. Then, just as 
 I had made up my mind to return to the crevice, a man 
 came from the hut, and immediately disappeared down 
 the bank of the lake. I had but a broken glimpse of him 
 through the foliage, but he was neither Gallup nor 
 Pardner. Instinctively I looked for the latter, to find 
 that he had risen from concealment, was standing re 
 gardless of the danger of my rifle, and was peering at 
 the hut. As I raised the gun quickly to my shoulder, he 
 started a wild run back up the hill, away from me into 
 the forest. Afraid of me? I knew better. He was 
 running from what I had seen, a man at the cabin. 
 
 Sliding, scrambling, I came down the boulder and 
 began a mad race for my hut. Whoever had frightened 
 Pardner must be friendly to me. I ran stumbling down 
 the slope to the valley, then across the flat, dashing up 
 the rocks to where I had seen the form disappear. No 
 one was in sight. I called loudly a dozen times. No 
 answer. I puffed and panted a half mile along the lake 
 side, then satisfied that whoever had been there had got- 
 
 220 
 
The Battle Opens 
 
 ten well away, returned more slowly to the boulder and 
 crept back into my crevice. 
 
 If Lem was still in his tree, he was behind its trunk 
 and had no reason for signals. The sun left the cleft to 
 cast its shadows to the east. A chipmunk, brilliant in 
 yellow and black stripes, paid me a call and jerked his 
 plumed tail in time to shrill chirps. It was a beautifully 
 calm, windless, sun-bright afternoon; perfumes of lilac 
 and blossoming roses lifted to my face from the valley; 
 I grew drowsy with the hum of a bumble-bee. Drowsy. 
 Asleep. 
 
 221 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 IN THE NIGHT 
 
 THAT I escaped the penalty of the soldier who 
 falls asleep at his post while on lookout or 
 picket duty was not because I slept with one 
 eye open, or merited punishment less. I deserved to 
 wake up looking into the muzzles of rifles poked over the 
 edge of the crevice, but I didn t. When, near sunset, I 
 opened dragging eyes unwillingly, then remembering, 
 popped them wide in surprise and fear, shook sleep from 
 my limbs, crawled to the opening, and looked across to 
 Lem s tree, the valley was still as placid as when I left 
 the world behind in slumber. The valley, at sunset, 
 
 222 
 
In the Night 
 
 spelled peace, quiet, rest; as though bullets had never 
 sped across it to seek human targets. 
 
 Slowly, carefully, I surveyed it from the redwoods to 
 the lake, prying gaze boring into every thicket, probing 
 each chaparral ; first with the dread of a rifle s crack to 
 curb my inquisitive spirit; then with more assurance, 
 courage, and a further stretched neck. Nothing to 
 cast suspicion upon its peacefulness. No stir of leaf in 
 the sage and mesquite, no rustle of branch in the trees ; 
 only the ripple of the stream, and the distant drumming 
 of a grouse. If Gallup and Pardner were anywhere 
 below there, they were too cleverly concealed for me to 
 discover their hiding-places; and Lem must have lost 
 sight of them completely, for nothing showed of arm, 
 hand or cap in the blasted pine on the slope. 
 
 The rebuilt dam had called for occasional glances 
 from me in the excitements of the day; now I studied it 
 carefully, and found that it had been more than repaired. 
 Reconstructed, it was much broader, and doubled in 
 strength. I doubted that I could, even with pry and 
 fulcrum, demolish it in an all night of work. But my 
 eyes found something of greater importance to me. The 
 rocks that my lever had sent tumbling down the stream 
 had been rolled and tossed by the current to be stopped 
 by the barrier of the curve, and the place where I found 
 the gold was under a pile of heavy stones. Every indi 
 cation of my digging for the prospect-pans had been 
 destroyed. 
 
 223 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 The flume was spouting merrily; too much water 
 coming through for practical mining; but that was a de 
 tail, righted in a few minutes with a shovel, by widening 
 the ditch. Dam and sluices were ready for their work, 
 and I ached to get down there and begin clearing the 
 creek s bed. I d need to make a sledge of some kind, so 
 Zim could haul pay-dirt from below the dam to the head 
 of the sluices; a box on a pair of runners would do. 
 That swift-flowing stream would carry all the dirt I 
 could shovel out and haul. If it was up on Baldy, or 
 one of half its size even a quarter the flow the Black 
 Boulder claim would be so valuable that I d never have 
 to worry about Mother Laing, Lem, or my own educa 
 tion. 
 
 Well, the water was here on the Hot Biscuit, and 
 there was gold in the sands of the Hot Biscuit, and an 
 other day was drawing to its end without Gallup and 
 Pardner gaining possession of the property; at least, 
 not working it. We had prevented their stealing a single 
 pan of the bottom mud. They wouldn t work at night. 
 It would need a bonfire at the dam to give light for their 
 operations, and they would be in its blaze with us and 
 the rifle out in the darkness. They didn t have nerve 
 enough for that. 
 
 But where were the men now? Why had Pardner 
 started running when he saw a stranger at the hut? 
 Where had he run to? Who was the stranger? Where 
 had the stranger gone? Where had Gallup disap- 
 
 224 
 
In the Night 
 
 peared when he entered the redwoods? Interesting 
 questions, all of them; I could think up as many more, 
 and answer none. 
 
 There was movement in Lem s pine-top, and his cap 
 began waving its message. Gallup, on the hill behind 
 me, was moving westward. Then the cap went up to 
 arm s length above the shoulder, held there an instant, 
 and brought down quickly. " Look," it said, in our 
 code. 
 
 Hastily I came to my feet, peeped over the rim of the 
 crevice, and looked upon a little cavalcade that sent my 
 heart down into my boots at the same time it raised all 
 the anger in me. Gallup was leading Zim, while Faus 
 tina followed. The lawyer had found our camp, stolen 
 our animals, and I could see that Zim was packed 
 carried away all our supplies. 
 
 He was out of range, fortunately for him and for me. 
 I do not believe I should have hesitated an instant in 
 sending a bullet through his thieving brain, for he was 
 stealing our very lives. Not only every ounce of food 
 we had, but the horse that we must use to reach food 
 had been taken from us. This was the calamity not 
 anywhere in our plans. Even now I was wildly hun 
 gry. One meal, and a small one, in the last twenty-four 
 hours had not appeased the appetite of a healthy boy. 
 Lem was undoubtedly in the same condition. And this 
 weasel-lawyer had stolen our food. 
 
 I started to climb from the cleft with the crazy idea 
 
 225 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 of chasing after him; of recapturing horse, goat and 
 packs; but I thought in time of the uselessness of the 
 attempt. He was three-quarters of a mile away, and 
 could travel at least as rapidly as I could, and farther. 
 There wasn t a chance to stalk him on the open hill. He 
 had seen me already, judging from the change he made 
 in his course. And he had a rifle, could stand behind 
 Zim and shoot across his back. So I did nothing, while 
 the procession disappeared from my view in one of the 
 gullies beside the lake; then lay down again in the crev 
 ice and waited for the hour I should rejoin Lem. 
 
 It came at last in night s blackness, and I cautiously 
 crept out and around to the place of meeting in the hol 
 low tree that had housed us for a night. As I stepped 
 to the opening, Lem spoke from inside: 
 
 " That you, Ted? " And I answered promptly and 
 joyfully. It was better than food, hearing Lem s voice. 
 He sounded cheerful enough, as he asked, " Had supper 
 yet?" 
 
 " You know why I haven t why there isn t going to 
 be any supper. I d have shot the thief if I d seen him 
 sooner." My feeling of wrath was hot in my voice. 
 
 That s why I didn t signal sooner," Lem rejoined 
 coolly. " I had the hunch you d shoot first and remem 
 ber those two kids and the missis afterward. How 
 would a few pine nuts hit your palate? " and he passed 
 me a handful he d gathered in the woods. 
 
 I began feeling better at once, and before I d finished 
 
 226 
 
In the Night 
 
 was as glad Lem had forgotten to signal as Gallup 
 would have been if he d known it. Without a blanket 
 to cover the opening, we didn t dare have a fire in the 
 tree, but we sat together with our backs against the 
 wood and discussed the day s events. Lem had not seen 
 the man at the lean-to, didn t know, until I told him the 
 reason, why Pardner had run. But Pardner had never 
 stopped running so long as he was within view from the 
 lofty pine tree; running or walking hurriedly, he had 
 continued into the forest and up the mountain, away 
 from the hut, the valley and the lake. 
 
 When we had finished the nuts and asked all the 
 questions we had in us, Lem made a suggestion I readily 
 accepted; that we go down the creek aways, get an idea 
 of what the enemy was doing if they had come back at 
 all. 
 
 We set out at once, I with the rifle leading, and made 
 our way to the dam, where we stopped to reconnoiter 
 with eye and ear. As there was nothing to see or hear, 
 I led off again, keeping close to the bank of the stream, 
 ready to slip over in the instant of alarm. So we came 
 opposite our hut, black as a pocket, silent as a tomb. 
 Lem placed his lips to my ear, and whispered: 
 
 Wait here." Then he slipped away. 
 
 I obeyed scarcely breathing, rifle ready to create a 
 disturbance should Lem be discovered; and in a short 
 time he was again at my side, whispering, not so cau 
 tiously as before: 
 
 227 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 " Nobody home." 
 
 " Our packs are they there? " I asked low. 
 
 " No. Some of their truck is, but it s all scattered 
 and torn up around inside, bunks emptied out, every 
 thing topsy-turvy. I couldn t see, but I could feel." 
 
 " Well," I said, " it s all strange enough. Let s start 
 back." 
 
 " Start nothing! I came to get you. We re going 
 to reoccupy the hut," and his hand on my arm, he led me 
 along up the rock-way to the lean-to. This might be a 
 trap set by our enemies, quail-cage or twitch-up, but it 
 was baited with the promise of food and blankets, and I 
 followed Lem into it. 
 
 228 
 
I 
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 THE LIGHTNING-CHANGE ACT 
 
 D give a quarter interest in the Hot Biscuit gold 
 mine, right this minute, for a cup of hot coffee," 
 Lem remarked, a half hour later, the first words 
 spoken above a whisper in the hut that night. I glanced 
 around nervously, saying: 
 "Do you think it s safe?" 
 
 " I m willing to take a chance if you are. I believe 
 Pardner is still hurdling the ice-capped peaks of the 
 high Sierras, running away from his past; and Gallup, 
 as a fighting man, is a joke. Let s." 
 
 229 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 I went over to the fireplace, laid my rifle within hand s 
 reach, found the pitch kindling, and piled up wood 
 enough for a cooking blaze; then touched a match to it, 
 grabbed the rifle and jumped back to the deep shade of 
 the cabin. For the few moments that the fire was mak 
 ing headway into flames, I listened anxiously for the 
 crack of a rifle and the spat of its bullet; but no sound 
 broke the peace of the night. Lem had filled the coffee 
 pot, and now adjusted it over the heat as I urged haste 
 away from the glow. 
 
 The front of the lean-to was open and facing the fire 
 place, with the lake beyond. If we kept well at the back 
 of the cabin where the bunk and table were, we would 
 be exposed only to the view of a possible someone on 
 Sentinel Rock, or the lake itself; and the glow of the fire 
 gave us opportunity to see the contents of the hut. 
 Lem had said upon his first investigation that it was in 
 confusion; but we realized now that it had been gone 
 through in a hurried search for something, by some 
 body who had no regard for orderliness or a tidy 
 room. 
 
 We began picking things up, packing them away; put 
 the pine-boughs and needles, with the blankets, back in 
 the bunk; gathered the scattered food and supplies into 
 one corner. And we found that the captured provisions 
 were a generous supply, bacon, part of a ham, crackers 
 in tins, canned milk, ginger-snaps in packages, besides 
 flour, sugar and like necessities. So far as food went, 
 
 230 
 
The Lightning-Change Act 
 
 we had gained in the trade with Gallup and Pardner; 
 and Zim and Faustina, though I hated to think of them 
 in Gallup s hands, could hardly be regarded as assets; 
 they had to be looked after. 
 
 "Fair enough; fair enough/ Lem chuckled, as he 
 staggered under the weight of a heavy case. " I don t 
 know what s in here, but we re winners as is. Hand 
 me that axe and I ll bust this open for a look- 
 
 see." 
 
 I brought the tool, but I didn t give it to him. As I 
 caught a fair view of the box, I decided it shouldn t be 
 opened roughly with an axe. 
 
 "Set it down easily easily, Lem! Handle it 
 gently ! " He backed away from it, looking the ques 
 tion. " It s dynamite." 
 
 " Christmas Eve ! " Lem whistled. "And me just 
 juggling it like a sack of spuds ! Dinnymite ! Wow ! " 
 And he retreated to the far corner of the lean-to. 
 
 I laughed as I knelt down to remove the lid more 
 carefully than we might have done with an axe. "It s 
 a lucky find, Lem. They brought it for mining, and 
 we ll use it, if we need to, for stopping them from min 
 ing. See if you don t find a roll of fuse and a box of 
 caps somewhere about." 
 
