_ CHAPTER EIGHT. FRANK AND JOE TAKE TO WANDERING; SEE SOME WONDERFUL THINGS, AND HAVE A NARROW ESCAPE
Before our hero became convalescent, his comrade Douglas was "laid down" with dysentery. In these circumstances, the digging went on slowly, for much of the time of Meyer and Graddy was necessarily occupied in nursing--and truly kind and devoted, though rough, nurses they proved to be in that hour of need.
Gradually, but surely, Douglas sank. There was no doctor to prescribe for him, no medicine to be had for love or money. In that wretched hut he lay beside his sick friend, and conversed, as strength permitted, in faint low tones, on the folly of having thrown his life away for "mere gold," and on the importance of the things that concern the soul. As he drew near his end, the name of the Saviour was often on his lips, and often did he reproach himself for having neglected the "great salvation," until it was _almost_ too late. Sometimes he spoke of home--in Scotland,--and gave many messages to Frank, which he begged him to deliver to his mother, if he should ever get well and live to return home.
There was something in that "if" which went with a thrill to Frank's heart, as he lay there, and realised vividly that his comrade was actually dying, and that he too might die.
One evening Joe entered the hut with more alacrity than he had done for many a day. He had a large nugget, just dug up, in his hand, and had hastened to his companions to cheer them, if possible, with a sight of it. Douglas was just passing away. He heard his comrade's hearty remarks, and looked upon the mass of precious metal.
"Joe," he whispered faintly, "Wisdom is more to be desired than gold; 'The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.'"
He never spoke again, and died within an hour after that.
At last Frank began to mend, and soon found himself strong enough to travel, he therefore made arrangements to leave Bigbear Gully with his inseparable friend Joe. Meyer, being a very strong man, and in robust health, determined to remain and work out their claim, which still yielded abundance of gold.
"Meyer," said Frank, the evening before his departure, "I'm very sorry that we are obliged to leave you."
"Ya, das ist mos' miserable," said the poor German, looking disconsolate.
"But you see," continued Frank, "that my remaining, in my present state of health, is out of the question. Now, Joe and I have been talking over our affairs. We intend to purchase three mules and set off under the guidance of a half-caste Californian, to visit different parts of this country. We will continue our journey as long as our gold lasts, and then return to San Francisco and take passage for England,--for we have both come to the unalterable determination that we won't try to make our fortunes by gold-digging. We have sufficient dust to give us a long trip and pay our passage to England, without making use of that big nugget found by Joe, which is worth at least 200 pounds; so we have determined to leave it in possession of Jeffson, to be used by you if luck should ever take a wrong turn--as it will sometimes do--and you should chance to get into difficulties. Of course if you continue prosperous, we will reclaim our share of it on our return hither."
"Ah, you is too goot," cried the warm-hearted German, seizing Frank's hand and wringing it, "bot I vill nevair use de nuggut--nevair! You sall find him here sartainly ven you do com bak."
"Well, I hope so, for your own sake," said Frank, "because that will show you have been successful. But if you get into low water, and do not use it, believe me I shall feel very much aggrieved."
Next day about noon, our hero and Joe, with Junk, their vaquero, mounted their mules and rode away.
"A new style o' cruisin' this," said Joe Graddy, one fine day, as they pulled up under the shade of a large tree, at a spot where the scenery was so magnificent that Frank resolved to rest and sketch it.
"New, indeed, and splendid too," he exclaimed enthusiastically, leaping off his mule. "You can go shoot squirrels or bears if you like, Joe, but here I remain for the next three or four hours."
As Frank had been in the habit of treating his friend thus almost every day since starting on their tour, he was quite prepared for it; smiled knowingly, ordered the vaquero to tether the mules and accompany him into the forest, and then, taking his bearings with a small pocket-compass, and critically inspecting the sun, and a huge pinchbeck watch which was the faithful companion of his wanderings, he shouldered his gun and went off, leaving the enthusiastic painter to revel in the glories of the landscape.
