Loe raamatut: «The Treasure of Hidden Valley», lehekülg 17

“You irrepressible donkey: Hand over my letters.”

“Oh, yes, the letters.” Whitley began to sort the bunch of correspondence. “This is for Buell Hampton. And this is for Ben Bragdon. I suppose he’s in town?”

“Yes. But he’s pretty busy.”

“Won’t be too busy to attend to me, I reckon. Then W. B. Grady” – he was fingering a neatly folded, legal looking document “I hope that Grady hasn’t cleared out from Encampment yet.”

“Not that I’ve heard. In fact I saw him on the street this morning. You seem to have business with everyone in town.”

“Just about hits it, old man. And General John Holden. Ah, yes, that reminds me,” Whitley suspended his sorting of the letters, and looked up. “How’s the college widow, old man?”

Roderick reddened.

“That’s all off,” he answered stiffly.

“I guessed that’s just what would happen. Best so, by a long chalk, So Stella Rain is free again. Guess I’ll stop off on my way home, and take a run to Galesburg. Nice girl, you know, Stella. No saying but I might make an impression now she is” —

“Stella Rain is married,” interrupted Roderick, speaking sharply and shortly.

“You don’t say? Too bad.”

“Happily married, I tell you – to some rich fellow.”

“Oh, then, she threw you over, did she? Ho, ho, ho! But that’s all right, old fellow. Saves all complications. And Gail, how’s Gail? Oh, she’s a pipit pin.

“By gad, Whitley, you shut up. Come and have your dinner. But you haven’t given me my letters yet.”

“Ah, I forgot Well this one is for General Holden. I’ve got to see him at once.”

“What about?”

“Confidential business, my friend. Ask no questions for I want to be spared the pain of refusing you the slightest information. Great guns, Rod, we financial men, you know, hold more secrets than a father confessor. We’ve got to keep our mouths shut all the time, even to our best friends. This is my letter of credit to your local bank – no limit, mind you, on my sight drafts on Keokuk. Ah, yes, here are your letters – one from Aunt Lois, the other from your old guardian. Hope he has put a fat check inside.”

“I don’t need his checks – if there’s any check here, you can take it back.” And Roderick ripped open the envelope.

But there was no offending slip of colored paper enclosed, and he thrust both the letters unread into his pocket.

“Now we’ll dine,” he said.

“A moment, please.” And Whitley turned to the driver of the bob-sled waiting in the middle of the road.

“Go and get your dinner, my man,” he called out. “Then hitch fresh horses in that sled, and come to my hotel, the Bonhomme; that’s the best place in town, if I remember right, Roderick,” he said with a glance at his friend. Then he continued to the driver: “Charge everything to me, and don’t be longer than a couple of hours. Now come along, Roderick. You dine with me – oh, I have an ample expense fund. But I’m sorry I’ll have to leave you immediately after dinner.”

Roderick was overwhelmed by all this grandiloquence. He hardly dared to take his old chum’s arm as they walked along the street. But at last he stopped, burst out laughing, and slapped the man of affairs squarely between the shoulders.

“Whitley, old chap, you’re a wonder. You play the part to perfection.”

“Play the part?” protested Whitley, with a fine assumption of dignity. “I am the part – the real thing. I’m your rich old uncle’s right hand man, and don’t you forget it. Would a little ready cash now be a convenience?”

Then Whitley’s arm went round his comrade’s neck, and with a simultaneous whoop of laughter they passed into the hotel.

But during the next twenty-four hours Roderick saw very little of his college chum. And during the same period the said college chum accomplished some very remarkable things. Immediately after dinner the bob-sled sped out to Conchshell ranch, and General Holden signed the legal papers that attached, as a measure of precaution, the bonds standing in the name of W. B. Grady and now in the custody of the bank at Keokuk as security for a loan. And for half the night Attorney Ben Bragdon and Whitley Adams were closeted with W. B. Grady in a private parlor of the hotel, and the fight was fought out for legal possession of the fraudulently acquired bonds – a fight that put the issue squarely up to Grady whether he would accept Banker Allen Miller’s terms of surrender or face a criminal charge. It was in the grey of the breaking dawn that the vanquished Grady crept out of the hotel, wiping the beads of cold sweat from his brow, while Whitley was quietly folding up the properly signed transfers that gave back to General Holden bonds of equal value to those of which he had been robbed by false pretences and promises never fulfilled.