 Still casting nervous looks at the case, he began a 
 search which soon produced the balance of the outfit. 
 As he handed them to me, he said feelingly: 
 
 " Ted, I hope if Goober and his Pard begin shooting, 
 
 231 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 no careless bullet lands in that mess. Think of what 
 it d mean." 
 
 " Would your mind rest easier with the case outside 
 the hut? " I asked. 
 
 "It sure would, Ted; and the farther outside the 
 better." 
 
 " Then grab an end," I laughed. Dynamite was too 
 frequent a housemate for me to give it much thought, 
 but I knew the dread that haunts the tenderfoot. 
 " We ll carry it up to the dam and please don t stum 
 ble, Lem." 
 
 With every minute of respite from disturbing inter 
 ruptions by the enemy, we lost anxiety and lessened 
 caution. It began to seem certain that the claim- 
 jumpers had deserted the valley. As Lem and I each 
 grasped a rope handle of the heavy case, neither thought 
 once of the rifle set against the bunk. Lem might be ex 
 cused for the neglect, for his mind was clouded by close 
 contact with explosive force enough to lift us both into 
 the adjoining county of Lassen. I should have known 
 enough to carry the rifle everywhere, every minute, 
 while there was a possibility that Gallup and Pardner 
 were about. 
 
 We lugged dynamite, fuse and caps up the creek, left 
 them on its bank beside the dam, and started the return. 
 When almost to the hut, I heard something that made 
 me grasp Lem s sleeve with a whispered, " Sh-h-h ! " A 
 boot-heel had struck against rock. 
 
 232 
 
The Lightning-Change Act 
 
 We crouched, breathless. In a moment a voice came 
 out of the darkness beyond the cabin, thin and quaver 
 ing, a lowered call. 
 
 " Red that you, Red? " 
 
 If I d had the rifle, my answer would have sent Gal 
 lup galloping through the night in greater fear than held 
 Lem and me silent and trembling now. But to walk 
 through the glow of the camp-fire, under his rifle s muz 
 zle, to get it was way beyond me. Instead, we watched 
 Gallup slip up from the shadows, dodge quickly into the 
 cabin; and we turned away to run on tiptoes, stopping 
 only when we were again at the dam. 
 
 " My fault, Lem," I groaned, sitting down on the 
 dynamite box. " You can kick me all you please." 
 
 " Not while you re sitting where you re sitting," he 
 grinned; then with the echo of my own groan, "And that 
 shyster is drinking my cup of coffee! " 
 
 " Not only coffee, but he s got every single solitary 
 thing we own food, blankets, goat, horse, rifle, pistol 
 and ammunition. Do you realize that, Lem? " 
 
 " Lack of a cup of coffee sort of brings it home to me. 
 Where d you suppose he s hid Zim and Faustina? " 
 
 That brought me up with a bound. If Gallup had 
 led them near the hut, we must have heard them. Faus 
 tina would have to be gagged to keep her from her 
 " Ma-a-a-s." Zim had a way of nickering whenever his 
 keen nostrils located me. The animals were not near 
 the cabin. 
 
 233 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 " We ll find them, Lem. Come on," I said, and again 
 filled with hope, we began running for the valley s south 
 ern slope, I to stop suddenly after a dozen steps, with, 
 " You go on, Lem. Climb to the top and wait for me 
 at the boulder." 
 
 " What you going to do? " he asked. 
 
 " Make em trouble. Keep running," and I gave him 
 a shove to start him forward, while I turned back to the 
 dam. Six sticks of dynamite I took from the case, then 
 carried the rest of it and hid it carefully in the thicket. 
 Three feet of fuse from the coil, the balance hid with the 
 powder; a cap from the box; and I began trouble- 
 making. 
 
 Into the front of the dam I burrowed, removing stone 
 after stone till I had a hole near its base two feet or more 
 deep, into which I planted five of the half dozen sticks of 
 explosive. Over the end of my bit of fuse I slipped the 
 fulminate of mercury cap, crimping it to hold, by biting 
 its edge between my teeth. Then, cutting away the 
 greased paper at the end of the sixth stick, I inserted the 
 capped tip of the fuse well into the soapy dynamite, 
 pressed it together around the cap, and placed the stick 
 in the heart of the others in the cavity. 
 
 It took me several minutes to replace the rocks to the 
 best possible advantage, but I finally finished, took a 
 moment to recover breath, poked a lighted match 
 against the fuse s end, scrambled up the creek bank, and 
 ran like an express train making up lost time for the 
 
 234 
 
The Lightning-Change Act 
 
 boulder and Lem. It came as I struggled the last few 
 feet of the steep incline, a flash that lighted the whole 
 valley for an instant, and a thunderous explosion ; a rain 
 of rocks ; then the gentler dropping of smaller ones that 
 had climbed higher. I listened eagerly, and strained 
 my eyes to pierce the night for the evidence of success. 
 It came to my ear. The stream was hammering rock 
 against rock in its old channel. Again the dam was a 
 wreck. 
 
 "For the love of Mike!" gasped Lem, as I pulled 
 alongside. What have you done to Gallup? Think 
 of those two poor kid orphans ! " 
 
 I laughed. " They ll still have daddy s knee to climb 
 on. It s the dam, not the Peanut, that went flying. 
 Come on; we ll hunt Zim." 
 
 "Zim, a coffee-pot, and the living milk can, Faustina," 
 Lem agreed, and I led the way toward the defile where 
 I had seen the procession disappear that afternoon. 
 It was easy to pick up the trail, even in the night, for the 
 ground in the gully was soft and hoofs cut deep. On 
 the rocky shore of the lake we lost it again, but they had 
 turned southward, toward the foot of the stretch of 
 water. All we had to do was follow along, and study 
 the earth in each arroyo to see that the animals had not 
 been turned back toward the hills. 
 
 " Kinda looks as though Peanut had headed for the 
 old cabin," Lem said, after we had progressed a few 
 miles along the edge of the lake. 
 
 235 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 " It does that. But somebody was using that log-pile 
 last night, and it wasn t Gallup. I wonder ? " 
 
 " We ll find out," Lem interrupted. " If the man 
 who started Pardner Red galloping over the hills is still 
 there, we want to meet him; or Zim and Faustina. 
 Let s make a straight course for the cabin and take the 
 chance." 
 
 By scrambling up and down the sides of gullies so 
 steep that they would block a horse, we could cut off a 
 third of the distance and save time; and we were shortly 
 alongside the little grove that sheltered the deserted 
 house on the lake s edge. A whinny from Zim, fol 
 lowed in a moment by Faustina s long " Ma-a-a-a," gave 
 evidence that we had guessed right as to the animals. 
 They were in the corral beside the cabin. 
 
 The structure itself was as black as night when we 
 approached. I was so glad to find Zim again yes, and 
 Faustina, too, that I should have gone directly to the 
 little enclosure where they were held, but Lem re 
 strained me, whispering: 
 
 " Let s find out if anyone s in the cabin first." 
 
 It was good advice, and we moved to the front door 
 with all the care and secrecy of two hen-roost pillagers, 
 to find the door closed, and the peg sticking in the auger 
 hole bored in the jamb; the simple locking device. It 
 was pretty conclusive evidence that no one was inside, 
 but an invader might have crawled in by the window. 
 We still retained our caution, as we pulled the plug, 
 
 236 
 
The Lightning-Change Act 
 
 opened the sagging door an inch at a time, and tip 
 toed in. 
 
 Putting my hand in the bunks, at the blackest end of 
 the cabin, half expecting it to light upon human flesh, 
 was the most hair-raising experience of this trying night. 
 When I had accomplished that, to find nothing more 
 startling than the same old pine needles I had seen there 
 before, the striking of a match to light up the place was 
 easy. By its flame we convinced ourselves that there 
 were no other occupants, and found our packs piled in 
 one corner. 
 
 " Which means coffee," Lem said aloud, his voice 
 sounding odd in the old shack. " There are candles here 
 somewhere. Scratch another match and I ll dig em," 
 which I did, after seeing that the door was tight shut and 
 hanging a blanket over the one window, and soon had 
 the room lighted, a fire in the chimney doing its duty to 
 a coffee-pot and skillet laden with bacon. Only then 
 did Lem lean back against a blanket roll, sigh content 
 edly and say with a grin: 
 
 "Reg lar lightning-change act, Ted. One minute 
 ours is theirs and theirs is ours, then presto! Flip 
 and flop now you see it, and now you don t! Get me 
 a cup of coffee quick, before it vanishes." 
 
 "Let her boil, Lem; give her a chance," I steadied 
 him. " I wonder what Gallup is doing now." 
 
 A chuckle from Lem, then: 
 
 " Shivering with fear in the darkest corner of our 
 
 237 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 lean-to, wondering what s going to explode next. I d 
 rather know what Pardner s up to. Ted, I had a good 
 squint at his phiz to-day, and somewhere I ve bumped 
 into him before. I ve met Pardner in the past." 
 
 " Where? When? " I asked eagerly. 
 
 " It must have been when I was housekeeping down 
 by the docks you remember tin house on a farm 
 and was selling newspapers to keep the wolf from the 
 fence-board door. Maybe I just run against him on 
 the street ; he s such an odd-looking guy he d be apt to 
 stick in my mind ; but the notion holds that I saw more 
 of him was somehow interested in his doings I can t 
 straighten it out in the old think-tank, though." 
 
 " It may come back to your memory," hopefully. I 
 poured two steaming cups of the black coffee, piled a 
 plate with bacon for each of us, then as I took a seat on 
 the floor beside Lem, said slowly, " We re not much ac 
 count in this claim-holding affair without the rifle, Lem ; 
 worth just about nothing. I ll let you take Zim in the 
 morning, and you hike out." 
 
 "Hike out where?" 
 
 " Susanville or Quincy. We ve money enough left 
 so you can buy a ticket to Portland. You leave Zim 
 at some livery stable, and write me where you left 
 him." 
 
 "And where you going to be? " 
 
 " I m going to try to hang on here," I replied, even 
 more slowly. "Just hang around. They ll fix the 
 
 238 
 
The Lightning-Change Act 
 
 dam again to-morrow, probably. Somehow I ll try to 
 smash it. Maybe, if I m lucky, I can keep em off from 
 locating till the ranger gets here." 
 
 Lem was silent a minute while his coffee cooled and 
 the strips of bacon steamed unnoticed on the tin plate. 
 Finally he asked: 
 
 " Are we pardners, Ted? " 
 
 " Sure, Lem. But that don t mean much as things 
 
 are now." 
 
 " It means fifty-fifty in everything, doesn t it? " Still 
 persistent. 
 
 " Even shares, yes; but in what, Lem? " 
 
 " In hard luck fifty-fifty in the bad luck and the 
 danger. You gave when it looked good. You can t 
 take away when it s bum and rocky. Pardners means 
 staying by through the lean, just the same as the fat. 
 I ll help spoil the dam, Ted." 
 
 I couldn t insist after that. I didn t even dare thank 
 him. All I said was: 
 
 " We ll make it somehow. They ve got to actually 
 find mineral before they can locate, and we ve stopped 
 em doing that a week now. Maybe, with luck " 
 
 "And dynamite, Ted. Don t forget we ve got dyna 
 mite. And cut out the maybes. We re going to keep 
 the Hot Biscuit for our own eating. Roll into your 
 blankets in the bunk there and get some sleep. I ve the 
 beginning of an idea, and I want to sit up and let my 
 bone-head roll around over it, so I ll keep watch." 
 
 239 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 I spread the blankets upon the soft pine needles and 
 crept into them, with: 
 
 " Wake me in an hour, Lem, and I ll spell you on the 
 
 watching part. Fifty-fifty in everything " and 
 
 my eyes closed in sleep. When they opened again, it 
 was morning, and Lem sat before the coals of a burned- 
 down fire, still wide awake, on guard. 
 
 240 
 
L 
 
 fully: 
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 A FLAG OF TRUCE 
 
 EM, sitting before a fire that was down to embers, 
 whittled on a wand of peeled willow, and 
 whistled below his breath. I spoke reproach- 
 
 Why didn t you wake me? What time is it? You ve 
 sat up all night." And Lem looked around at me, 
 grinned, and replied: 
 
 " Sun not up yet, Ted. I ve been busy, so forgot to 
 wake you." 
 
 I jumped from the blankets and pulled on my boots. 
 
 241 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 When I came back from a souse of face and arms at the 
 spring, Lem was mixing pine soot scraped from the 
 chimney flue with water on one of the stones of the 
 hearth. I watched him curiously. 
 
 " What on earth are you doing? " I asked at length. 
 
 " I m a Bessemer steel plant, operating as a munitions 
 factory," he said, rubbing the black mixture upon the 
 willow stick. " This," waving the wand, " is a latest 
 model, high-power repeating rifle." 
 
