CHAPTER XXXV
THE NEW DIGGINGS
When lunch-was over, Joe said:
"Good day, Mr. Hogan. Look out for the grizzlies, and may you have better luck in future."
"Yes, Hogan, good by," said Joshua. "We make over to you all our interest in the bear. He meant to eat you. You can revenge yourself by eatin' him."
"Are you going to leave me, gentlemen?" asked Hogan in alarm.
"You don't expect us to stay and take care of you, do you?"
"Let me go with you," pleaded Hogan. "I am afraid to be left alone in this country. I may meet another grizzly, and lose my life."
"That would be a great loss to the world," said Mr. Bickford, with unconcealed sarcasm.
"It would be a great loss to me," said Hogan.
"Maybe that's the best way to put it," observed Bickford. "It would have been money in my friend Joe's pocket if you had never been born."
"May I go with you?" pleaded Hogan, this time addressing himself to Joe.
"Mr. Hogan," said Joe, "you know very well why your company is not acceptable to us."
"You shall have no occasion to complain," said Hogan earnestly.
"Do you want us to adopt you, Hogan?" asked Joshua.
"Let me stay with you till we reach the nearest diggings. Then I won't trouble you any more."
Joe turned to Bickford.
"If you don't object," he said, "I think I'll let him come."
"Let the critter come," said Bickford. "He'd be sure to choke any grizzly that tackled him. For the sake of the bear, let him come."
Mr. Hogan was too glad to join the party, on any conditions, to resent the tone which Mr. Bickford employed in addressing him. He obtained his suit, and the party of three kept on their way.
As they advanced the country became rougher and more hilly. Here and there they saw evidences of "prospecting" by former visitors. They came upon deserted claims and the sites of former camps. But in these places the indications of gold had not been sufficiently favorable to warrant continued work, and the miners had gone elsewhere.
At last, however, they came to a dozen men who were busily at work in a gulch. Two rude huts near-by evidently served as their temporary homes.
"Well, boys, how do you find it?" inquired Bickford, riding up.
"Pretty fair," said one of the party.
"Have you got room for three more?"
"Yes—come along. You can select claims alongside and go to work if you want to."
"What do you say, Joe?"
"I am in favor of it."
"We are going to put up here, Hogan," said Mr. Bickford. "You can do as you've a mind to. Much as we value your interestin' society, we hope you won't put yourself out to stay on our account."
"I'll stay," said Hogan.
Joe and Joshua surveyed the ground and staked out their claims, writing out the usual notice and posting it on a neighboring tree. They had not all the requisite tools, but these they were able to purchase at one of the cabins.
"What shall I do?" asked Hogan. "I'm dead broke. I can't work without tools, and I can't buy any."
"Do you want to work for me?" asked Joshua.
"What'll you give?"
"That'll depend on how you work. If you work stiddy, I'll give you a quarter of what we both make. I'll supply you with tools, but they'll belong to me."
"Suppose we don't make anything," suggested Hogan.
"You shall have a quarter of that. You see, I want to make it for your interest to succeed."
"Then I shall starve."
The bargain was modified so that Hogan was assured of enough to eat, and was promised, besides, a small sum of money daily, but was not to participate in the gains.
"If we find a nugget, it won't do you any good. Do you understand, Hogan?"
"Yes, I understand."
He shrugged his shoulders, having very little faith in any prospective nuggets.
"Then we understand each other. That's all I want."
On the second day Joe and Mr. Bickford consolidated their claims and became partners, agreeing to divide whatever they found. Hogan was to work for them jointly.
They did not find their hired man altogether satisfactory. He was lazy and shiftless by nature, and work was irksome to him.
"If you don't work stiddy, Hogan," said Joshua, "you can't expect to eat stiddy, and your appetite is pretty reg'lar, I notice."
Under this stimulus Hogan managed to work better than he had done since he came out to California, or indeed for years preceding his departure. Bickford and Joe had both been accustomed to farm work and easily lapsed into their old habits.
They found they had made a change for the better in leaving the banks of the Yuba. The claims they were now working paid them better.
"Twenty-five dollars to-day," said Joshua, a week after their arrival. "That pays better than hoeing pertaters, Joe."