In the morning Whitley was again at the Conchshell ranch, and breakfasted with the General and his daughter. It was the latter who bound him to secrecy – to the solemn promise that neither he nor Mr. Bragdon should divulge to anyone the story of this restored family fortune. Gail declared that she was going to make good with her dairy cattle venture, that neither she nor her father wanted to return to the old life of fashion and society at Quincy, that they had no wish to appear as rich folks. Whitley listened to all the arguments, understood, and promised. And that the transfer of the bonds should not be connected with General Holden’s name it was agreed that for the present they should pass to Banker Allen Miller as family trustee.

Whitley’s chest had expanded fully two inches when he drove away, the trusted emissary for the carrying into effect of these decrees. He had had a few minutes alone with Gail and, introducing the name of Roderick Warfield in a casual way, had assured her that he, like everyone else, would know nothing about these strictly family affairs. She had blushed a little, reiterated her thanks, and at parting had, he could have sworn, given him an extra friendly pressure of her dainty little fingers.

Whitley drove straight to Ben Bragdon’s office, and took the precaution of adding to the professional seal of secrecy a direct expression from the General of his wishes in the matter.

During the afternoon the young banker from Keokuk personally delivered the letter from Allen Miller addressed to Major Buell Hampton. Whitley had insisted upon Roderick accompanying him. The relationship between Roderick and Banker Miller was now revealed. The Major received the news without much surprise.

“In the loom of life,” he said, with great solemnity, “the shuttle of destiny weaves the threads of individual lives into a pattern which is only disclosed as time goes on. Thus are the destinies of men interwoven without their knowing either the how or the why. Roderick, my dear fellow, from this day on we are simply more closely bound to each other than ever.”

The evening was spent at the Shields ranch. Whitley congratulated Barbara on her engagement to Ben Bragdon, and then took Dorothy’s breath away by congratulating her and the absent Grant Jones as well.

Dorothy blushed furiously, and disowned the soft impeachment; to which Whitley replied that unless her sweetheart got busy promptly and toed the line, he himself was coming back to Encampment to cut out so tardy a wooer. “Tell Grant Jones from me,” he said, “that it’s taking chances to leave the tempting peach upon the tree.” She slapped his hand playfully for his audacity, and Roderick hurried the flippant financier out of the room.

At midnight, in the bright moonlight, Whitley departed for Rawlins to catch his train. Nothing could persuade him to prolong his visit – Banker Miller would be hopping around like a cat on hot bricks, the bank going to wreck and ruin if he did not hurry back, the girls of Keokuk growing quite jealous of the beauties of Wyoming.

Like a whiff of sweet perfume the joyous youth was gone.

CHAPTER XXXI – RODERICK’S DISCOVERY

NOTWITHSTANDING their change in fortunes,

Roderick and Grant still made the editor’s shack their home – the old place endeared to them by many fond associations. A few days after Whitley Adams’ visit they were seated at the breakfast table, and Grant had proposed that they should go deer hunting.

“Excellent weather,” he explained, “as the snow is just deep enough up in the mountains to drive the deer down. Finest sport in the world. Nothing like going after big game.”

“You almost persuade me,” said Roderick, setting down his coffee and looking at Grant with increased interest. “All the same I hate to leave the smelter plant even for a day or two. You see I’m just beginning to get a hang of the business, and I’ve quite made up my mind to master it.”

“Oh, let it rip. You’re not tied down to the works, are you?”

“Certainly not – you don’t imagine I think myself qualified as yet to be tied down. ‘But what about guns?”

“Oh, well,” said Grant, “I have a.32 Winchester, one that has got a record too, by gunnies, as Jim Rankin would say. Its record is great.”

“How big a record?” inquired Roderick.

“Seven deer,” answered Grant.

“All your own killing?”