 I looked at him pityingly. " Sleep is what you need, 
 Lem. Get into the bunk here, and you ll be better after 
 a few hours rest. Come ; I ll help you." 
 
 " It s a better rifle than the one you lost," he con 
 tinued, unheeding, " for there isn t a chance of its mak 
 ing any orphans. As for shooting qualities, it s certainly 
 as good as the one Gallup uses." 
 
 " Yes, yes, Lem. Get to bed right away. I ll find 
 some goose-grass and make a soothing tea that ll kill 
 the fever in an hour or two. Don t worry; we ll pull 
 you out of it." 
 
 I took him by the arm, more anxious than I d been 
 since the claim-jumpers came into the valley, but Lem 
 laughed so heartily, so reasonably, that I let go with an 
 indignant: 
 
 "What you trying to do? Scare the life out of 
 me?" 
 
 " No, Ted; trying to scare the life out of Peanut and 
 Pardner." He raised the blackened wand to his shoul- 
 
 242 
 
A Flag of Truce 
 
 der and pointed it at me. " How does it look from in 
 front? " 
 
 I began to see light. At a little distance, it would 
 look as much like a rifle barrel as another rifle barrel 
 would look. I sat down on one of the wood blocks, with: 
 
 " But, Lem, they know we only had one rifle; and 
 they ve got that. How will this fool them? " 
 
 He sobered at once, sat down beside me, and began: 
 
 " Check up on me, Ted; I m going to spiel my night s 
 musings, and if you find I m getting off on the wrong 
 track, pull me back. To begin with, they don t know 
 we had only one rifle " 
 
 " But they saw all our stuff everything," I broke 
 in. " The first afternoon they came, when they drove us 
 off the place." 
 
 " Yes. But one of us went to Susanville after that. 
 If he didn t buy another rifle there he was pretty foolish. 
 They know one of us went to Susanville, for Gallup 
 followed Zim s tracks ; and they don t know that I was 
 a fool." 
 
 " It wasn t on your list," I defended him. 
 
 " No. Have a cup of coffee, Ted. But anyhow, those 
 men don t know how many guns we have or haven t 
 got. This one I ve built will be the one from Susanville. 
 Am I reasonable so far? " 
 
 " Yes; it ll fool them. Go on." 
 
 " You ll find the milk in the mining-pan. Sugar in 
 the sack." 
 
 243 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 " Milk? " I leaped to look; a quart or more. " Why 
 where ? " 
 
 " Faustina on the job. But listen. I m guessing that 
 Gallup and Pardner are worse discouraged right now 
 than we are. They ve been held up a week, one blow 
 after another, and last night s dynamite plot on top of 
 yesterday s mess of bullets, and Pardner s big scare 
 from the stranger at the shack, have left them bluer than 
 indigo. I m guessing they ll quit on a strong bluff, 
 Ted." 
 
 " Maybe," I began, rather dubiously, but Lem in 
 terrupted. 
 
 " You re thinking of Pardner. Gallup we both know 
 is a quitter. After he found you didn t scare a bit, he 
 was ready to throw up the sponge. But Pardner s got 
 more fight in him. He isn t afraid of us; but he is of 
 someone else. Now I m guessing again, but I think 
 it s a fair guess Pardner doesn t know any better than 
 we do where that stranger he s scared of is. Just a hint 
 of him, and Pardner will take to the woods." 
 
 " Perhaps," I began again, again to be stopped with: 
 
 " My plan is to pull a strong bluff this morning while 
 they re blue and grumpy. Me with a flag of truce, 
 under protection of you and this rifle. I ll offer to let 
 them take their donkeys, packs and guns, get off the 
 place at once, and leave the decision of who owns it to 
 the forest ranger." 
 
 I walked over to the window and looked off across the 
 
 244 
 
A Flag of Truce 
 
 hills, lit by the first rays of the rising sun; but I wasn t 
 seeing flowers and foliage or rolling slopes ; I was study 
 ing Lem s plan ; so much depended upon the correctness 
 of his guesses. Were Gallup and Pardner discouraged? 
 Were they uncertain about our weaponless condition? 
 Would they stand a bluff? If Lem had guessed wrong, 
 and the men didn t scare, there d not be a chance of cor 
 recting the guesses. 
 
 " If you ll stand guard with the stick, while I wave 
 the white flag, I ll go you, Lem," was my decision. 
 
 " Sure; if you think you d be as good at the bluff as I. 
 Don t think I m stuck on myself, Ted, but when it comes 
 to talking in hints and threats, I believe I ve got you beat 
 a city block. No; it s me for the gab-fest." 
 
 That was the place of danger, I knew ; and just as well 
 I knew that Lem had to be in that place if we were to 
 stand any chance of winning. Reluctantly I agreed. 
 
 " You re right, Lem," I said, still looking from the 
 window hole. " I believe it will work. When do we 
 start?" 
 
 " Now; and the sooner the quicker," eagerly. " Come 
 on; let s go." 
 
 I turned toward him; then quickly back, to look at 
 the hills with seeing eyes. Then I said: 
 
 " The scheme s no good at all, Lem. It s a bum 
 scheme." 
 
 Why? Why is it? What ya mean, a bum scheme? " 
 
 " It won t work," I continued slowly. " It s poorly 
 
 245 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 planned, badly thought up. It hasn t a chance in the 
 world." 
 
 " But but " Lem was stuttering in his disappoint 
 ment " you said it would work you thought " 
 
 " I think now that the idea is no good at all." 
 
 " But why? Why is it so bad? " 
 
 I waited just a moment longer, as Lem sputtered. 
 
 " Because Gallup has beaten you to it, Lem. He s 
 coming here, and he s waving a shirt tied by the sleeves 
 to a shovel handle. The Peanut thought of it first." 
 
 Lem was crowding me at the window, his eyes star 
 ing from his head. Down the hill, walking jerkily, halt 
 ing frequently, acting as though he wanted to turn and 
 run at every step, Gallup came under a flag of truce. 
 I had to laugh at Lem s astonishment, his chagrin at 
 finding the enemy anticipating his plan ; but it was only 
 an instant that the boy stood there dumb; the next, he 
 had poked the willow stick into my hand with: 
 
 " Hold him off from coming nearer than the edge of 
 the trees. I ll find out what s up," and ran from the 
 room. 
 
 The next moment I saw him outside, making quickly 
 toward Gallup who halted sharply, and waved the shirt 
 frantically at sight of him. Lem turned his head to 
 shout at me: 
 
 " Let him come to the tree here, Ted. Plug him if he 
 takes a step farther," and I poked the end of the black 
 ened willow menacingly through the opening. Gallup, 
 
 246 
 
DOWN THE HILL, WALKING JERKILY, HALTING FREQUENTLY. 
 
A Flag of Truce 
 
 wavered, but braced his nerves as Lem called to him, 
 " Drop the shovel and come here. What do you want? " 
 
 Obeying instantly, Gallup closed up the gap, holding 
 both hands above his head. 
 
 " Not a weapon on me you can see/ he piped 
 shrilly. " Don t get careless with that gun; I m under 
 a flag o truce. I m here to negotiate, peaceful-like and 
 lawful. Under a flag o truce." 
 
 " Better stick it back on," Lem suggested seriously. 
 * You might catch cold, and those two kids of yours lose 
 a worthless dad. What you here for? " 
 
 " To make you boys a proposition, honest and square. 
 Me and my pardner are dead tired of you and your 
 monkey-shines. We could have you jailed for some of 
 the things you ve " 
 
 "Aw, cut it!" from Lem. "Talk brass tacks. 
 What s your proposition? " 
 
 " I want to make it to young Wilson. He s the one 
 I ve got to discuss business with." He raised his voice. 
 " Can t you come out here and talk, Wilson? " 
 
 " I can hear and talk from the window," I replied. 
 " Speak up good and loud. What have you to say? " 
 
 " No harm in my setting down here in the shade, is 
 there? " Lem grunted permission. " I m here repre 
 senting the two of us, me and my pardner, to suggest a 
 trade with you, Wilson. You own the Black Boulder 
 on Baldy, don t you? " 
 
 " Yes." This was a surprise-packet. 
 
 247 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 " And I own the homestead right to tHe creek valley 
 where you was. Maybe we could swap, you willing." 
 
 Here was another man offering for my dry gravel 
 claim. " Just what is your proposition? " I asked. 
 
 " Even trade for relinquishments. We pass the pa 
 pers, and me and my pardner pull out of the place, leav 
 ing it to you; and we make no legal claim for damages 
 to the cradle you smashed, or the dam you blew up. 
 Fair enough." 
 
 " It does seem fair " but Lem was talking before 
 
 I had more than started my sentence; was talking 
 loudly, too. 
 
 " You can t expect us to deal with thieves," he was 
 saying. " We can t talk business with robbers. You 
 run away with our stock, and steal one of our rifles " 
 
 " Hold on," mildly, from Gallup. " Your animals 
 were trespassing, and I removed em; then one of you 
 left a rifle in my hut. Don t talk so noisy about thieves 
 and robbers." I felt he had the best of it, but Lem in 
 sisted: 
 
 " Just that; thieves and robbers. You tried to steal 
 the claim, to start with. Don t talk your legal flub-dub 
 you know as well as we know that you haven t a foot 
 to stand on, and when that forest ranger gets here " 
 
 " Hold on, Lem," I interrupted. " Don t get ex 
 cited. Let s listen to Mr. Gallup a bit. Does your 
 pardner agree to this trade? " 
 
 " He does. This here is his suggestion." 
 
 248 
 
A Flag of Truce 
 
 " Why didn t he come to make it then? " Again it 
 was Lem questioning, and Gallup squirmed visibly. 
 
 " He s waiting back at the linter. I m legal owner 
 of the ranch, not him. I have to sign the papers." 
 
 " I suppose you brought them with you, ready to 
 sign? " from Lem. 
 
 " I thought probably it d be a trade, so I made em 
 ready." The lawyer opened a close-buttoned coat to 
 expose a shirtless body, while he found in an inner 
 pocket the relinquishments, and handed them to Lem 
 with, "All drawn proper and according to the law. 
 Wilson signs this one, here," pointing with a dirty 
 thumb, " then I ll sign t other, and all s set and happy. 
 Fair enough." 
 
 " Sit tight, just as you are, and I ll take them in to 
 Wilson," said Lem, and he came quickly to the cabin 
 door, crossed to shove the papers into my hand with a 
 low, " Keep Gallup just as long as you can," then 
 loudly, " You re to sign right here, Ted." Then in a 
 whisper, " Sign nothing. Give me half an hour s start 
 if possible." Then aloud, " It sounds all right. Fair 
 enough," and ducking so as not to be seen through the 
 window, he slid like a shadow out the door, and dis 
 appeared. 
 
 I stood in the window, the stick protruding, and 
 looked over the two papers ; but I wasn t seeing a single 
 word written there. I was trying to make out what 
 Lem was at, the meaning of those whispered messages. 
 
 249 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 Where had he gone? Why had he vanished so quickly, 
 so silently? Why was I to hold Gallup here? And how 
 was I to keep him? 
 
 I was the worst hand in the world at a situation like 
 this. I couldn t talk one thing and mean another not 
 and fool anybody. I was willing to obey Lem, would 
 to the best of my ability, but just how to keep Gallup s 
 attention engaged for thirty minutes was a puzzle. Al 
 ready he was getting nervous, as he called: 
 
 " If they s anything there you don t rightly under 
 stand, I ll come an explain it to you," and, glancing up, 
 I saw he had risen, and would have started for me, had 
 I not called, tersely: 
 
 " Sit down there! " He sat hurriedly. I continued, 
 "What do you happen to know about the Black 
 Boulder? " 
 
 " Nothing much," uneasily. " Knew you was owner 
 on the land-office records, and that there was gold in 
 the gravel when water come to wash it. I don t figure 
 to make nothing by the trade." 
 
 " Do you know Mr. Wayne of Jamesville? " 
 
 " Never saw him in my life. He owns the hotel there, 
 don t he? " 
 
 " That s the man." 
 
 " No, I don t know him. What s he got to do with 
 this?" 
 
 I didn t answer. In my mind there was a connection 
 somewhere in the fact that two men desired one worth- 
 
 250 
 
A Flag of Truce 
 
 less claim. Wayne was the stingiest miser I ever knew; 
 Gallup the craftiest rascal. They wouldn t want the 
 Black Boulder if it was as valueless as I believed it to 
 be, and it didn t seem possible that both could have some 
 hidden knowledge that increased its worth. Slowly I 
 tore up the papers Lem had brought me, and leaning 
 from the window, tossed them for the air to whirl into a 
 little snow-storm. 
 