"You are right, Mr. Bickford. You are ten dollars ahead of me. I am afraid you will lose on our partnership."
"I'll risk it, Joe."
Hogan was the only member of the party who was not satisfied.
"Can't you take me into partnership?" he asked.
"We can, but I don't think we will, Hogan," said Mr. Bickford.
"It wouldn't pay. If you don't like workin' for us, you can take a claim of your own."
"I have no tools."
"Why don't you save your money and buy some, instead of gamblin' it away as you are doin'?"
"A man must have amusement," grumbled Hogan. "Besides, I may have luck and win."
"Better keep clear of gamblin', Hogan."
"Mr. Hogan, if you want to start a claim of your own, I'll give you what tools you need," said Joe.
Upon reflection Hogan decided to accept this offer.
"But of course you will have to find your own vittles now," said Joshua.
"I'll do it," said Hogan.
The same day he ceased to work for the firm of Bickford & Mason, for Joe insisted on giving Mr. Bickford the precedence as the senior party, and started on his own account.
The result was that he worked considerably less than before. Being his own master, he decided not to overwork himself, and in fact worked only enough to make his board. He was continually grumbling over his bad luck, although Joshua told him plainly that it wasn't luck, but industry, he lacked.
"If you'd work like we do," said Bickford, "you wouldn't need to complain. Your claim is just as good as ours, as far as we can tell."
"Then let us go in as partners," said Hogan.
"Not much. You ain't the kind of partner I want."
"I was always unfortunate," said Hogan.
"You were always lazy, I reckon. You were born tired, weren't you?"
"My health ain't good," said Hogan. "I can't work like you two."
"You've got a healthy appetite," said Mr. Bickford. "There ain't no trouble there that I can see."
Mr. Hogan had an easier time than before, but he hadn't money to gamble with unless he deprived himself of his customary supply of food, and this he was reluctant to do.
"Lend me half-an-ounce of gold-dust, won't you?" he asked of Joe one evening.
"What do you want it for—to gamble with?"
"Yes," said Hogan. "I dreamed last night that I broke the bank. All I want is money enough to start me."
"I don't approve of gambling, and can't help you."
Hogan next tried Mr. Bickford, but with like result.
"I ain't quite such a fool, Hogan," said the plain-spoken Joshua.
About this time a stroke of good luck fell to Joe. bout three o'clock one afternoon he unearthed a nugget which, at a rough estimate, might be worth five hundred dollars.
Instantly all was excitement in the mining-camp, not alone for what he had obtained, but for the promise of richer deposits. Experienced miners decided that he had, struck upon what is popularly called a "pocket," and some of these are immensely remunerative.
"Shake hands, Joe," said Bickford. "You're in luck."
"So are you, Mr. Bickford. We are partners, you know."
In less than an hour the two partners received an offer of eight thousand dollars for their united claim, and the offer was accepted.
Joe was the hero of the camp. All were rejoiced at his good fortune except one. That one was Hogan, who from a little distance, jealous and gloomy, surveyed the excited crowd.
CHAPTER XXXVI
HOGAN'S DISCONTENT
"Why don't luck come to me?" muttered Hogan to himself. "That green country boy has made a fortune, while I, an experienced man of the world, have to live from hand to mouth. It's an outrage!"
The parties to whom Joe and his partner sold their claim were responsible men who had been fortunate in mining and had a bank-account in San Francisco.
"We'll give you an order on our banker," they proposed.
"That will suit me better than money down," said Joe. "I shall start for San Francisco to-morrow, having other business there that I need to look after."
"I'll go too, Joe," said Joshua. "With my share of the purchase-money and the nugget, I'm worth, nigh on to five thousand dollars. What will dad say?"
"And what will Susan Smith say?" queried Joe.
Joshua grinned.
"I guess she'll say she's ready to change her name to Bickford," said he.
"You must send me some of the cake, Mr. Bickford."
"Just wait, Joe. The thing ain't got to that yet. I tell you, Joe, I shall be somebody when I get home to Pumpkin Hollow with that pile of money. The boys'll begin to look up to me then. I can't hardly believe it's all true. Maybe I'm dreamin' it. Jest pinch my arm, will you?"