“Well, no. To be downright truthful since you force me to particularize, I’ll admit I never killed but one deer with it. But that does not interfere with the gun’s record.” And then he continued: “I have no doubt Major Hampton will be delighted to loan you his gun. He has a .30 calibre Government Springfield and in his hands it has accounted for many a buck.”

After breakfast they called on Major Hampton.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” said the Major as he opened the door and bade them welcome.

“We are going deer hunting,” said Grant, quite enthusiastically. “I have a gun, but this-would-be-slayer-of-big-game, Roderick, is gunless and when we return he may be deerless. Was just wondering, Major, if you would care to loan your famous deer killer to him. Guess its long record,” he added, “would fill a book.”

“Why, certainly,” replied the Major in an absent-minded way; and then presently he went on: “Do not interpret my hesitation as unwillingness to accommodate you. It is well you came just when you did, for within half an hour I myself will be starting for the mountains and my mind was pre-occupied with my own little preparations.”

“Can’t you come with us, Major?” asked Grant.

“But I won’t be depriving you of your gun?” enquired Roderick simultaneously.

“I answer ‘no’ to both questions,” was the smiling response. “I am going out on one of my lonesome excursions – to commune with Nature face to face for a brief spell. And when I go I need no rifle – even the very deer there are my trustful friends.”

Then turning he took down his rifle from its accustomed place and brought it over to Roderick.

“This old Springfield has served me well,” he said, smiling in his own magnificent way. “It was my friend in dark days of need. In my lifetime, gentlemen, I have never spilled the blood of any living thing wantonly, and I do not believe man is justified in taking the life of even a worm on the pathway, a rabbit in the hills, cattle or sheep in the fields, or a deer in the wilds unless it is for food and to sustain life.”

Then suddenly looking at Grant the Major said: “I understand W. R. Grady is up in the hills?”

“Yes, so I have heard.”

“What is he doing? Looking for a mine?”

“Possibly. They say he is at the Thomas Boarding House most of the time up at Battle.”

“Guess,” interrupted Roderick, “that he is not very happy since the new order of things – your new plan, Major – put him out of business.”

“Perhaps he is getting in touch again with his old heeler, Bud Bledsoe,” suggested Grant. “That outlaw gang has been lying low for quite a while, but I’m expecting to hear about some new bit of deviltry any day. Am in need of a corking good newspaper story.”

“Well, since you are bent on hunting big game,” laughed the Major, “these miscreants might provide you with all the exciting sport you are wanting.”

“Oh, a brace of good fat bucks will be good enough for us. Where’s the likeliest place to start from, Major? You’re the local authority on these matters.”

“You know where Spirit River Falls are?” asked Buell Hampton.

“I’ve heard of them but have never been there,” replied Grant.

“I think that I’ve seen them from above,” observed Roderick, “but I don’t know the way to them.”

“Well, you know where Gid Sutton’s half-way house is located?”

“Certainly,” replied Roderick. “I was there less than a month ago.”

“Well, Spirit River Falls are located about six or seven miles south and east of the half-way house. I advise that one of you go up the South Fork of the Encampment River and the other keep to the right and go over the hills past Conchshell ranch into a park plateau to the south; then have your meeting place this evening in an old log structure that you will find about three-fourths of a mile directly through the timber southeast from the falls. If you are wise, you will load up two or three burros, send them with a trusty, and have him make camp for you in this old deserted hut. You will find a cup of coffee, a rasher of bacon and a few sandwiches very appetizing by the time you have tramped all day in your deer-hunting quest And the country all around is full of deer.”

The young men thanked him warmly for his advice.

“In point of fact,” continued Buell Hampton, “I’ll be up in the same region myself. But I’m travelling light and will have the start of you. Moreover, we can very easily lose each other in that rugged country of rocks and timber. But don’t mistake me for a buck, Roderick, if you catch sight of my old sombrero among the brushwood;” saying which he reached for the broad-brimmed slouch hat hanging against the wall.

“I’ll take mighty good care,” replied Roderick. “But I hope we’ll run up against you, Major, all the same.”

“No, you won’t find me,” answered Buell Hampton, with a quiet smile. “I’ll be hidden from all the world. Follow the deer, young men, and the best of luck to you.”

The two comrades started away in high feather, anticipating great results from the tip given them by the veteran hunter. Going straight to the livery bam, they rigged out three burros, and sent with them one of the stablemen who, besides being a fairly good cook, happened to be familiar with the trail to Spirit River Falls, and also knew the location of the “hunter’s hut” as they found the old log structure indicated by Buell Hampton was locally named.

These arrangements concluded, Roderick and Grant started for the hills. Some half a mile from Encampment they separated – Jones going along the east bank of the South Fork of the Encampment River and Roderick following the North Fork until he came to Conchshell canyon. The day was an ideal one for a deer hunt. There was not a breath of wind. The sky was overcast in a threatening manner as if it were full of snow that was liable to flutter down at the slightest provocation.

As Roderick reached the plateau that constituted the Conchshell ranch he concluded to bear to the left and as he said to himself “Keep away from temptation.” He was out hunting wild deer that day and he must not permit himself to make calls on a sweet-throated songster like Gail. On through the open fields and over the fences and into a thick growth of pines and firs, where he plodded his way through snow that crunched and cried loudly under his feet Indeed the stillness of everything excepting his own walking began to grate on his nerves and he said to himself that surely a whitetailed deer with ordinary alertness could hear him walking even if it were half a mile away.

As he trudged along mile after mile he was very watchful for game or tracks, but nothing stirred, no trace of deer was discernible in any direction. He was following the rim of a hill surmounting some boxlike canyons that led away abruptly to the left, while a smooth field or park reached far to the right where the hills were well covered with timber. Here and there an opening of several acres in extent occurred without bush or shrub.

It was perhaps one o’clock in the afternoon and he was becoming a bit leg-weary. Brushing the snow away from a huge boulder he seated himself for a short rest. Scarcely had he done so than he noticed that occasional flakes of snow were falling. “More snow,” he muttered to himself, “and I am a good ways from a cup of coffee if I am any judge.”

After he was rested he got up and again moved on. Just then, as he looked down into a box canyon, he saw three deer – a doe and two half-grown fawns. Quickly bringing his gun to his shoulder his first impulse was to fire. But he realized that it would be foolish for the animals were at least five hundred yards away and far below the elevation where he was standing.

“No,” he said to himself, “I will leave the rim of this mountain and get down into the canyon.”

He hastily retreated, and took a circuitous route intending to head off the deer. In due time he approached the brow of the precipitous bluff and after walking back and forth finally found a place where he believed he could work his way down into the canyon. It was a dangerous undertaking – far more so than Roderick knew – and might have proved his undoing.

He was perhaps half way down the side of the cliff, working his way back and forth, when suddenly some loose stones slipped from under his feet and away he went, sliding in a sitting position down the side of the mountain. He had sufficient presence of mind to hold his gun well away from him to prevent any possible accident from an accidental discharge. The cushioning of the snow under him somewhat slowed his descent, yet he could not stop. Down and down he went, meeting with no obstruction that might have given him a momentary foothold. Presently he saw, to his great relief of mind, that he was headed for a small fir tree that had rooted itself on a ledge near the bottom of the canyon. A moment later his feet came thump against its branches, and while the jar and shock of suddenly arrested motion were very considerable yet they were not enough to be attended with any serious consequences.

Somewhat dazed, he remained seated for a few moments. But soon he found his footing, and pulling himself together, brushed away the snow from his apparel and made sure that his gun was all right. After a glance around he picked his way down some distance farther into the canyon, and then turning to the right along a little ledge started in the direction where he expected to sight the deer higher up the hill.

Suddenly he stopped. There were the deer tracks right before him going down the gorge.

“By George,” he muttered aloud, “I did not get far enough down. However, I will follow the tracks.” And forthwith he started on the trail, cautiously but highly expectant.

The direction was westerly, but he had not gone far until the canyon made an elbow turn to the south and then a little farther on to the east. “I wonder,” said Roderick to himself, “what sort of a maze I am getting into. This canyon is more crooked than an old-fashioned worm fence or a Wyoming political boss.”

The box canyon continued to grow deeper and the rocky cliffs higher, zig-zagging first one way and then another until Roderick gave up all pretense of even guessing at the direction he was travelling.

“Strange I have never heard of this narrow box-canyon before,” he thought.

After walking briskly along for about an hour, keeping the tracks of the retreating deer in view, he suddenly came to an opening. A little valley was spread out before him, and to his amazement there were at least a hundred deer herded together in the park-like enclosure.

Roderick rubbed his eyes and looked up at the high and abrupt precipices that surrounded this open valley on every side. It seemed to him that the walls rose sheer and almost perpendicular several hundred feet to the rocky rim above. He followed on down, filled with wonderment, and presently was further astonished by finding several great bubbling springs. Each basin was fully a hundred feet across, and the agitated waters evidently defied freezing, for they fairly boiled in their activity, overflowing and coming together to form quite a big tumbling mountain stream.

Stealthily following on and keeping the great herd in view he mentally speculated on the surprise he would give Grant Jones when he came to display the proofs of his prowess as a hunter of the hills. Surely with his belt full of cartridges and the large number of deer in sight, although as yet too far away to risk a shot, he could add several antlered heads to Grant’s collection. The stream grew larger. There were a number of other springs feeding their surplus waters into brooks which eventually all joined the main stream, and he mentally resolved that the next time Gail and he went trout-fishing they would visit this identical spot. He laughed aloud and asked the question: “Will she be mine so that we may come together for a whole week into this beautiful dell?”

The farther he advanced the less snow he found in the strange, rock-fenced valley. The grasses had grown luxuriantly in the summer season, and the deer were browsing in seeming indifference to his presence yet moving on away from him all the time. He began wondering if all this were a mirage or a reality. He looked a second time at the slowly receding herd and again he laughed aloud. “Such foolishness,” he exclaimed. “It is an absolute reality, and right here I will make my name and fame as a hunter.”

He stopped suddenly, for just across the stream, standing among the boulders and pebbles of an old channel, were four deer, not two hundred feet away. They were looking at him in mild-eyed wonder, one of them a noble, splendidly antlered buck. Lifting the Major’s Springfield to his shoulder Roderick sighted along the barrel and fired. Three of the deer ran away. But the buck jumped high into the air, attempted to climb the opposite bank, failed and fell backward.

Hurriedly crossing over the stream and slipping in his excitement off the stones into knee-deep water, he came quickly up to the wounded deer. Instantly the animal bounded to his feet, but fell again. Roderick fired a second shot which reached a vital spot. The magnificent denizen of the hills had been vanquished in the uneven contest with man’s superior knowledge and deadly skill.

The novice in huntsman’s craft had received all sorts of book instructions and verbal explanations from Grant Jones. So he at once drew his hunting knife, thrust it into the jugular vein of the dying deer, and bled him copiously. Only the hunter knows the exultant feelings of mingled joy and excitement that possessed Roderick at that moment. His first deer! Resting the gun against a small cottonwood tree that grew on a raised bank between the old channel and the flowing waters, he walked to the stream, washed the crimson from his knife, and returned the weapon to its sheath.

Then he looked around to get his bearings. He knew he had come with the waters from what seemed to be a westerly direction. The stream was evidently flowing toward the east. As he walked along in the old channel over the sandbar he kicked the rocks and pebbles indifferently, and then stopped suddenly, gasped and looked about him.

On every side the mountains rose precipitately fully six or seven hundred feet. There was no visible outlet for the stream.

“Is it possible,” he exclaimed with bated breath, “that I am in the lost canyon? And this,” he said, stooping down and picking up a nugget of almost pure gold – “is this the sandbar on which my father and Uncle Allen Miller found their treasure yeans and years ago? Marvelous! Marvelous! Marvelous!”

For the moment the slain deer was forgotten. His achievement as a hunter of big game no longer thrilled him. He was overwhelmed by a mightier surge of emotion.

“Yes,” he said finally in a low voice of conviction, “this at last is the lost find!”

And he sank down on the gold-strewn pebbly sandbar, limp and helpless, completely overcome.

A minute later he had recovered his composure. He stood erect He gazed down the valley. The startled herd of deer had vanished into the brushwood and low timber.

But there, slowly ascending along the river bed, was the figure of Buell Hampton. Roderick stood stockstill, lost in amazement, waiting.