 " What you doing there? " Gallup cried, jumping to 
 his feet. " What for did you tear up those papers? " 
 
 " Because I m not making any trades, Gallup ; and 
 I m not selling to Wayne. I ll keep the Black Boulder, 
 anyhow until I know what you and Wayne want it for. 
 Here! Come back! " For Gallup was walking swiftly 
 away. Again I shouted, " Come back or I ll fire! " 
 
 " Shoot the old black stick," he answered over his 
 shoulder, and on his face was a wicked grin. Those fox 
 eyes of his had seen, or perhaps I had been careless in 
 the display of my weapon; anyhow he knew. I saw him 
 stop to pluck his shirt from the shovel handle, then 
 quickly disappear over the rise. Not a third of Lem s 
 half hour had been killed. 
 
 I didn t wait a minute there for Lem. Only one place 
 could he have gone, and that was back to the claim. 
 His plan whatever it was might be jeopardized by 
 my inability to hold Gallup as Lem had requested, and 
 I must try to help him now. With the Bessemer steel 
 rifle as a willow walking stick, I started up the lake. 
 
 251 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 Gallup was nowhere in sight, though I kept an eye 
 out for him as I hastened by the shortest route, cutting 
 across gullies, hurdling patches of sage and lupine, tear 
 ing a way through the manzanita when it would save a 
 bit of time. Lem was there before me, for up from 
 the hut came a shout, a wild cry that it seemed to me 
 could have been heard for miles: 
 
 " Extry paper ! Extry paper ! All about the enemy s 
 retreat ! All about the great victory ! Extry ! Extry 1 " 
 Lem was again a " newsie." 
 
 Waving the soot-blackened imitation rifle, I slid, fell 
 and scrambled down the canon s edge. 
 
 252 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 POCKET OF GOLD 
 
 THE dam was rebuilt. It had taken only two 
 days of hard work, for Lem and Zim had la 
 bored with me. Now the water was washing 
 dirt in the sluices, the riffles were accumulating their 
 precious burdens, and the rocks were pounding at the 
 grizzly. To-night we should clean-up the first run, learn 
 the result of the day s mining operations. 
 
 What had become of Gallup and Pardner was still 
 a mystery. When Lem, guessing from the lawyer s 
 nervousness under the flag of truce, that Pardner had 
 not returned to the lean-to, slipped away from me at 
 
 253 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 the deserted cabin, and ran as fast as he could make it 
 up the lake and to the valley, he found everything gone 
 burros, packs, tools, and men; the whole claim- jump 
 ing outfit. Whether Gallup had driven them away be 
 fore he visited us to make his last effort at a profit from 
 the plan of theft, or Pardner had returned and taken 
 them, we could only guess. Lem thought, because he 
 found my rifle, revolver and some of our mining tools 
 in the shack, that the unscrupulous Pardner had never 
 come back there, arguing that Red would have stolen 
 our things when he carried off their own. 
 
 We d gone to work getting ready to mine with ap 
 prehensive caution, the rifle beside my hand at all times; 
 but this fear was wearing away. Although we could 
 not guess the reason for the jumpers desertion of the 
 claim they had fought so desperately to secure and hold, 
 we admitted the fact ; they were gone. 
 
 What s next to do? " Lem asked eagerly, watching 
 me scrape from the riffles into the pan. " Is that all 
 gold you re taking out? " 
 
 " I only wish it was," I laughed. " No, Lem; this 
 has to be washed by hand now, just the same as a pros 
 pect-pan. Only we ve got here the concentrated values 
 of all the dirt we ve shoveled in this afternoon; a hun 
 dred or more pans." 
 
 " Then it should have a hundred times more gold 
 than you took out of one shovel full? " Lem s eyes were 
 popping; but again I had to disappoint him. 
 
 254 
 
Pocket of Gold 
 
 "We ve been running all the bottom dirt through; 
 just as it came ; not a selected bit of rich pay-dirt. Some 
 that went into the sluices probably didn t carry a color 
 not a speck of gold. If this pans out five ounces or 
 four consider yourself lucky." 
 
 I was down on my knees at the ditchside, panning; 
 and expecting better results than I talked, for I d dug 
 to-day where I made the find, getting down to bed-rock, 
 only a short distance below the gravel. If there was 
 gold in any quantity in the creek, I should have evidence 
 of it in my pan. The weight told me I had gold. Be 
 fore I d worked a minute, with the pan beneath the 
 water s surface, my eyes confirmed my arm-muscles. I 
 brought up the pan, carefully placed it on the ground, 
 and removing two bits of the contents, placed them in 
 Lem s hand, with: 
 
 " Feast your eyes on those while I m working. Nug 
 gets, Lem!" They were hunks of pure gold bigger 
 than my thumb-nail. 
 
 The next time I lifted the pan from the water, I 
 ceased washing. 
 
 " Lem," I said, and my voice was husky, " I just 
 daren t wash this any more. It s too rich. The stream 
 might carry some away, for it s all so heavy, gold and 
 iron and heavy quartz, that it can t be safely handled 
 in the current. I ll horn it out at the hut," and carrying 
 it in my arms, I led the way, Lem with the rifle, down 
 to the lean-to. 
 
 255 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 It was supper-time and past, but we gave no heed, as 
 with the horn spoon I cleared gold from debris, piling 
 the precious metal on a tin plate placed on the rock be 
 side me, keeping the dross for more careful examination 
 later on, after the excitement was past, for it might still 
 hold value. Horning was only washing on a smaller 
 scale, with the spoon for a pan, water being poured in 
 from the canteen. Before I had finished the day s clean 
 up, I was working by the light of a fire Lem had built, 
 and the pile of gold made a little pyramid on the tin 
 plate. 
 
 " Looks like a million dollars to me! " Lem said in 
 awe-struck tones. " Sure, that s more than four or five 
 ounces, Ted." 
 
 " Lift it," I suggested, adding the last spoonful; and 
 his whistle of astonishment sent me into excited laughter. 
 " I ll say there s more than five ounces there! " 
 
 Without a word he passed me the dish, and I hefted 
 it carefully. " I wish we d bought a pair of scales at 
 Susanville," I cried. " I m only guessing, but there s 
 nearer five pounds of gold than five ounces! Lem, you 
 and I are rich ! " 
 
 His lips were moving but no words came; at last he 
 blurted out: 
 
 " Sixteen hundred dollars ! Ted, tell me I m not 
 dreaming! Sixteen hundred dollars in one day s work! " 
 
 " Some of that s a dream, yes, Lem. You re figuring 
 sixteen ounces to the pound, for instance; should be 
 
 256 
 
Pocket of Gold 
 
 twelve; and you re taking full five pounds as your basis 
 of calculation. I never had so much in any one clean-up 
 of a day s run at the Black Boulder, but I d guess there 
 was between eight and nine hundred dollars of good 
 money in the pile. Discouraged? " 
 
 " Do I look like it? And we ve only begun, Ted. 
 There s a thousand times as much dirt left in the creek 
 as we ve dug out. We ll be able to buy up all San Fran 
 cisco and build a garden on Nobb Hill." 
 
 " Let s get supper." I looked at my watch. " Why, 
 it s nine o clock !" 
 
 As we hurried about getting the delayed supper, we 
 discussed what we should do with our wealth; how we 
 should spend the many thousands that the Hot Biscuit 
 would give us. I wanted to get down to Berkeley, where 
 the State University was located, by September, and 
 have a couple of years at some preparatory school get 
 ting ready to matriculate. Lem couldn t see much fun 
 or excitement in that program but wanted to be with 
 me, even if it meant school and college. As he put it: 
 
 " Education never bit anybody to hurt em, Ted. 
 There s worse things to have than schooling. So if 
 you re set on gathering all the knowledge there is in the 
 world, I ll tag on and pick up what driblets leak out. 
 What ll we do with the mine while we re colleging? " 
 
 " Put it in charge of a good foreman with a gang of 
 miners. If the bottom runs this value all the way up to 
 our dam, we ll go higher, say just below where the creek 
 
 25? 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 comes out of the redwoods, and put in our works. 
 That ll give us a stretch of ground! " 
 
 " A half mile of gold ! Whe-e-e ! " 
 
 " Of course it may not all run so rich," I hastened to 
 explain, for I didn t want Lem to be disappointed. 
 " Maybe there ll be barren spots where there s no gold. 
 You never can tell." But Lem s only answer was: 
 
 " Eight hundred dollars a day! " 
 
 We hid the gold, after placing it in my poke, by dig 
 ging a cavity in the rock behind the fireplace and cover 
 ing it over there. And we decided to take turns at guard 
 duty; Lem to sleep until one o clock, when I d call him 
 and take his place the balance of the night. We were 
 more anxious now that we knew for certain the value of 
 the claim, and we didn t intend to be caught napping 
 by any claim- jumpers. 
 
 There was not the slightest disturbance during my 
 watch, and it passed rapidly, my mind working over 
 happy plans for Mother Laing and us two boys. Lem, 
 after a series of explosions into talk, had finally snoozed 
 off, and was so sound asleep that I had to shake him 
 plenty when it came his turn on duty. Crawling into 
 the blankets, warmed by him, I fell asleep almost im 
 mediately, to be roughly awakened a minute later, it 
 seemed, to hear Lem s voice at my ear, whispering: 
 
 "They ve come. Get up quick!" And he shoved 
 the rifle into my hands. 
 
 I laid it across my lap, felt for and found my boots, 
 
 258 
 
Pocket of Gold 
 
 pulled them on; for the mountain-bred boy knows how 
 helpless he is until shod. If an earthquake should shake 
 the peaks down on top of him, when he was dug out in a 
 distant age, they d find him petrified reaching for his 
 boots ! 
 
 The fire was still burning, but low. Lem, excited but 
 silent, a finger on his lips to warn me, listened and 
 peered out from the end of the hut. He had the old 
 revolver in his hand, I noticed; and it was cocked. 
 
 Boots on, unlaced, I cocked the rifle noiselessly and 
 slipped to Lem s side. I could hear the sounds that had 
 disturbed him now; someone digging behind the shack. 
 At once I placed my mouth close to my partner s ear 
 and breathed: 
 
 " Being robbed, Lem. Thieves at our treasure." 
 
 His eyes leaped to the fireplace where the gold was 
 hid, distant and in another direction from the sound, and 
 shook his head. Again I whispered: 
 
 " I m going to try to kill him," and eluding his hand 
 put out to stay me, slipped quietly into the darkness. 
 The next minute I fired, then again, and a third shot. 
 
 " Hurrah! " I shouted. " I got him! Bring a light, 
 Lem. I killed him!" 
 
 "Oh, Ted! You shouldn t! Which one? Not the 
 kids father? " With trembling hand that held a torch, 
 he came running toward me. 
 
 " This was never the father of kids," I reassured him, 
 taking the light to point where the thief had fallen at my 
 
 259 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 last shot, over the edge of the bank to a shelf of gravel 
 beside the creek. " They call his children, if he had any, 
 cubs. Cubs, Lem; for this robber s a bear! " 
 
 It was a big brown bear, stone dead. We pulled him 
 up to the fire, a heavy load. Relieved of the dread that 
 I had shot a human thief, Lem was exultant at the 
 roasts, steaks, chops and stews, not to speak of the fur 
 rug, that the beast represented. It was, as I discovered 
 when I looked, half-past three o clock, so we gave over 
 any intention of more sleep and I began skinning the 
 animal by the light of the fire. 
 
 " You had me fooled," Lem laughed. " But why did 
 you say he was a thief? What was he stealing? " 
 
 " Several pounds of salted lake trout. He emptied 
 your fish-cache, Lem. He was bolting the last one 
 when I began firing." 
 
 Lem went with the torch to find the place dug up and 
 cleaned out, but I satisfied him that we hadn t lost any 
 thing. " The fish must have been pretty ripe for bruin 
 to smell em," I said. " Perhaps they didn t have enough 
 salt, or the ground was too damp. I m sure they were 
 spoiled already." 
 
 " I prefer bear steak, anyhow," Lem grinned. 
 
 " Ever eat one? " I asked, and when he shook his head, 
 Then don t be too sure. Tough? Bear steak is apt 
 to beat a tamarack board for toughness, and is strong- 
 tasting as your fish would have been. But we ll try one 
 out for breakfast," and I sliced off a generous tender^ 
 
 260 
 
Pocket of Gold 
 
 loin from near the base of the backbone. While I fin 
 ished skinning and butchering, Lem went out and milked 
 Faustina, then prepared breakfast. The steak made me 
 ashamed of my unkind cut at the bear. Either this was 
 a particularly tender bruin, or Lem s frantic hammering 
 of the meat with the back of the axe had produced re 
 sults. It was quite eatable. 
 
 Another day of hard work at the diggings ; pick and 
 shovel, shovel and pick; then haul dirt a while. I was 
 working up-stream from the place of discovery, going 
 down to bed-rock all the way; and the number of cubic 
 yards we dug out, carried up to the sluice end, and 
 dumped there, I couldn t tell ; anyhow, when I switched 
 the water from the box into the ditch and began cleaning 
 the riffles, we were both dead tired. 
 
 " No such day as yesterday," I said, before I had gone 
 far along the box ; I could tell by the weight of the pan 
 that there wasn t as much gold in the debris. " Must 
 have struck a lean streak in the bottom." 
 