And truly magnificent the scenery was. They had wandered by that time far from the diggings, and were involved in all the grandeur of the primeval wilderness. Stupendous mountains, capped with snow, surrounded the beautiful valley through which they were travelling, and herbage of the richest description clothed the ground, while some of the trees were so large that many of the giant oaks of old England would have appeared small beside them. Some of the precipices of the valley were fully three thousand feet high, without a break from top to bottom, and the mountain-ranges in the background must have been at least as high again. Large tracts of the low grounds were covered with wild oats and rich grasses; affording excellent pasturage to the deer, which could be seen roving about in herds. Lakes of various sizes were alive with waterfowl, whose shrill and plaintive cries filled the air with wild melody. A noble river coursed throughout the entire length of the valley, and its banks were clothed with oaks, cypresses, and chestnuts, while, up on the mountain sides, firs of truly gigantic size reared their straight stems above the surrounding trees with an air of towering magnificence, which gave them indisputable right to be considered the aristocracy of those grand solitudes.
Of these firs Frank observed one so magnificent that, although anxious to begin work without delay, he could not resist the desire to examine it closely. Laying down his book and pencil he ran towards it, and stood for some time in silent amazement, feeling that he was indeed in the presence of the Queen of the Forest. It was a pine which towered to a height of certainly not less than three hundred and sixty feet, and, after careful measurement, was found to be ninety-three feet in circumference. In regarding this tree as the Queen, Frank was doubly correct, for the natives styled it the "Mother of the Forest." The bark of it, to the height of a hundred and sixteen feet, was, in after years, carried to England, and built up in its original form in the Crystal Palace of Sydenham. It was unfortunately destroyed in the great fire which a few years ago consumed a large part of that magnificent building.
But this was not the only wonderful sight that was seen that day. After Frank had finished his drawing, and added it to a portfolio which was already well filled, he fired a shot to recall his nautical comrade and the vaquero. They soon rejoined him, and, continuing their journey, came to a waterfall which, in some respects, excelled that of the far-famed Niagara itself.
It had sounded like murmuring thunder in their ears the greater part of that day, and as they approached it the voice of its roar became so deafening that they were prepared for something unusually grand, but not for the stupendous sight and sound that burst upon them when, on turning round the base of a towering precipice, they came suddenly in full view of one of the most wonderful of the Creator's works in that land.
A succession of wall-like mountains rose in two tiers before them into the clouds. Some of the lower clouds floated far below the highest peaks. From the summit of the highest range, a river, equal to the Thames at Richmond, dropt sheer down a precipice of more than two thousand feet. Here it met the summit of the lower mountain-range, on which it burst with a deep-toned sullen roar, comparable only to eternal thunder. A white cloud of spray received the falling river in its soft embrace, and sent it forth again, turbulent and foam-bespeckled, towards its second leap,--another thousand feet,--into the plain below. The entire height of this fall was above three thousand feet!
Our hero was of course anxious to make a careful drawing of it, but having already exhausted the greater part of the day, he was fain to content himself with a sketch, after making which they pushed rapidly forward, and encamped for the night, still within sight and sound of the mighty fall.
"D'you know, Joe," said Frank, leaning back against a tree stem, as he gazed meditatively into into the fire after supper was concluded, "it has often struck me that men are very foolish for not taking full possession of the splendid world, in which they have been placed."
Frank paused a few moments, but the observation not being sufficiently definite for Joe, who was deep in the enjoyment of his first pipe, no reply was made beyond an interjectional "h'm."
"Just look around you," pursued Frank, waving his hand towards the landscape, "at this magnificent country; what timber, what soil, what an amount of game, what lakes, what rivers, what facilities for farming, manufacturing, fishing,--everything, in fact, that is calculated to gladden the heart of man."
"Includin' gold," suggested Joe.
"Including gold," assented Frank; and there it all lies--has lain since creation--hundreds of thousands of acres of splendid land _unoccupied_.
"Ha! there's a screw loose somewhere," said Joe, taking the pipe from his lips and looking at it earnestly, as if the remark were addressed to it, "somethin' out o' j'int--a plank started, so to speak--cer'nly."
"No doubt of it," said Frank; "and the broad acres which we now look upon, as well as those over which we have lately travelled, are as nothing compared with the other waste but fertile lands in America, on which hundreds of thousands of the human race might live happily. Yet, strange to say, men seem to prefer congregating together in little worlds of brick, stone, and mortar, living tier upon tier above each other's heads, breathing noxious gases instead of the scent of flowers, treading upon mud, stone, and dust, instead of green grass, and dwelling under a sky of smoke instead of bright blue ether--and this, too, in the face of the Bible command to 'go forth and replenish the earth.'"
