_ CHAPTER XII. "FOOL'S LUCK"
Gaunt, unshaven, weary, Winthrop rested on the crest of the northern range. Overland, looking for water, toiled on down the slope with the little burro. Winthrop rose stiffly and shuffled down the rocks. Near the foot of the range he saw the burro just disappearing round a bend in a canon. When he came up with Overland, the tramp had a fire going and had pitched the tent. The canon opened out to a level green meadow, through which ran a small stream. They had come a long day's journey from the water-hole on the other side of the range. They were safe from ordinary pursuit. That evening beside the fire, Overland Red told again the story of the dead prospector, the gold, and the buried papers. In his troubled slumbers the Easterner dreamed of pacing along the track counting the ties, and eventually digging in the sand, digging until his very soul ached with the futility of his labor. Waking, he never lost faith in the certainty of finding the place. He now knew the tramp well enough to appreciate that the other had not risked his own life and nearly killed one of his pursuers through sheer bravado, or fear, or personal hatred. Something more potent was beneath the tramp's motives--some incentive that was almost a religion. So far, Winthrop was correct. He erred, however, in supposing Overland to be obsessed with a mania for gold for its own sake. The erstwhile sheriff of Abilene had dreamed a dream about an adopted waif and a beautiful young girl. The dream was big. Its fulfillment would require much money. There was more of the poet in Overland Red than his best friend had ever imagined.
Three days they rested in the wild seclusion of the canon. The silence, the solemnity of the place, fascinated Winthrop. The tiny stream, cold and clear, the vegetation, in a region otherwise barren-gray and burning,--the arid Mojave with its blistering heat, the trees, the painted rocks,--ochre, copper, bronze, red, gray, and dim lilac in the distances,--the gracious shade, the little burro, half ludicrous, half pathetic in its stolid acceptance of circumstances,--all had a charm for him that soothed and satisfied his restlessness.
Meanwhile the indefatigable Overland spun yarn after yarn of the road and range, and rolled innumerable cigarettes with one hand, much to Winthrop's amusement.
The third morning Winthrop had awakened feeling so completely refreshed that he begged Overland to allow him to make an attempt to find the hidden papers and the little bag of gold. Overland demurred at first, fearing that the Easterner would become lost or stricken with the heat. Throughout the day Winthrop argued stubbornly that he ran no risk of capture, while Overland did. He asserted that he could easily find the water-hole, which was no difficult task, and from there he could go by compass straight out to the tracks. Overland had told him that somewhere near a little culvert beneath the track was the marked tie indicating the hiding-place of the dead prospector's things. It would mean a journey of a day and a night, traveling pretty continuously.
Finally Overland agreed to Winthrop's plan to make the attempt the following day.
* * * * *
At the foot of the range Overland gave his companion a canteen and a piece of gunnysack wrapped round some hardtack and jerked beef.
"Don't I need my gun this time?" queried Winthrop.
"Nope, Billy. 'Cause why? You don't generally kill a little gopher or a little owl that's settin' up tendin' to his business, because you ain't scared of them. But you will go off of the trail to kill a rattler, a side-winder, because he's able to kill you if he takes a notion. Correct. Now a tenderfoot totin' a gun is dangerouser than any rattler that ever hugged hisself to sleep in the sun--and most fellas travelin' the desert knows it. Why, I'm plumb scared of a gun-totin' tenderfoot, myself. Not havin' a gun will be your best recommend, generally speakin'. Stick to the bugs, Billy; stick to the bugs."
"Well, you ought to know."
"I got seven puckers in my hide to prove what I say. Six of 'em were put there by plumb amachoors in the gun line; fellas I never took pains to draw on quick, never suspectin' nothin'. The other, number seven, was put there by a gent that meant business. He died of a kind of lead poisonin' right immediate."
They shook hands, the battered, sunburned adventurer, rough-bearded, broad-chested, genial with robust health, and the slender, almost delicately fashioned Easterner, who had forgotten that there were such things as lungs, or doctors,--for the time being.
"Say, Billy, you need a shave," commented Overland, as the other turned to begin his journey across the desert.
Winthrop grinned. "You need--er--decapitating," he retorted, glancing back. Then he faced the south and strode away.
Overland, ascending the range, paused halfway up. "Decap-itating," he muttered. "Huh! That's a new one on me. De-cap--Let's see! Somethin' to do with a fella's hat, I reckon. It's easy to run a word down and hole it if you got brains. Mebby Billy meant for me to get a new one. Well, the constable's friend only put one hole in her--she's a pretty good hat yet."
* * * * *
Overland found his slow way back to the hidden canon. He felt a little lonely as he thought of Collie. He gave the burro some scraps of camp bread, knowing that the little animal would not stray so long as he was fed, even a little, each day.
It was while he was scouring the fry-pan that he noticed the black sand across the stream. Leisurely he rose and scooped a panful of the sand and gravel and began washing it, more as a pastime than with an idea of finding gold. Slowly he oscillated the whispering sand, slopping the water out until he had panned the lot. He spread his bandanna on a smooth rock and gently emptied the residue of the washing on it. "Color--but thin," he said. "Let's try her again."
He moved farther upstream--this time with one of his regular pans. He became absorbed in his experiment. He washed panful after panful, slowly, carefully, collectedly. Suddenly he stood up, swore softly, and flung the half-washed dirt of the last pan on the rocks. "I'm a nut!" he exclaimed. "This livin' in civilization has been puttin' my intellec' to the bad. Too much Eastern sassiety." And with this inexplicable self-arraignment he stooped at the tent-door, buckled on his gun, and started upstream. He glanced from side to side of the steep and narrowing walls as he advanced slowly. He passed places where the stream disappeared in the sand to find some subterranean channel and reappear below again. Rounding an angle of the cliff, he dropped to his knees and examined some tiny parallel scratches on a rounded rock--the marks made by a boot-heel that had slipped. For an hour he toiled over the rocks on up the diminishing stream. "Gettin' thin," he muttered, gazing at the silver thread of water rippling over the pebbles. A few feet ahead the cliffs met at the bottom in a sharp-edged "V," not over a foot apart in the stream-bed, but widening above. Overland scrambled through. On the other side of the opening he straightened up, breathing hard. His hand crept to his hip. On a sandy level a few yards ahead of him stood a ragged and faded canvas tent, its flap wavering idly in a breath of wind. In front of the tent was the rain-washed charcoal of an old fire. A rusted pan, a pick, and the worn stub of a shovel lay near the stream. A box marked "Dynamite" was half-filled with odds and ends of empty tins, cooking-utensils, and among the things was a glass fruit-jar half filled with matches.
Slowly Overland's hand dropped to his side. He stepped forward, stooped, and peered into the tent. "Thought so," he said laughing queerly. Save for a pair of old quilts and an old corduroy coat, the place was empty.
"Fool's luck," muttered Overland. "Wonder the Gophertown outfit didn't find him and fix him. But come to think of it, they ain't so anxious to cross over to this side of the range and get too clost to a real town, and get run in or shot up. Fool's luck," he reiterated, coolly rolling a cigarette and gazing about with a critical eye. "They's another trail into this canon that the prospector knowed. I got to find it. Billy'll be some interested." _