 We had, for when horned out at the shack, there was 
 less than half the gold that had piled the tin plate the 
 night before. Lem s cheerful: 
 
 "Pretty good! Very fair! Four hundred a day s 
 not bad, Ted! A year or two on those wages, and we 
 should worry," did not satisfy my mind with the result. 
 I was worried with the fear that all the gold we d caught 
 had run through the sluices in the first hour or so; that 
 we d been feeding barren ground to the boxes the rest 
 
 261 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 of the day. " A pocket " the joy and despair of every 
 mining man whispered a small voice at the back of my 
 mind; the sink was a pocket; nearly emptied with our 
 first day s operations, we d cleaned it in the opening 
 hour this morning; all the rest of the bottom was plain 
 mud. 
 
 I had never tested except in the one place; each pan 
 I took out was from the same hole, one below the other. 
 Suppose a chunk of rich quartz from somewhere far 
 back in the mountains had been brought down to the 
 curve and hammered to bits by a flood-current, the result 
 would be a little hoard of gold left there a pocket. 
 And there might not be another fleck of gold in the 
 creek s length, from mouth to source ! 
 
 " What s biting you, Ted? " asked Lem, as he dished 
 up supper. " Something s troubling, that s a cinch. 
 Get it off your chest, then go hard at the bear- 
 stew." 
 
 " I m afraid that I ve made a fool of myself," I be 
 gan. " I ll not be sure till to-morrow, but you might 
 as well be prepared. I think we ve got out all the gold 
 there is on the claim, Lem." 
 
 His face fell; he whistled that low, shrill, long in- 
 drawing breath of astonishment; then grinned the same 
 old grin, as he cried: 
 
 " And we should bibble, Ted, with ten or twelve hun 
 dred dollars to the good. I can keep cheerful. Smile, 
 Ted; smile!" 
 
 262 
 
Pocket of Gold 
 
 I did. " I may be all wrong at that, Lem. It may 
 come to-morrow richer than ever. There s the same 
 chance that it s a sink, not a pocket " 
 
 " No, Ted," Lem interrupted, " don t fool yourself. 
 If it was lined with gold, we d be fighting for it yet 
 against Gallup and Pardner. Don t you see, you ve 
 explained the mystery of Gallup s wish to trade, and 
 Pardner s disappearance. They found out, what you re 
 finding out now " 
 
 " Yes," eagerly breaking in. " They ve sampled the 
 bottom either at night or the morning we were at the 
 cabin and found it barren. They didn t find the 
 pocket, because that was under the great pile of rocks 
 the stream brought down the first time I pried over the 
 dam. I saw it, noticed how the find was covered, when 
 I lay on the boulder. That s it, Lem. They knew it 
 was a fluke, not worth a fight, and they quit. There s 
 no gold-mine here, Lem." 
 
 " And no garden in the wild rose patch below the 
 dam," Lem said slowly. That hit him worse than the 
 loss of a fortune. " What do we do next, Ted? " 
 
 " First thing, we ll do what I should have done in the 
 beginning, sample that ground thoroughly, pan by pan, 
 all over the bottom. If gold isn t there, I ll start pros 
 pecting the hills, just as I intended in the first place, 
 while you put in your garden. We ll be here until Sep 
 tember anyway." 
 
 Lem sprang to the packs, pulled out his envelopes of 
 
 263 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 garden seed, and spread them on the table before him, 
 with: 
 
 " Bully for us! Peas, turnips and mashed potatoes! 
 Radishes and lettuce! Artichokes and mayonnaise! 
 Some little old garden-spot, Ted, I ll tell the world! 
 I ll begin clearing to-morrow breaking ground on our 
 farm!" 
 
 264 
 
CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 BACK TO BALDY 
 
 THE clearing of the wild rose patch, that was to 
 substitute utility for beauty, edibility for fra 
 grance, cabbages for pink blossoms, was never 
 begun. Instead, at the hour when we should have been 
 wielding axe and spade in the first work on the " farm," 
 a cavalcade which included the youthful gardener, 
 Lemuel P. Strong, Zim, the charger, Faustina, the 
 canned-milk goat, and Ted (short for Theodore) Wil 
 son, was wending its way from out the valley, " Over the 
 hills, and far away." 
 
 265 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 This somersault of plans was the result of an incident 
 at noon. Lem and I had come from the dam to the 
 hut utterly discouraged. All the morning we d post- 
 holed and sampled the creek s bottom, and except for 
 one small pan, the scrapings of cracks and crevices at 
 the place of discovery which washed out three ounces 
 or so, there wasn t a fleck of gold in all its sands. My 
 find had been a pocket. 
 
 The incident it was almost an accident came after 
 dinner, out of Zim s oat sack. I intended to help Lem 
 make garden, gathering the brush as he slashed, and 
 hauling it to a bonfire, using Zim. To catch Zim, I 
 needed oats. I picked up the sack to empty its scant 
 supply of grain to the floor, and out rolled a lump of 
 rock to tumble heavily on Lem s thin shoe. He yelped, 
 grabbed his toe in his hand, and danced around, with: 
 
 "For the love of Mike! That s not oats, Ted; it s 
 lead!" 
 
 " Not oats or lead," I laughed, picking it up to pass 
 to him. " It s float ore." 
 
 " And this fine wire is gold? " He was looking the 
 specimen over eagerly. 
 
 " It is," I said, and told him of its finding at Ophir 
 Creek. " I d hunt for the ledge it came from, if it wasn t 
 on Baldly," I finished. 
 
 What s your deep-set grudge against Old Baldy? " 
 he asked. 
 
 "Too dry. No water." 
 
 266 
 
Back to Baldy 
 
 " You mean it hasn t any creeks like this one here? " 
 
 " No creek, no stream, no spring, no well; nothing wet 
 most the year, not even dew. Nothing there but gold, 
 sage and mesquite." 
 
 "Mesquite?" Lem s tone was reminiscent. "What 
 do I know about mesquite? " 
 
 " Maybe the fact that it tears your clothes to frazzles 
 if you get into it," I laughed. " There s nothing pleas 
 ant to know. Usually it s low brush, but there are trees 
 at one place on Baldy. Giant mesquites." 
 
 " Giant mesquites ! " Lem s echo of my words was 
 almost a shout. " That s it, Ted ! That s what I know ! 
 Giant mesquites are water." 
 
 " Water? How do you mean? " I thought the boy 
 was mad. 
 
 " Under em ; water in the ground ; wells, springs, 
 underground creeks. Why, Ted, there s water on 
 Baldy," and he grabbed my arms and began waltzing 
 me around the little shack. I pulled away, crying 
 sharply: 
 
 "You re crazy, Lem! Stop it! Tell me what you 
 know or think you know. Mesquites have nothing to 
 do with water. They grow where there s no sign of 
 water. On the desert, even." 
 
 "Yes, but they don t grow big there; just little 
 scrubs." Lem stopped his gyrations, but still talked 
 quickly, excitedly, his eyes shining like coals of fire. 
 " Mesquites have a tap-root that they send down deep 
 
 267 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 hunting wet way deeper than most vegetables. And 
 that tap-root finds whatever dampness there is. And 
 if there isn t much, or it s miles down, the mesquite grows 
 just a little, maybe not two feet high. But if there s 
 plenty of water, close down, they grow big. If they re 
 giant mesquites, it means that there s lots of water close 
 to the top of the ground." 
 
 " Where did you learn all this? " I asked dubiously. 
 I d known mesquite all my life arid I never heard any 
 such freak-pranks of the bush. 
 
 " Pon Sing told it to old Wayne " 
 
 "Wayne? He knows this?" The mystery of the 
 hotel man s interest in the Black Boulder came clear in 
 a breath. 
 
 " The Chinaman told him all about it. I was in the 
 dining-room, and they were talking in the kitchen, but 
 the door was open. They didn t know I was there, I 
 guess. Pon had learned about mesquite when he worked 
 down in Arizona, and Wayne was asking all sorts of 
 questions. It was interesting, so I listened in." 
 
 They didn t say anything about my claim or 
 Baldy?" 
 
 "Not a word; all about mesquites. Wayne knew 
 some that were forty or fifty feet high " 
 
 " They re the ones! They re up the gully that s my 
 sluice trail in the spring thaws, Lem. I found them 
 when I came over here." The memory of footprints, of 
 broken and cut branches of the mesquite, of one perfect 
 
 268 
 
Back to Baldy 
 
 impress of a foot of a Chinaman s flat, heelless clog! 
 It all came back to me. Wayne s Chinese had been to 
 the mesquites. Why, it was he who had followed me on 
 horseback down the trail when I came to Jamesville 
 from off the claim. 
 
 " Lem," I said hurriedly, " you remember telling me 
 that Pon Sing came in from Crescent Mills on a horse, 
 bringing potatoes, the night I got back from Baldy? " 
 
 " Sure; Crescent is where he said he d been; and he 
 had a sack of something heavy. I put up his horse, and 
 saw him shoulder it off the saddle." 
 
 " Dirt from my claim the Black Boulder. A sample. 
 He d been up there to see the mesquite and look over 
 my diggings. Then Wayne tried to buy it for noth 
 ing! And maybe he has, now for almost nothing. I 
 told Mother Laing to sell it to him. Lem, we ve got 
 to get back to Baldy get back quick ! " 
 
 " Go bring Zim, while I put the stuff together." Lem 
 was instantly at work. Gathering up the oats hurriedly 
 in my hands, I started from the hut, to be stopped by 
 Lem s question, thrown at me, " Are these big mesquites 
 on your claim, Ted? " 
 
 That halted me like a shot. " No," I answered, anx 
 iously, " above my claim, in the gully that works my 
 sluices. Wayne probably owns that gully now. At 
 least he s filed water-rights on it." 
 
 " Can he keep you from using the water? " 
 
 " He can. If it s a well and that s what it would be, 
 
 269 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 I suppose it ll be his to do with as he pleases. But it 
 won t be any use to him without my claim; or my claim 
 without his water." 
 
 " Well, dig up Zim and Faustina. We ll pack and 
 hike, as Gallup says. Wonder how he learned about 
 those mesquites." 
 
 I couldn t answer, but all the while I was luring Zim 
 close enough to grab the hackamore, leading him with 
 Faustina bleating behind to the lean-to, I was puzzling 
 over the question. Gallup wanted the Black Boulder 
 as Wayne wanted it; was it because of the giant mes 
 quites? 
 
 This was our good-bye to the Hot Biscuit claim, to 
 the lean-to hut, to the dam with its useless sluices, the 
 quail-cage and twitch-ups, the stream, the redwoods and 
 Sentinel Rock. As we packed the horse with the sup 
 plies and tools, we were both silent and sad. We had 
 loved the valley, even though we d gone through battle 
 and strife to hold it loved it more, perhaps, because 
 of that. We turned from it, climbed its steep southern 
 rim, headed down the lake, with sorrow in our hearts 
 that we must leave it all. Lem, who could see the bright 
 side of everything, voiced the first hopeful thought: 
 
 " Old Baldy, with water running on it all the year, 
 will be as green and cheerful as this, Ted. And I can 
 have a garden there, same as the farm here, can t 
 I?" 
 
 " If we get the water, anything ll grow there. It s 
 
 270 
 
Back to Baldy 
 
 good soil. You can spade up Black Boulder below the 
 sluices and have as big a garden as you want." 
 
 After that we went on more happily, passing the de 
 serted cabin late in the afternoon, came to the end of the 
 lake and turned into the Jamesville trail. There would 
 be a moon that had thickened from a cheese-rind to a 
 slice of watermelon in the last few nights, and I pro 
 posed to Lem that we keep right on till we struck Ophir 
 Creek, get a few hours sleep at my old camping-ground, 
 then take the hog-back for Baldy. By forced marches, 
 we could make the Black Boulder at noon; and I could 
 get into Jamesville, see Mother Laing, and learn what 
 she had done about selling the claim, that evening. 
 
 So we ate a cold supper in one of the rest-halts, and 
 moved on as rapidly as Faustina would permit, she be 
 ing the weak link in our marching schedule. She set 
 the pace; she determined when we should stop for a rest. 
 I have always believed that the burro was the most ob 
 stinate animal in the world ; that night I placed the goat 
 on his pedestal in the hall of fame. Faustina was a law 
 unto herself. 
 
 It was nearly two o clock of a still, windless morning 
 when we came into sight of my rock-bed on the edge of 
 Ophir, to be stopped by a gruff call of: 
 
 "Halt where you are! Hands up quick now!" 
 And the next moment Lem and I were pointing our 
 arms at the crescent moon, while with frightened eyes 
 we watched a black shadow spring from the pine-branch 
 
 271 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 bed, caught the glint of light on blued-steel in the hand 
 that pointed toward us, and heard: 
 
 " Keep your hands way high, and step forward where 
 I can see you. Come on, gentleman, but come carefully, 
 slowly. No foolishness, or I ll drop you in your tracks." 
 