"Yes, there's great room," said Joe, "for the settin' up of a gin'ral enlightenment an' universal emigration society, but I raither think it wouldn't pay."
"I know it wouldn't, but why not?" demanded Frank.
"Ah, why not?" repeated Joe.
As neither of them appeared to be able to answer the question, they both remained for some time in a profound reverie, Frank gazing as he was wont to do into the fire, and Joe staring through smoke of his own creation at the vaquero, who reclined on the opposite side of the fire enjoying the tobacco to the full by letting it puff slowly out at his nose as well as his mouth.
"Joe," said Frank.
"Ay, ay, sir," answered Joe with nautical promptitude.
"I have been thinking a good deal about our affairs of late, and have come to the conclusion that the sooner we go home the better."
"My notions pre-cisely."
"Moreover," continued Frank, "I think that we have come far enough in this direction, and that it would be a good plan to return to Bigbear Gully by a different route from that by which we came here, and thus have an opportunity of seeing some of the other parts of the diggings. What say you to that?"
"I'm agreeable," answered Joe.
"Well then, shall we decide to commence our return journey to-morrow?"
"By all means. Down wi' the helm, 'bout ship an' lay our course on another tack by daylight," said Joe, shaking the ashes out of his pipe with the slow unwilling air of a man who knows that he has had enough but is loath to give up; "I always like to set sail by daylight. It makes one feel up to the mark so to speak, as if one had lost none of the day, and I suppose," he added with a sigh which resolved itself into a yawn, "that if we means to start so bright an' early the sooner we tumble in the better."
"True," said Frank, whose mouth irresistibly followed the example of Joe's, "I think it will be as well to turn in."
There was a quiet, easy-going lowness in the speech and motions of the two friends, which showed that they were just in a state of readiness to fall into the arms of the drowsy god. They rolled themselves in their blankets, placed their rifles by their sides, their heads on their saddles, and their feet to the fire.
Joe Graddy's breathing proclaimed that he had succumbed at once, but Frank lay for a considerable time winking owlishly at the stars, which returned him the compliment with interest by twinkling at him through the branches of the overhanging trees.
Early next morning they arose, remounted their mules and turned back, diverging, according to arrangement, from their former track, and making for a particular part of the diggings where Frank had been given to understand there were many subjects of interest for his pencil. We would fain linger by the way, to describe much of what they saw, but the limits of our space require that we should hasten onward, and transport the reader at once to a place named the Great Canon, which, being a very singular locality, and peculiarly rich in gold, merits description.
It was a gloomy gap or gorge--a sort of gigantic split in the earth-- lying between two parallel ranges of hills at a depth of several hundred feet, shaped like a wedge, and so narrow below that there was barely standing room. The gold all lay at the bottom, the slopes being too steep to afford it a resting-place.
The first diggers who went there were said to have gathered vast quantities of gold; and when Frank and Joe arrived there was quite enough to repay hard work liberally. The miners did not work in companies there. Indeed, the form of the chasm did not admit of operations on a large scale being carried on at any one place. Most of the men worked singly with the pan, and used large bowie-knives with which they picked gold from the crevices of the rocks in the bed of the stream, or scratched the gravelly soil from the roots of the overhanging trees, which were usually rich in deposits. The gorge, about four miles in extent, presented one continuous string of men in single file, all eagerly picking up gold, and admitting that in this work they were unusually successful.
But these poor fellows paid a heavy price for the precious metal in the loss of health, the air being very bad, as no refreshing breezes could reach them at the bottom of the gloomy defile.
The gold at that place was found both in very large and very small grains, and was mixed with quantities of fine black sand, which the miners blew off from it somewhat carelessly--most of them being "green hands," and anxious to get at the gold as quickly as possible. This carelessness on their part was somewhat cleverly taken advantage of by a keen old fellow who chanced to enter the hut of a miner when Frank and Joe were there. He had a bag on his back and a humorous twinkle in his eye.
"Well, old foxey, what do _you_ want?" asked the owner of the hut, who happened to be blowing off the sand from a heap of his gold at the time.