Joe complied with his request.
"That'll do, Joe. You've got some strength in your fingers. I guess it's true, after all."
Joe observed with some surprise that Hogan did not come near them. The rest, without exception, had congratulated them on their extraordinary good luck.
"Seems to me Hogan looks rather down in the mouth," said Joe to Bickford.
"He's mad 'cause he didn't find the nugget. That's what's the matter with him. I say, Hogan, you look as if your dinner didn't agree with you."
"My luck don't agree with me."
"You don't seem to look at things right. Wasn't you lucky the other day to get away from the bear?"
"I was unlucky enough to fall in with him."
"Wasn't you lucky in meetin' my friend Joe in New York, and raisin' money enough out of him to pay your passage out to Californy?"
"I should be better off in New York. I am dead broke."
"You'd be dead broke in New York. Such fellers as you always is dead broke."
"Do you mean to insult me, Mr. Bickford?" demanded Hogan irritably.
"Oh, don't rare up, Hogan. It won't do no good. You'd ought to have more respect for me, considerin' I was your boss once."
"I'd give something for that boy's luck."
"Joe's luck? Well, things have gone pretty well with turn; but that don't explain all his success—he's willin' to work."
"So am I."
"Then go to work on your claim. There's no knowin' but there's a bigger nugget inside of it. If you stand round with your hands in your pockets, you'll never find it."
"It's the poorest claim in the gulch," said Hogan discontentedly.
"It pays the poorest because you don't work half the time."
Hogan apparently didn't like Mr. Bickford's plainness of speech. He walked away moodily, with his hands in his pockets. He could not help contrasting his penniless position with the enviable position of the two friends, and the devil, who is always in wait for such moments, thrust an evil suggestion into his mind.
It was this:
He asked himself why could he not steal the nugget which Joe had found?
"He can spare it, for he has sold the claim for a fortune," Hogan reasoned. "It isn't fair that he should have everything and I should have nothing. He ought to have made me his partner, anyway. He would if he hadn't been so selfish. I have just as much right to a share in it as this infernal Yankee. I'd like to choke him."
This argument was a very weak one, but a man easily persuades himself of what he wants to do.
"I'll try for it," Hogan decided, "this very night."
CHAPTER XXXVII
THE NUGGET IS STOLEN
At this time Joe and Joshua were occupying a tent which they had purchased on favorable terms of a fellow miner.
They retired in good season, for they wished to start early on their journey on the following morning.
"I don't know as I can go to sleep," said Joshua. "I can't help thinkin' of how rich I am, and what dad and all the folks will say."
"Do you mean to go home at once, Mr. Bickford?"
"Jest as soon as I can get ready. I'll tell you what I am goin' to do, Joe. I'm goin' to buy a tip-top suit when I get to Boston, and a gold watch and chain, and a breast-pin about as big as a saucer. When I sail into Pumpkin Holler in that rig folks'll look at me, you bet. There's old Squire Pennyroyal, he'll be disappointed for one."
"Why will he be disappointed?"
"Because he told dad I was a fool to come out here. He said I'd be back in rags before a year was out. Now, the old man thinks a good deal of his opinion, and he won't like it to find how badly he's mistaken."
"Then he would prefer to see you come home in rags?"
"You bet he would."
"How about Susan? Ain't you afraid she has married the store clerk?"
Joshua looked grave for a moment.
"I won't say but she has," said he; "but if she has gone and forgotten about me jest because my back is turned, she ain't the gal I take her for, and I won't fret my gizzard about her."
"She will feel worse than you when she finds you have come back with money."
"That's so."
"And you will easily find some one else," suggested Joe.
"There's Sophrony Thompson thinks a sight of me," said Mr. Bickford. "She's awful jealous of Susan. If Susan goes back on me, I'll call round and see Sophrony."
Joe laughed.
"I won't feel anxious about you, Joshua," he said, "since I find you have two girls to choose between."
"Not much danger of breakin' my heart. It's pretty tough."
There was a brief silence.
Then Joshua said:
"What are your plans, Joe? Shall you remain in San Francisco?"