 272 
 
CHAPTER XXV 
 
 GIANT MESQUITES 
 
 R. BURCHARD ! " 
 
 "What you? Ted Wilson!" 
 In the instant, mutual recognition, my 
 arms came down from above my head to have both hands 
 grasped warmly by my friend of the night at this same 
 point on Ophir Creek, almost a month before; and Mr. 
 Burchard let out a roar of laughter, to which Lem and 
 I added a rather shaky tremolo. 
 
 " You scared me most out of my wits, Ted," cried 
 Mr. Burchard. " I thought you was was somebody 
 
 273 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 I m looking for and you were right on top of me 
 fore I woke. Let s have a fire and talk." He began 
 the building, while Lem and I took the packs off Zim, 
 happy enough to find a friend in the shadow upon the 
 rock. 
 
 When we d tethered the animals up-creek, we came 
 back to find Mr. Burchard, still chuckling, with a coffee 
 pot over the flames, and a skillet laden with brook trout 
 ready to go on as soon as there were embers enough. 
 He greeted our reappearance with: 
 
 " What s the reason for the night march, Ted? You 
 boys must want to get somewhere in a hurry." 
 
 We do." I sat down on the edge of the rock-bed. 
 " This is my partner, Lem Strong, Mr. Burchard." 
 They shook hands, shrewd eyes meeting keen eyes in the 
 fire-glow. " We re hustling back to the Black Boulder 
 claim on Baldy." 
 
 " It hasn t moved an inch since you left it," he 
 laughed. " It s sticking tight to the side of the hill, and 
 it would have been there if you d hiked daytimes and 
 slept nights, like ordinary folks, instead of giving me the 
 fright of my life. I suppose if I hadn t woke up just as 
 I did, you d have crawled into bed with me." 
 
 " Perhaps. And rnaybe you believe we weren t 
 scared. I thought when you called Hands up ! that 
 you certainly were Pardner." 
 
 " Pardner? " echoed Mr. Burchard, questioning. 
 
 " Gallup s Pardner Red we don t know his name, 
 
 274 
 
Giant Mesquites 
 
 but he they tried to steal our claim on Eagle 
 Lake." 
 
 Mr. Burchard set down the frying-pan he was hold 
 ing over the fire, turned grave eyes to me, and asked 
 soberly : 
 
 " What s it all about, Ted? Who is this Red? " 
 
 So I told him, as briefly as I could, the story of our 
 fight with the claim- jumpers, while Lem, seeing that 
 supper or breakfast would! never progress in Mr. 
 Burchard s hands, took charge of the skillet, coffee-pot 
 and fire; and when I d finished, we began answering 
 questions, describing Red carefully to an intensely in 
 terested Mr. Burchard. 
 
 " He s the man I thought you were, Ted, when I 
 pointed the revolver at you a few minutes ago," said 
 Mr. Burchard. " He s the reason I m here in the moun 
 tains. I ve been hunting Red for nearly six weeks, and 
 this is the best line on him I ve had yet." 
 
 " What s he done? " I asked quickly. 
 
 " Escaped from the State s Prison at Folsom " 
 
 " Sure! I know that s it!" Lem had jumped to 
 his feet and was waving the frying-pan to the great 
 danger of its contents. " I told you I d seen him be 
 fore, Ted. He s a murderer he killed a man." 
 
 " Man-slaughter not murder," Mr. Burchard cor 
 rected, as I rescued the skillet from Lem s excited hand. 
 " A thirty year sentence for homicide. I am a prison 
 guard, detailed to hunt him down." 
 
 275 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 " And he was sent up the same day I was. He came 
 from the court room almost at my side. They put him 
 in the Black Maria the prison van, while old Wayne 
 was taking me to the street car. That s where I saw 
 him before," and Lem stopped abruptly at the curious 
 look the prison guard gave him. Anxiously I waited 
 the question, and it came: 
 
 " What were you sent up for, please? " 
 
 " Incorrig ble delinkency," promptly, but subdued. 
 
 " And Wayne? What had he to do with it? " 
 
 " I was sentenced by the Juvenile Court to a year s 
 service with Wayne." 
 
 " Red is Wayne s brother Red Wayne, or as it once 
 was, George Wayne." Things were becoming clear; 
 the Wayne brothers both knew of the mesquites; were 
 working together to get my claim. But I was too anx 
 ious for Lem to think much of that just then. Mr. 
 Burchard had another question. " Your term is not up 
 yet, Strong? " 
 
 " No. I m a runaway an escape." There was no 
 backing away from the truth. Quietly, in a voice that 
 trembled a little, Lem said it all. 
 
 The trout were smoking in the pan I was supposed 
 to be watching; the coffee was gurgling through the 
 snout. It was Mr. Burchard who brought me to a reali 
 zation of my duties with a sharp : 
 
 "Look out, Ted! Don t burn those fish!" and 
 quickly I took them from the fire, and rescued the coif ee. 
 
 276 
 
Giant Mesquitcs 
 
 When the prison guard had seen them safely landed on 
 top of the rock, he said to Lem, " You will consider 
 yourself in my charge for the present. Wayne, I be 
 lieve, is implicated in his brother s escape and not a fit 
 man to be in custody of a ward of the court. Will you 
 give me your word to do as I order and make no attempt 
 at escape, Lem? " 
 
 " Yes, sir; I will." 
 
 Very well. Let s eat," and two subdued boys, one 
 an escaped prisoner, the other " implicated " and " not a 
 fit man," sat down with the representative of law and 
 order, in the guise of Mr. Frank Burchard, prison 
 guard, to a late night supper, or an early morning break 
 fast. For a time no one spoke, though knives and forks 
 were wielded briskly; then I began, rather huskily, to 
 make an explanation. 
 
 " It was like this, Mr. Burchard," I said. " It was 
 just awful, being under Wayne there at the hotel, and 
 he treated Lem brutally; cuffed him, beat him, locked 
 him in his room. I was Lem s best friend his chum, 
 kind of and then I went away, and that made it harder 
 for him. So he came, and joined me on Eagle 
 Lake." 
 
 "All right, Ted; don t worry. I ll look after him 
 now, and without cuffings, beatings or lockings-up. I 
 think I ve the idea of what happened at the Gilson 
 House. I ve been stopping with Wayne off and on, 
 lately, and I ve learned to know him." 
 
 277 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 " Was it you at the old cabin on the lake? " I asked 
 eagerly, relieved by the kindly tone and reassurance of 
 the guard s words. 
 
 " I was there several days last week. Came up to 
 your camp once " 
 
 " The day of the battle! " I broke in. " Pardner 
 Red Wayne saw you and ran! I saw you, too, but the 
 leaves of the lilac were in the way, and I caught only a 
 glimpse. Didn t you hear me call after you? " 
 
 " Not a call. My horse was hidden in the rocks, and 
 I rode away before you came within hail, probably. I 
 saw the light of a big fire there the night before " 
 
 " They had one to guard the dam," again I inter 
 rupted. 
 
 " I had the idea it was you, Ted, but I went up there 
 next day to make sure. No one was at the hut, or in 
 sight from it, so I went through the packs there, and 
 discovered your shovel among the tools. I d seen it the 
 evening we camped here together, and when I recog 
 nized it again, I thought there was no use bothering 
 more on your claim, so rode away. Of course, I was 
 hiding, hunting for Red Wayne." 
 
 " Well, he saw you then, and we haven t seen him 
 since. Lem thinks he s still running away over the 
 peaks of the high Sierras." 
 
 " Too bad, but it s my own fault," Mr. Burchard 
 admitted. " If I d opened up a little to you the night 
 we camped here, I d probably be taking Red Wayne 
 
 278 
 
Giant Mesquites 
 
 back to Folsom now. I ll get after him again to-mor 
 
 row." 
 
 " And Lem and me? " I was anxious to know what 
 our captor proposed to do with us. 
 
 " I ll place Lem in your charge for the present. That 
 is, if you, Lem, will promise not to make another es 
 cape? " 
 
 " Will I? " gladly. " I ll promise to stick to Ted like 
 a porous-plaster." 
 
 " You ll hear from me soon just as quick as I can 
 get a letter down to the judge who sentenced you, Lem, 
 and an answer back. Now I ll hit the blankets for an 
 other hour or two of sleep. Room for us all on the 
 rock, boys." 
 
 " Thank you, Mr. Burchard, we ll start right on up 
 the hog-back for the Black Boulder." 
 
 ;< Which reminds me," said the prison guard suddenly. 
 " I gave your message to Mrs. Laing, and she gave one 
 for you, should we meet up again. She said Wayne had 
 offered a thousand dollars for your claim on Baldy." 
 
 "And she accepted it?" I asked, my heart drop 
 ping down into my boots. 
 
 " No. She can t sell, even if she wanted to, and I 
 judged by her talk she didn t." 
 
 " But I told her she could," I said, puzzled. 
 
 Mr. Burchard laughed. " She isn t your legal guard 
 ian, Ted, and it would mean a court order and all sorts 
 of technicalities before you could sell your claim." 
 
 279 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 " I don t want to sell now," I cried happily, and we 
 said good-bye to the prison guard, he rolling up again 
 in his blankets, while we struck out, after placing the 
 packs once more on Zim s saddle, up the ridge that con 
 nected Summer s Peak with Old Baldy. It was just 
 coming daylight as we crossed Ophir Creek. For a time 
 we traveled in silence, then Lem said: 
 
 " He s sure a white man, Ted! " And I answered: 
 
 " He sure is, Lem." 
 
 The sun came up in pink and gold; climbed higher 
 to warm us ; higher still to make us pant and perspire. 
 With frequent halts that Zim might be relieved of his 
 packs, and Faustina allowed to graze the already 
 browned herbage of the dry hill slope, we came at about 
 ten o clock to where my eye could pick from the many 
 clumps of mesquite, the darker green of the tree-tops 
 that lifted above the rim of the gully. Here we turned 
 off the hog-back and made a detour so that we would 
 strike the ravine above the place of the giant mesquites, 
 for I had determined to investigate the matter of water, 
 and Wayne s probable activities in the gully, before go 
 ing to the Black Boulder. 
 
 We kept carefully from sight of a chance watcher, 
 either on the gully s edge or at the claim, going as much 
 of the way as possible in the draws and defiles, keeping 
 behind the manzanita on the crests of the rises, and at 
 last struck the ravine of the mesquites a half mile above 
 the trees, took the packs off Zim, and tethered both 
 
 280 
 
Giant Mesquites 
 
 animals where they could feed. Then Lem and I 
 worked our way along the rim of the cut, single file, I 
 leading with the rifle, and had not gone half the distance 
 when we heard the blows of a pick borne up to us from 
 the gully. I squirmed through brush to a position where 
 I could look through the foliage to see two Chinamen 
 at work under the trees, sinking a shaft. A third man 
 was in the pit, filling the bucket with dirt to be lifted 
 on rope and windlass. At the crank was Wayne s Pon. 
 The sing-song chatter of Chinese came to us as they 
 worked. 
 
 Lem touched my arm, motioned to me, and silently 
 we crept back and away to the animals. " Get down 
 to your claim, quick as we can," he advised, speaking 
 low. " Wayne wouldn t be paying a crew like that to 
 dig a well unless he had or thought he had a cinch 
 on the Black Boulder. Looks like another scrap, Ted." 
 
 " He wouldn t dare," I said. " This isn t the middle 
 of the wilderness. You can see the tops of Jamesville s 
 houses down there. He owns the water rights, I haven t 
 a doubt, and maybe he ll sell to me at a fancy price; or 
 try to force me to sell the claim; but this won t be a 
 shooting affair, Lem." 
 
 We had made a detour and approached my shack 
 from above, to stop suddenly when it came into view, 
 halted by another scene of activity. Here it was Gallup 
 and Pardner, the lawyer trundling a wheelbarrow from 
 a pile of gravel at the diggings that Pardner was shovel- 
 
 281 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 ing higher, to a second heap at the upper end of the 
 sluice-box. If they were not working the claim, they 
 were certainly preparing to do so the minute water was 
 struck, getting pay-dirt out and up to send through the 
 sluices. I looked at them, then at Lem, a wondering 
 question: 
 
 " What do you suppose they think they re doing? " 
 
 Lem s reply had nothing to do with the query. His 
 face broke into a broad grin, as he said: 
 
 " Gee! I m glad Mr. Burchard showed us how to 
 do it, Ted!" He was fumbling with quick fingers at 
 Zim s pack. " You stay right here and hold the horse. 
 Come when I call," and he started running down the 
 slope toward the men, my father s old army revolver in 
 his fist. I looked for a place to tie Zim, but nothing was 
 at hand, so laid the end of the halter rope on the ground 
 and quickly set a rock upon it ; then pumping a cartridge 
 into the rifle, started to catch up with Lem. Even as I 
 sprang forward, I heard his shout: 
 
 " Hands up quick now! " It had the sharp, certain 
 ring of a bugle-call, authoritative, positive, not to be 
 questioned; the echo of the prison guard s command of 
 the night; then, " Come on, gentlemen, but come care 
 fully, slowly. No foolishness, or I ll drop you in your 
 tracks!" 
 