"Sure it's only a little sand I want," said the man, in a brogue which betrayed his origin.
"Sand, Paddy, what for?"
"For emery, sure," said the man, with a very rueful look; "troth it's myself as is gittin' too owld entirely for the diggin's. I was a broth of a boy wance, but what wid dysentery and rheumatiz there's little or nothin' o' me left, so I'm obleeged to contint myself wid gatherin' the black sand, and sellin' it as a substitute for emery."
"Well, that is a queer dodge," said the miner, with a laugh.
"True for ye, it _is_ quare, but it's what I'm redooced to, so av you'll be so kind as plaze to blow the sand on to this here tray, it'll be doin' a poor man a good turn, an' costin' ye nothin'."
He held up a tin tray as he spoke, and the miner cheerfully blew the sand off his gold-dust on to it.
Thanking him with all the fervour peculiar to his race, the Irishman emptied the sand into his bag, and heaving a heavy sigh, left the hut to request a similar favour of other miners.
"You may depend on it," said Frank, as the old man went out, "that fellow is humbugging you. It is gold, not sand, that he wants."
"That's a fact," said Joe Graddy, with an emphatic nod and wink.
"Nonsense," said the miner, "I don't believe we lose more than a few specks in blowing off the sand--certainly nothing worth speaking of."
The man was wrong in this, however, for it was afterwards discovered that the sly old fellow carried his black sand to his hut, and there, every night, by the agency of quicksilver, he extracted from the sand double the average of gold obtained by the hardest working miner in the Canon!
At each end of this place there was a hut made of calico stretched on a frame of wood, in which were sold brandy and other strong liquors of the most abominable kind, at a charge of about two shillings for a small glass! Cards were also to be found there by those who wished to gamble away their hard-earned gains or double them. Places of iniquity these, which abounded everywhere throughout the diggings, and were the nightly resort of hundreds of diggers, and the scene of their wildest orgies on the Sabbath-day.
Leaving the Great Canon, our travellers--we might almost term them inspectors--came to a creek one raw, wet morning, where a large number of miners where at work. Here they resolved to spend the day, and test the nature of the ground. Accordingly, the vaquero was directed to look after the mules while Frank and Joe went to work with pick, shovel, and pan.
They took the "dirt" from a steep incline considerably above the winter level of the stream, in a stratum of hard bluish clay, almost as hard as rock, with a slight surface-covering of earth. It yielded prodigiously. At night they found that they had washed out gold to the value of forty pounds sterling! The particles of gold were all large, many being the size of a grain of corn, with occasional nuggets intermixed, besides quartz amalgamations.
"If this had been my first experience o' them there diggin's," said Joe Graddy, as he smoked his pipe that night in the chief gambling and drinking store of the place, "I would have said our fortin wos made, all but. Hows'ever, I don't forget that the last pair o' boots I got cost me four pound, an' the last glass o' brandy two shillin's--not to speak o' death cuttin' an' carvin' all round, an' the rainy season a-comin' on, so it's my advice that we 'bout ship for home as soon as may be."
"I agree with you, Joe," said Frank, "and I really don't think I would exchange the pleasure I have derived from journeying through this land, and sketching the scenery, for all the gold it contains. Nevertheless I would not like to be tempted with the offer of such an exchange!--Now, I'll turn in."
Next morning the rain continued to pour incessantly, and Frank Allfrey had given the order to get ready for a start, when a loud shouting near the hut in which they had slept induced them to run out. A band of men were hurrying toward the tavern with great haste and much gesticulation, dragging a man in the midst of them, who struggled and protested violently.
Frank saw at a glance that the prisoner was his former companion Bradling, and that one of the men who held him was the stranger who had been so badly wounded by him at the camp-fire, as formerly related.
On reaching the tavern, in front of which grew a large oak-tree--one of the limbs of which was much chafed as if by the sawing of a rope against it--the stranger, whose comrades called him Dick, stood up on a stump, and said--
"I tell you what it is, mates, I'm as sure that he did it as I am of my own existence. The man met his death at the hands of this murderer Bradling; ha! he knows his own name, you see! He is an escaped convict."
"And what are you?" said Bradling, turning on him bitterly.