"I've been thinking, Mr. Bickford, that I would like to go home on a visit. If I find that I have left my business in good hands in the city, I shall feel strongly tempted to go home on the same steamer with you."
"That would be hunky," said Bickford, really delighted. "We'd have a jolly time."
I think we would. But, Mr. Bickford, I have no girls to welcome me home, as you have."
"You ain't old enough yet, Joe. You're a good-lookin' feller, and when the time comes I guess you can find somebody."
"I don't begin to trouble myself about such things yet," said Joe, laughing. "I am only sixteen."
"You've been through considerable, Joe, for a boy of sixteen. I wish you'd come up to Pumpkin Holler and make me a visit when you're to home."
"Perhaps I can arrange to be present at your wedding, Mr. Bickford—that is, if Susan doesn't make you wait too long."
While this conversation was going on the dark figure of a man was prowling near the tent.
"Why don't the fools stop talking and go to sleep," muttered Hogan.
"I don't want to wait here all night." His wish was gratified.
The two friends ceased talking and lay quite still. Soon Joe's deep, regular breathing and Bickford's snoring convinced the listener that the time had come to carry out his plans.
With stealthy step he approached the tent, and stooping over gently removed the nugget from under Joshua's head. There was a bag of gold-dust which escaped his notice. The nugget was all he thought of.
With beating heart and hasty step the thief melted into the darkness, and the two friends slept on unconscious of their loss.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
HOGAN'S FATE
The sun was up an hour before Joe and Bickford awoke. When Joe opened his eyes he saw that it was later than the hour he intended to rise. He shook his companion.
"Is it mornin'?" asked Bickford drowsily.
"I should say it was. Everybody is up and eating breakfast. We must prepare to set out on our journey."
"Then it is time—we are rich," said Joshua, with sudden remembrance. "Do you know, Joe, I hain't got used to the thought yet. I had actually forgotten it."
"The sight of the nugget will bring it to mind."
"That's so."
Bickford felt for the nugget, without a suspicion that the search would be in vain.
Of course he did not find it.
"Joe, you are trying to play a trick on me," he said. "You've taken the nugget."
"What!" exclaimed Joe, starting. "Is it missing?"
"Yes, and you know all about it. Where have you put it, Joe?"
"On my honor, Joshua, I haven't touched it," said Joe seriously.
"Where did you place it?"
"Under my head—the last thing before I lay down."
"Are you positive of it?"
"Certain, sure."
"Then," said Joe, a little pale, "it must have been taken during the night."
"Who would take it?"
"Let us find Hogan," said Joe, with instinctive suspicion. "Who has seen Hogan?"
Hogan's claim was in sight, but he was not at work. Neither was he taking breakfast.
"I'll bet the skunk has grabbed the nugget and cleared out," exclaimed Bickford, in a tone of conviction.
"Did you hear or see anything of him during the night?"
"No—I slept too sound."
"Is anything else taken?" asked Joe. "The bag of dust–"
"Is safe. It's only the nugget that's gone."
The loss was quickly noised about the camp. Such an incident was of common interest. Miners lived so much in common—their property was necessarily left so unguarded—that theft was something more than misdemeanor or light offense. Stern was the justice which overtook the thief in those days. It was necessary, perhaps, for it was a primitive state of society, and the code which in established communities was a safeguard did not extend its protection here.
Suspicion fell upon Hogan at once. No one of the miners remembered to have seen him since rising.
"Did any one see him last night?" asked Joe.
Kellogg answered.
"I saw him near your tent," he said. "I did not think anything of it. Perhaps if I had been less sleepy I should have been more likely to suspect that his design was not a good one."
"About what hour was this?"
"It must have been between ten and eleven o'clock."
"We did not go to sleep at once. Mr. Bickford and I were talking over our plans."
"I wish I'd been awake when the skunk come round," said Bickford. "I'd have grabbed him so he'd thought an old grizzly'd got hold of him."
"Did you notice anything in his manner that led you to think he intended robbery?" asked Kellogg.
"He was complainin' of his luck. He thought Joe and I got more than our share, and I'm willin' to allow we have; but if we'd been as lazy and shif'less as Hogan we wouldn't have got down to the nugget at all."