 Running at the top of my speed, I rounded the dump 
 to see Red Wayne and Lawyer Gallup, hands held high 
 above their heads, looking down the barrel of a pistol- 
 
 282 
 
Giant Mesquites 
 
 shotgun, loaded with an ounce of bird-shot. But there 
 was no tremble in the hand that held the weapon, as 
 Lem said to me: 
 
 " Get ropes and tie Red Wayne. They want him at 
 Folsom prison. You, Gallup, are wanted at Susanville 
 by a couple of cutie kids and a wife that s too good for 
 you. Start and start quick! " 
 
 The lawyer, his Adam s apple working fitfully in his 
 throat, waited for no second permission. Before I could 
 truss Red Wayne with the lariat, Gallup was headed 
 home. 
 
CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 WAYNE MAKES HIS LAST BID 
 
 WE planned that I should take our prisoner, now 
 tied tight on a bunk in the shack, down to 
 Jamesville on Zim s back that afternoon, turn 
 him over to the town marshal, see Mother Laing, learn 
 just where I stood on the claim, and come back by moon 
 light. But things happened too fast for plans to become 
 facts. While Lem and I were at dinner, wondering 
 whether we d dare untie Pardner s hands, or must feed 
 him like a baby out of a spoon, there came a jabber and 
 clatter on the sluice- trail. Lem sprang up instantly, 
 
 284 
 
Wayne Makes His Last Bid 
 
 grabbed the revolver, darted inside the hut, and closed 
 its door behind him. 
 
 Pon Sing and his two compatriots, tools over shoul 
 ders, hurried down to me, with an excited medley of 
 Chinese and English, out of which I gathered that they 
 must see " Miste Led " at once. I waved them to keep 
 back, shouting in the Pidgin-English of the mining 
 camps : 
 
 " Mister Red, him not here," indicating the imme 
 diate neighborhood with a gesture. " This my claim, 
 you sabbe. No Mister Red." 
 
 " Whe him Miste Glallup? " Pon asked quickly. 
 
 " Him, Mr. Gallup, go Susanville. Him hully-up go. 
 This my claim. You get off; get off hully-up quick! 
 You sabbe, quick? " 
 
 Pon did sabbe quick, for with a glance at the closed 
 shack, a phrase or two of his native sing-song, he led off 
 down the Jamesville trail at a shuffling trot. Lem came 
 from the hut, lowered the hammer of the ancient weapon 
 carefully, placed it on the rock beside the coffee-pot, say 
 ing: 
 
 " It s the size of the hole in the end of the gun. It s so 
 big that he thinks he can see a pound or two of bullets 
 down it. Pardner s more scared of it than he was of the 
 rifle, Ted." 
 
 " What did you do, gag him? I expected to hear him 
 yell out to Pon every second." 
 
 " Kept the hole in the end of it under his nose where 
 
 285 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 He looked cross-eyed into it. Told him I was nervous 
 and would probably jerk if he let a squeak out of him. 
 The gun was cocked." 
 
 " Then we can let him feed himself while you stand 
 
 over him with the pistol What s that noise? " I 
 
 had been hearing it for perhaps a minute, but not to give 
 it conscious thought. 
 
 " Wind in the trees," Lem replied promptly, but I 
 shook my head. There were no trees, no wind; and it 
 was getting louder, a roaring, in which now I could hear 
 the pounding of rock against rock. I leaped to my feet, 
 shouting: 
 
 "Water water in the gully! They ve struck it, 
 Lem! A flood s in the sluice-trail!" And I started 
 running for the head of the boxes. Before I had made 
 half way, a yellow crest of foam-capped water, bearing 
 logs and branches from the gully s bottom, broke from 
 the narrow ravine to hurl itself against my sluices, ham 
 mering and pounding with a force that threatened to 
 smash them to splinters. 
 
 " Get shovels quick ! " I yelled at Lem. " We must 
 widen the ditch! " And I began tearing with my hands 
 at the grizzly, loosening the stones that barred the 
 water s way. In a moment, Lem tossed me a pick, arid 
 up to my waist in the flood, I fought beside him to give 
 passageway for the swift current. Happy? Yes, if 
 every chip and splinter of my works were washed away, 
 even the house, I should still be winner; winner a thou- 
 
 286 
 
Wayne Makes His Last Bid 
 
 sand times! But after the first few minutes, after the 
 flood from the held-back waters, piled high by debris in 
 the narrow gulch, had subsided, there was no danger. 
 A stream was flowing down through my ditch and 
 sluices, a fair sized creek that spouted merrily from the 
 end of the boxes. 
 
 " Why, it s almost as big as our creek at Hot Bis 
 cuit! " Lem puffed, as he worked his way to me at the 
 grizzly. 
 
 " It s plenty big for all our uses, Lem; and the best 
 of it is that Wayne can t keep it back from us. He 
 may own it, but he can t harness it." 
 
 " Couldn t he build a dam across the gully? " Lem 
 asked anxiously. 
 
 " Sure; and when the water rose to top the dam, it 
 would come piling merrily along to chase through our 
 sluices. No, Lem, Wayne hasn t a chance with this 
 stream. If he d caught a well, he d have had me ; could 
 have charged me whatever he pleased for water; but this 
 flows, and there s no other way for it to flow but through 
 the Black Boulder claim." 
 
 " Where s the garden, Ted? " Lem was bright-eyed, 
 eager. " How much water do I get for my farm? " 
 
 I pointed to the spouting flume-end. " All that is 
 yours, Lem; all the ground you can break is garden. 
 Make it as big as you want, there s water to irrigate it. 
 No, don t thank me; thank old Wayne." 
 
 Lem bowed with elaborate and sarcastic politeness in 
 
 287 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 the direction of Jamesville, the Gilson House, and 
 Wayne the hotel man. We could not know and did not 
 guess that the man whose unwilling favor Lem was so 
 graciously accepting was on the way to the Black Boul 
 der with a less pleasant offering for his runaway ward ; 
 nor that I would have passed him on the narrow trail, 
 leading his brother a captive, had I started, as I in 
 tended, then. Fate was looking after Lem and me that 
 day, for when I went to get Zim, he wasn t to be found. 
 Either he had suffered another attack of homesickness, 
 or had been frightened by the noise of the rushing flood, 
 so unusual on dry Baldy, for I hunted him high and low 
 for an hour or more, and never had a glimpse of him. 
 
 When I came back, tired and hot, it was too late in 
 the afternoon to consider starting out on foot. We de 
 termined to keep our prisoner tied and locked in the 
 shack, take turns guarding him, and start him prison- 
 ward at sunrise. 
 
 We ate supper beside the flume, now flowing quietly 
 enough, fed Pardner, rebound him carefully in the bunk, 
 made him as comfortable as possible with a blanket 
 around him, tied on, and prepared ourselves for the 
 night. As the glowing lamps of Jamesville sprang up 
 one after the other, making the town and my home seem 
 so close to me, I began to get homesick for Mother 
 Laing, her cozy sitting-room, the fire in the chimney, 
 the comfort of the shaded lamp. We had a fire going, 
 and blankets spread beside it. Lem who had the late 
 
 288 
 
Wayne Makes His Last Bid 
 
 watch was pulling off his much-battered shoes, ready to 
 pile in, when I heard horses hoofs on the trail. 
 
 " Somebody s coming," I said quickly, and Lem be 
 gan relacing his clogs. " You d better duck into the 
 shack until we find out who it is. There are two horses." 
 
 Lem started a dash for the hut, but I stopped him. 
 " No hurry. It ll be half an hour before they get here. 
 Don t forget the big-holed pistol, Lem," and I looked 
 over the rifle to see that it was loaded and ready. 
 
 " Wouldn t you be safer away from that firelight? " 
 Lem whispered, after listening a time to the slow ap 
 proach in the night. 
 
 " No. There ll be no shooting-trouble here. Who 
 ever it is, and whatever trouble he brings, it will be law 
 ful enough. You have the only outlaw in the shack. 
 I ll risk you to see he doesn t start anything." 
 
 Lem left me. I heard the quiet closing of the hut 
 door, then the murmur of his voice in short, terse sen 
 tences. He was telling Red Wayne how quiet he must 
 keep. The horses were nearing. As they turned the last 
 switchback of the trail, I could see them and their riders 
 silhouetted against the moonlit sky. 
 
 "Hello, there! "I shouted. 
 
 " Whoa! " The shadows stopped abruptly. " Is that 
 you, Wilson? " It was Wayne s voice. 
 
 " Yes, Mr. Wayne. Who is with you?" 
 
 " Marshal Tompkins." The man I most wanted to 
 see Jamesville s guardian of the law. 
 
 289 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 " Come on up, please," I said and put the rifle in an 
 inconspicuous place. " I was going in to James ville this 
 afternoon, only my horse strayed." They dismounted 
 and came to the fire, hands out to warm them, for the 
 mountain nights were chill. I added, " I d have been to 
 see you both in the morning." 
 
 " You ll come down to see us both to-night," said 
 Wayne, meaningly. " Where s Lem Strong? " 
 
 " In the shack." Wayne started for it, but stopped 
 at my call, " Just a minute, Mr. Wayne, please. What s 
 doing? " 
 
 " You ll learn quick enough," and again he started, 
 to be halted by my anxious: 
 
 " You don t want to go in there, Mr. Wayne." I 
 feared what Lem with the revolver might do to his 
 enemy. " Let the marshal go. You come back to the 
 fire." And Wayne, eyebrows raised, returned. 
 
 Marshal Tompkins hadn t opened his mouth yet. He 
 was a slow man in thought and action. Now he ceased 
 warming his hands to run them through his pockets, and 
 produced a couple of papers, which he handed me, with : 
 Warrants. You and him. Under arrest." Again 
 he poked out his hands to the blaze. 
 
 My eyes popped, and fingers trembled as I fumbled 
 one open. Wayne chuckled. 
 
 " I guess you ll be good now; I just guess you ll be 
 good!" 
 
 I found, by reading the short form in the flickering 
 
 290 
 
Wayne Makes His Last Bid 
 
 light of the fire, that the State of California wanted 
 Theodore Wilson for aiding and abetting a fugitive of 
 justice, one Lemuel P. Strong; and officers of the law, 
 particularly the sheriff of Plumas County or any deputy 
 of his office, were instructed to arrest and hold. The 
 second paper was the warrant for Lem, the fugitive. 
 It was a serious situation. 
 
 " I suppose you you made the charge against me 
 us? " I stammered, looking at the leering hotel 
 man. 
 
 " I swore to them complaints, yes; and I guess the 
 charges ll stick. Call Lem out here or I ll go get 
 him." 
 
 " The marshal will get him directly. There s no 
 rush. He ll wait there has a job there that will hold 
 him. He won t get away, Mr. Wayne. Are you are 
 you still wanting the Black Boulder claim? " 
 
 He had started again for the shack, but he turned 
 back eagerly to me. I saw his eyes glitter, as he tapped 
 Marshal Tompkins on the shoulder, with: 
 
 " You get the kid from the hut, Tompkins. I want 
 to talk with Wilson here," and the marshal grunted and 
 went slowly to the shack. I called: 
 
 "All right, Lem; it s the town marshal. Let him 
 in," and gave my attention to Wayne. 
 
 " Ready to do business now, are you? " he sneered. 
 " Not so uppity as when you last talked Black Boulder, 
 eh?" 
 
 291 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 " Things are a bit changed since then. You ve in 
 creased the offer to a thousand dollars, haven t you? " 
 
 "There isn t any offer not one cent! We begin 
 fresh right this minute! All old deals are off. I m lis 
 tening now, not bidding." 
 
 " You ve got me in a pretty tight place, Mr. Wayne." 
 I was talking fast and loud, to distract Wayne s atten 
 tion from the rumble of conversation in the shack. " I 
 can t bargain much with this warrant hanging over me. 
 You ll let me off that charge before we talk business, 
 won t you? " 
 
 " We ll do business with that warrant square in front 
 of your eyes, Ted Wilson. It ll be a part of any bargain 
 we strike. Seems to me it ought to be worth a dry gravel 
 claim on Old Baldy." 
 
 " Maybe a dry claim; but there s water on Baldy now, 
 Mr. Wayne." 
 
 " Water, yes ; mine. I own the water, every drop of 
 it. Got a full well of it, ready to pump ; and so far as 
 you re concerned, it doesn t increase the value of Black 
 Boulder one plugged nickel. You couldn t buy, beg 
 or steal a miner s inch off my well for anything less than 
 your claim itself." 
 
 I stared at Wayne. He was standing almost against 
 a sluice-box through which ran the flow from his well 
 at the mesquites. Couldn t he hear it singing over the 
 riffles? Then I remembered; he wasn t a mining man, 
 and he didn t know the Black Boulder, or even Baldy. 
 