"That is no man's business, so long as I hurt nobody," cried Dick passionately. "I tell you," he continued, addressing the crowd, which had quickly assembled, "I found this fellow skulking in the bush close to where the body was found, and I know he did it, because he all but murdered me not many months ago, and there," he continued, with a look of surprise, pointing straight at our hero, "is a man who can swear to the truth of what I say!"
All eyes were at once turned on Frank, who stepped forward, and said--
"I can certainly testify to the fact that this man Bradling did attempt to shoot the man whom you call Dick, but I know nothing about the murder which seems to have been perpetrated here, and--"
"It's a young feller as was a quiet harmless sort o' critter," said one of the bystanders, "who was found dead under a bush this morning with his skull smashed in; and it's my opinion, gentlemen, that, since this stranger has sworn to the fact that Bradling tried to murder Dick, he should swing for it."
"I protest, gentlemen," said Frank energetically, "that I did not _swear_ at all! I did not even _say_ that Bradling tried to murder anybody: on the contrary, I think the way in which the man Dick handled his gun at the time when Bradling fired was very susp--"
A shout from the crowd drowned the remainder of this speech.
"String him up without more ado," cried several voices.
Three men at once seized Bradling, and a rope was quickly flung over the bough of the oak.
"Mercy! mercy!" cried the unhappy man, "I swear that I did not murder the man. I have made my pile down at Bigbear Gully, and I'll give it all--every cent--if you will wait to have the matter examined. Stay," he added, seeing that they paid no heed to him, "let me speak one word, before I die, with Mr Allfrey. I want to tell him where my gold lies hid."
"It's a dodge," cried one of the executioners with a sneer, "but have your say out. It's the last you'll have a chance to say here, so look sharp about it."
Frank went forward to the man, who was trembling, and very pale, and begged those who held him to move off a few paces.
"Oh! Mr Allfrey," said Bradling, "I am innocent of this; I _am_ an escaped convict, it is true, and I _did_ try to kill that man Dick, who has given me provocation enough, God knows, but, as He shall be my judge at last, I swear I did not commit _this_ murder. If you will cut the cords that bind my hands, you will prevent a cold-blooded murder being committed now. You saved my life once before. Oh! save it again."
The man said all this in a hurried whisper, but there was something so intensely earnest and truthful in his bearing that Frank, under a sudden and irresistible impulse, which he could not afterwards account for, drew his knife and cut the cords that bound him.
Instantly Bradling bounded away like a hunted deer, overturning several men in his flight, and being followed by a perfect storm of bullets from rifles and revolvers, until he had disappeared in the neighbouring wood. Then the miners turned with fury on Frank, but paused abruptly on seeing that he and Joe Graddy stood back to back, with a revolver in each hand.
Of course revolvers and rifles were instantly pointed at them, but fortunately the miners in their exasperation had discharged all their fire-arms at Bradling--not a piece remained loaded!
Several therefore commenced hurriedly to re-load, but Frank shouted, in a voice that there was no misunderstanding--
"The first who attempts to load is a dead man!"
This caused them to hesitate, for in those times men, when desperate, were wont to be more prompt to act than to threaten. Still, there were some present who would have run the risk, and it is certain that our hero and his friend would have then and there terminated their career, had not a backwoods hunter stepped forward and said:
"Well now, ye air makin' a pretty noise 'bout nothin'! See here, I know that feller Bradling well. _He_ didn't kill the man. It was a Redskin as did it; I came up in time to see him do it, and killed the Redskin afore he could get away. In proof whereof here is his gun, an' you'll find his carcase under the bank where the murder was committed, if ye've a mind to look for it. But Bradling _is_ a murderer. I knows him of old, an' so, although he's innocent of this partikler murder, I didn't see no occasion to try to prevent him gittin' his desarts. It's another matter, hows'ever, when you're goin' to scrag the men as let him off. If ye'll take the advice of an old hunter as knows a thing or two, you'll go to work on yer claims slick off, for the rains are comin' on, and they will pull ye up sharp, I guess. You'll make hay while the sun shines if you're wise."
The opportune interference of this hunter saved Frank and Joe, who, after thanking their deliverer, were not slow to mount their mules and hasten back to Bigbear Gully, resolved more firmly than ever to wind up their affairs, and bid a final adieu to the diggings. _