An informal council was held, and it was decided to pursue Hogan. As it was uncertain in which direction he had fled, it was resolved to send out four parties of two men each to hunt him. Joe and Kellogg went together, Joshua and another miner departed in a different direction, and two other pairs started out.
"I guess we'll fix him," said Mr. Bickford. "If he can dodge us all, he's smarter than I think he is."
Meanwhile Hogan, with the precious nugget in his possession, hurried forward with feverish haste. The night was dark and the country was broken. From time to time he stumbled over some obstacle, the root of a tree or something similar, and this made his journey more arduous.
"I wish it was light," he muttered.
Then he revoked his wish. In the darkness and obscurity lay his hopes of escape.
"I'd give half this nugget if I was safe in San Francisco," he said to himself.
He stumbled on, occasionally forced by his fatigue to sit down and rest.
"I hope I'm going in the right direction, but I don't know," he said to himself.
He had been traveling with occasional rests for four hours when fatigue overcame him. He lay down to take a slight nap, but when he awoke the sun was up.
"Good Heaven!" he exclaimed in alarm. "I must have slept for some hours. I will eat something to give me strength, and then I must hurry on."
He had taken the precaution to take some provisions with him, and he began to eat them as he hurried along.
"They have just discovered their loss," thought Hogan. "Will they follow me, I wonder? I must be a good twelve miles away, and this is a fair start. They will turn back before they have come as far as this. Besides, they won't know in what direction I have come."
Hogan was mistaken in supposing himself to be twelve miles away. In reality, he was not eight. During the night he had traveled at disadvantage, and taken a round-about way without being aware of it. He was mistaken also in supposing that the pursuit would be easily abandoned. Mining communities could not afford to condone theft, nor were they disposed to facilitate the escape of the thief. More than once the murderer had escaped, while the thief was pursued relentlessly. All this made Hogan's position a perilous one. If he had been long enough in the country to understand the feeling of the people, he would not have ventured to steal the nugget.
About eleven o'clock Hogan sat down to rest. He reclined on the greensward near the edge of a precipitous descent. He did not dream that danger was so close till he heard his name called and two men came running toward him. Hogan, starting to his feet in dismay, recognized Crane and Peabody, two of his late comrades.
"What do you want?" he faltered, as they came within hearing.
"The nugget," said Crane sternly.
Hogan would have denied its possession if he could, but there it was at his side.
"There it is," he said.
"What induced you to steal it?" demanded Crane.
"I was dead broke. Luck was against me. I couldn't help it."
"It was a bad day's work for you," said Peabody. "Didn't you know the penalty attached to theft in the mining-camps?"
"No," faltered Hogan, alarmed at the stem looks of his captors.
"What is it?"
"Death by hanging," was the terrible reply.
Hogan's face blanched, and he sank on his knees before them.
"Don't let me be hung!" he entreated. "You've got the nugget back.
I've done no harm. No one has lost anything by me."
"Eight of us have lost our time in pursuing you. You gave up the nugget because you were forced to. You intended to carry it away."
"Mercy! mercy! I'm a very unlucky man. I'll go away and never trouble you again."
"We don't mean that you shall," said Crane sternly. "Peabody, tie his hands; we must take him back with us."
"I won't go," said Hogan, lying down. "I am not going back to be hung."
It would obviously be impossible to carry a struggling man back fifteen miles, or more.
"We must hang you on the spot then," said Crane, producing a cord.
"Say your prayers; your fate is sealed."
"But this is murder!" faltered Hogan, with pallid lips.
"We take the responsibility."
He advanced toward Hogan, who now felt the full horrors of his situation. He sprang to his feet, rushed in frantic fear to the edge of the precipice, threw up his arms, and plunged headlong. It was done so quickly that neither of his captors was able to prevent him.
They hurried to the precipice and looked over. A hundred feet below, on a rough rock, they saw a shapeless and motionless figure, crushed out of human semblance.
"Perhaps it is as well," said Crane gravely. "He has saved us an unwelcome task."
The nugget was restored to its owners, to whom Hogan's tragical fate was told.
"Poor fellow!" said Joe soberly. "I would rather have lost the nugget."
"So would I," said Bickford. "He was a poor, shif'less critter; but I'm sorry for him."