 292 
 
Wayne Makes His Last Bid 
 
 To him, the murmur and gurgle of water on the planks 
 meant nothing. His Chinamen had told him they had 
 found water; when they left, the shaft had not filled. 
 It was afterward that it broke over the top to flood the 
 gully. Wayne thought he had a well; didn t know that 
 his well was a stream, and filled almost full the Black 
 Boulder sluices. I couldn t help but smile at his assur 
 ance in the face of the facts as I knew them. 
 
 " I m listening for an offer," he broke the silence at 
 last. " The marshal ll be here in a minute, and there 
 won t be any chance after that. What s on your mind? 
 Quick!" 
 
 " For cash, fifty thousand dollars, Mr. Wayne." 
 
 " What! " It sounded like an explosion; then glanc 
 ing apprehensively at the shack door, he lowered his 
 voice to snap at me, " You re crazy. I ll keep you from 
 jail, and you ll deed me your claim." 
 
 " No, Mr. Wayne." 
 
 " I ll keep you from jail, and give you five hundred 
 dollars. That s the last chance." 
 
 " No, Mr. Wayne." 
 
 " It ain t worth a red cent without water " 
 
 " Lean over, Mr. Wayne, and poke your arm into that 
 sluice-box." He did, wonderingly, to wet his arm al 
 most to the elbow. As he snatched it out, shaking the 
 water from it, I went on quietly, " Your water, Mr. 
 Wayne, trespassing on my claim. I m not going to sue 
 you for the damage it did to my sluices, because I can 
 
 293 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 make it earn back that and thousands of dollars more. 
 As to your warrants, we ll try to face them, without 
 dodging. Lem ! " I called to the shack, " will you and 
 Marshal Tompkins bring out Pardner? " 
 
 294 
 
CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 GOLD IN THE GRASS ROOTS 
 
 THE face Wayne turned to his brother, as the 
 marshal and Lem, one on either side, led him, 
 still bound, into the circle of the fire s glow, was 
 a picture of chagrin, choked malice, thwarted avarice; 
 not a sign of pity for the man whose brother he was; 
 anger and hate that his schemes had been blocked. But 
 even as I watched the hotel man s face, lit by the flicker 
 ing flames, I saw the expression change; trembling lips 
 stiffened ; furtive eyes steadied ; he threw back his shoul 
 ders, and I waited for the bluff I knew was coming. 
 
 "What s all this, Marshal? Who ve we got here, 
 trussed up like a roastin fowl? " 
 
 295 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 Marshal Tompkins left his prisoners if Lem was 
 also a prisoner came to the fire, his back to them all, 
 say ing shortly: 
 
 " Look hard, Wayne." 
 
 Wayne looked hard at the marshal but there was 
 nothing to learn from his rounded back; then his eyes 
 went to Lem, and to me, both big-eyed, silent, wonder 
 ing. Finally they rested on Pardner, and I saw the flash 
 of a warning to him, the reply of an almost impercep 
 tible nod. The brothers had agreed to a course of ac 
 tion. 
 
 "Why, dog-my-cats! It s George!" cried Wayne, 
 hotel man. I thought I heard the marshal give a little 
 snort. " What you doing here, George? " 
 
 "Doing nothing," Wayne, the fugitive, grunted. 
 " These fool boys tied me up." 
 
 " Well, well ! We ll fix that," and Wayne took a step 
 toward him, to be halted by a sharp two words from the 
 marshal: 
 
 " Leave be ! " Tompkins hadn t even turned his head. 
 
 Lem was grinning now, standing at Pardner s side, 
 but his right hand had come from behind his back, and 
 in the fist at the end of it swung the long-barreled, ugly- 
 looking revolver, vintage of 1856. Wayne s backward 
 step was quicker than the advance had been. He went 
 to the marshal s side, saying: 
 
 " What for you leaving my brother George tied here? 
 What s against him? " 
 
 296 
 
Gold in the Grass Roots 
 
 " Convict. Folsom pen. Escaped." Tompkins was 
 economical of words. 
 
 " So? Well, well, well! " Wayne tried to cover the 
 chagrin of this setback. " Come on, Marshal. We d 
 better be getting on back. You ll want to lock your pris 
 oners up, I suppose, and there s a couple of rooms at 
 the Gilson House with strong locks for you. What say 
 we go?" 
 
 " No rush," said the quiet Tompkins, hands spread to 
 the glow. 
 
 " It s nine o clock, and a long trail. You can put 
 George on my horse, and I ll walk and watch the kids 
 from getting away. One of em s got a gun you d bet 
 ter take off him. Let s start." 
 
 " No hurry," from the marshal. 
 
 " There s hurry if you expect to get home before day 
 light. Five hours coming up, and it won t be as quick 
 going back. Come on!" Wayne was getting insist 
 ent. 
 
 " Wait. I m figgering," said the marshal. 
 
 " Figuring on what? What s there to figure on? We 
 take em all back George on one horse, you on the 
 other " 
 
 " Figgering on four prisoners and only two war 
 rants," interrupted the marshal calmly, as though 
 Wayne wasn t speaking. " I m laying to take up Red 
 Wayne brother George on this here fugitive from 
 
 justice warrant, but " 
 
 297 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 " What? Take George on the Lem Strong warrant? 
 What you mean? " 
 
 " Yes. I figger he s wuth more than the kid." Tomp- 
 kins was shuffling the two papers which I d returned to 
 him after reading. " I can cover him all right with that 
 warrant, him being what s described in it, a fugitive from 
 justice. But what I don t quite get is which to take up 
 on t other warrant." 
 
 " Wilson. That reads to arrest Ted Wilson." 
 
 " It reads for aiding and abetting a fugitive from 
 justice. That maybe would be Ted Wilson, or maybe 
 twould be you, Wayne. I d hate to make any mis 
 take " 
 
 "Me? What fool-talk s this, Tompkins?" Wayne 
 looked as though he wanted to spring upon the marshal 
 and choke off his mad " figgering." But Marshal 
 Tompkins, sitting squat on his heels, elbows on his knees, 
 hands shuffling the warrants, never even looked sidewise 
 at him, as he went on in a conversational tone: 
 
 " Silas Wayne, I hereby arrest ye on the charge of 
 wilfully and unlawfully assisting and furthering the 
 escape of one George Wayne, convict number seven 
 hundred and nine of the penitentiary at Folsom, in the 
 State of California, as under the statoots made and pro 
 vided." He spat into the coals. 
 
 Wayne just stood and stared. So did I, for I could 
 not understand this reversal of things at all. Here was 
 Wayne of the Gilson House being arrested on my war- 
 
 298 
 
Gold in the Grass Roots 
 
 rant; Red Wayne of Folsom, on Lem s. In the hush, 
 from the trail, came the clatter of hoofs, and Marshal 
 Tompkins swung quickly to his feet and around, with: 
 
 " Here we are, Burchard; with both your men," and 
 his hand caught in the slack of Wayne s coat at the 
 shoulders as the hotel man attempted to slip quickly and 
 quietly into the shadows. He whirled Wayne around, 
 reached into his hip pocket, there was the flash of bright 
 steel, a sharp click, and handcuffs were on Wayne s 
 wrists in the instant. Then Marshal Tompkins of 
 Jamesville turned his face to me and gave a ponderous 
 wink of the eye. 
 
 I heard Mr. Burchard s chuckle before I saw him, 
 coming from out the darkness, heard him cry: 
 
 " Why, bless me, if it ain t my boys again! Hello, 
 there, you Ted and Lem! " He came into the circle of 
 light with hands outstretched for Lem and me, a smile 
 for us both, and brought happiness and safety to our 
 hearts. " So this is the Black Boulder? Hello, Tomp; 
 I see you got em. Fine work! So this is your claim, 
 Ted? Wish I could see it. Must get up some day when 
 there s light. Well, Wayne, the bracelets somehow 
 adorn you. Give you a sort of sort of substantial look. 
 And if here isn t Number Seven-o-nine, all trussed up. 
 You seemed to think he needed plenty of rope, Tomp." 
 
 " Not me no, Burchard. These kids had him hog- 
 tied, all just as you see, when I arrove. They caught 
 the red one." 
 
 299 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 " Good enough! Fine work, boys! " But I couldn t 
 stand and take credit for what wasn t my due. I spoke 
 up then, with: 
 
 " I didn t do anything, Mr. Burchard. It was Lem. 
 He took that old pistol, loaded with bird-shot, and he 
 made Pardner and Gallup both put their hands up, just 
 as you did us last night. Said the same words, just as 
 you did, in the same tone of voice. And the men acted 
 as we acted, reached all four hands for the sky. All I 
 did was to tie up Pardner, after Lem had caught him." 
 
 Burchard shook Lem s hand again, took the revolver, 
 looked at it curiously, and said: 
 
 " This capture cleans your slate, Lem; no doubt about 
 that. I ll get a letter off to-morrow that ll set every 
 thing right for you. And, Tomp, we d better be getting 
 back. You ll look after Lem, Ted, keep him fed up and 
 happy, till I can get the release papers back, and dig 
 him up a good job? " 
 
 " He doesn t need any job, Mr. Burchard," I an 
 swered. " Lem s half owner of the Black Boulder gravel 
 claim, and there s water in the sluices that ll wash out 
 gold enough to keep us both fed up and happy for the 
 rest of our lives." 
 
 " Fine! I ll get up and see it sometime by daylight. 
 Let s go, Tomp." 
 
 " Sure, Chief," the marshal said, slowly, " but what 
 I m figgering is who rides the third hoss? " 
 
 " Red Wayne. Black Wayne walks." He put an 
 
 300 
 
Gold in the Grass Roots 
 
 arm under Pardner s elbow and led him away toward the 
 horses. " Good-night, lads," he called back from the 
 dark. Marshal Tompkins, following with Wayne, 
 turned his head back to droop a slow eyelash in a long 
 wink, as he disappeared. Lem and I looked at each 
 other. We could hear the sound of the horses, then the 
 noise of their hoofs on the rocky way. From the night 
 came Burchard s call, " Pleasant dreams, boys." 
 
 Slowly that wide grin illumined Lem s face, and he 
 said softly: 
 
 " He sure is a white man, Ted! " 
 
 I listened as the hoofs died away down the trail; then 
 replied: 
 
 " He sure is, Lem!" 
 
 ****### 
 
 It was in Mother Laing s sitting-room next evening, 
 after a supper that made quail, rabbits, fish and bear 
 steaks all seem dry and unpalatable chips of wood. 
 Mother Laing had her sewing basket, but she wasn t 
 working. I had been explaining, as I sat at one end 
 of the fireplace, that she wasn t to work again, except 
 only what she wanted to do cooking, for instance for 
 Lem and me. And she was smiling impartially at Lem, 
 at the other end of the hearth, and at me. 
 
 1 You re both to be my boys now," she said. " There 
 will be a fire in the hearth, and a lamp on the table, with 
 something in the pantry, whenever you come down from 
 
 the claim " 
 
 301 
 
Black Boulder Claim 
 
 " Or back from school, Mother Laing," I interrupted. 
 " When we have everything working smooth on Black 
 Boulder, Lem and I are going away to get ready for col 
 lege." My eyes on Lem s face, I saw the shadow my 
 words were casting, and hurried on, " Lem s will be the 
 agricultural university " the shadow lifted, a grin 
 showed " where he ll learn real farming, and I ll I ll 
 study everything!" 
 
 " Better set one trail and stick to it, mountain or 
 college," Mother Laing advised. I shook my head, 
 smiling. Not for me the trim trails whose ends are 
 marked. I must wander into new lands, where there 
 are no sign-posts, break untrodden ways for others to 
 follow in surety. But Mother Laing was talking. 
 " Didn t you find it, just as your father said? Far-away 
 gold shines brighter than the gold in the pan, the won 
 derful prospect in the distance is a mirage, and the mine 
 you own, close to your home, is the best mine of all." 
 
 " But should I have found it by staying at home? " 
 I argued, happily. " Sold out to Wayne for a song, 
 probably. Been working now for him at the hotel, 
 likely." 
 
 " And I d still be manicuring his horses at nothing per 
 week, instead of looking after Zim and Faustina, and 
 owning the finest irrigated farm on the bald side of 
 Baldy," Lem helped the argument. 
 
 " Would I ever have found this? " I pulled from my 
 pocket a bit of white quartz with threads of gold in its 
 
 302 
 
Gold in the Grass Roots 
 
 seams, picked up at Ophir Creek. " Some place on 
 Baldy there s a ledge of this ore and it s rich richer 
 than any gravel claim that ever happened! Look at it, 
 Mother Laing!" 
 
 She gave me her quiet smile as she adjusted glasses 
 to see the glitter of wire gold, and said calmly: 
 
 " I suppose you ll have to hunt for it, Ted. Your 
 father would, and you are like him. But don t wander 
 too far away from the sure things of this life. They hold 
 the old world together, lad. Remember your father s 
 last words to you: * There is gold in the grass roots. 
 
 THE END 
 
 303 
 
YD 26868 
 
 662761 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY