Part 47 (1/2)

Constant disappointment had been their portion, and a general feeling of being utterly worn out was dulling their efforts, when toward the close of a dreary day Tregelly exclaimed:

”Look here, my sons; I think we've seen the end of that red-headed ruffian at last.”

”I wish I could think so,” said Dallas.

”No,” said Abel; ”we shall see him again. I feel that he'll be the death of us all.”

”Bah! you're in the dumps again,” said Tregelly. ”I feel that we must have completely given the scoundrel the slip by our last move. I'm not one of your grumbling sort, am I?”

”No, Bob, no,” said Dallas sadly. ”I envy you the calm patience and perseverance you possess.”

The Cornishman laughed.

”Did possess, my son. I did have a lot, but it's all used up to the last sc.r.a.p, and I'm regularly done.”

Abel looked at him in surprise, but Dallas seemed too dejected to notice anything, and sat forward, haggard and staring, with his eyes fixed upon their struggling fire.

”Well, don't you believe me?” said Tregelly.

”I always believe what you say, Bob; but I don't understand what you mean now.”

”You don't? Well, then, I'll soon make you, my son. It's like this: I feel just like a squirrel in a cage, galloping on over miles of wire and never getting a bit farther, or like one of those chaps on the old-fas.h.i.+oned treadmill, who were always going upstairs, but never got to the top.”

”Look here,” said Dallas, springing up suddenly from his seat in the rough shelter made with pine-boughs, where they had been now for some days, while they tried the banks of a tiny creek, one of many which they had followed to their sources in their daring quest. ”This is no time for idle talk; which is it to be? Shall we retreat at once, and try to get back to the main river, where we may find help, and perhaps save our lives, or go on?”

There was a dead silence, and then a gust of wind swept down the narrow valley, laden with fine, dusty snow, evidently a forerunner of a wintry storm.

”If we start back now,” said Abel at last, ”we are not sure of reaching the settlement before the winter sets in.”

”And if we do we've nothing left to live upon, my sons. You see, those last supplies emptied the bag, and we've never settled down since. You both said, 'Let it be a man or a mouse.'”

”And you said 'All right,'” cried Dallas angrily.

”So I did, my son; but I hoped we should turn out men instead of mice.”

”Well,” said Dallas bitterly, ”we must not find fault with one another.

We did our best.”

”That's true,” said Tregelly. ”Hear, hear. Go on. What were you going to say?”

”That I have had it my own way for long enough, but now I'll give up to you two. There's no gold worth getting here, so if you both say, 'Let's make a dash back for life before we are shut in by the winter that seems to be coming on early,' I'm ready, and we'll make a brave fight for it.”

”And if we say, 'No! Let's go on and fight for the stuff to the last'-- what then?”

”We will not look back,” cried Dallas, stepping outside, to stand gazing, with a far-off look in his eyes, straight along the narrow ravine running up into the savage-looking snow-covered mountains.

”Go on,” said Abel, who seemed to catch his cousin's enthusiasm as he stood there, gradually growing whitened by the fine drifting snow.

”Go on?” said Dallas, without turning his head; ”well, let's go on. The gold must be up yonder, where it crumbles or is ground out of the rocky mountains, to be washed, in the course of ages, down the streams into the gravel and sand.”