Part 48 (1/2)
”That packet is over the seal of the United States of America, Chardon.
It carries the signature of the President. It was given to the Army to deliver. The Army has given it to me. I give it to you, and you must go.
It is for Jim. He would know. It must be placed in the hands of the Circuit Judge acting under, the laws of Oregon, whoever he may be, and wherever. Find him in the Willamette country. Your pay will be more than you think, Chardon. Jim would know. Dead or alive, you do this for him.
”You can do thirty miles a day. I know you as a mountain man. Ride!
To-morrow I start east to Laramie--and you start west for Oregon!”
And in the morning following two riders left Bridger's for the trail.
They parted, each waving a hand to the other.
CHAPTER XLIII
THE KILLER KILLED
A rough low cabin of logs, hastily thrown together, housed through the winter months of the Sierra foothills the two men who now, in the warm days of early June, sat by the primitive fireplace cooking a midday meal. The older man, thin, bearded, who now spun a side of venison ribs on a cord in front of the open fire, was the mountain man, Bill Jackson, as anyone might tell who ever had seen him, for he had changed but little.
That his companion, younger, bearded, dressed also in buckskins, was Will Banion it would have taken closer scrutiny even of a friend to determine, so much had the pa.s.sing of these few months altered him in appearance and in manner. Once light of mien, now he smiled never at all. For hours he would seem to go about his duties as an automaton. He spoke at last to his ancient and faithful friend, kindly as ever, and with his own alertness and decision.
”Let's make it our last meal on the Trinity, Bill. What do you say?”
”Why? What's eatin' ye, boy? Gittin' restless agin?”
”Yes, I want to move.”
”Most does.”
”We've got enough, Bill. The last month has been a crime. The spring snows uncovered a fortune for us, and you know it!”
”Oh, yes, eight hundred in one day ain't bad for two men that never had saw a gold pan a year ago. But she ain't petered yit. With what we've learned, an' what we know, we kin stay in here an' git so rich that hit sh.o.r.e makes me cry ter think o' trappin' beaver, even before 1836, when the beaver market busted. Why, rich? Will, hit's like you say, plumb wrong--we done hit so d.a.m.ned easy! I lay awake nights plannin' how ter spend my share o' this pile. We must have fifty-sixty thousand dollars o' dust buried under the floor, don't ye think?”
”Yes, more. But if you'll agree, I'll sell this claim to the company below us and let them have the rest. They offer fifty thousand flat, and it's enough--more than enough. I want two things--to get Jim Bridger his share safe and sound; and I want to go to Oregon.”
The old man paused in the act of splitting off a deer rib from his roast.
”Ye're one awful d.a.m.n fool, ain't ye, Will? I did hope ter finish up here, a-brilin' my meat in a yaller-gold fireplace; but no matter how plain an' simple a man's tastes is, allus somethin' comes along ter bust 'em up.”
”Well, go on and finish your meal in this plain fireplace of ours, Bill. It has done us very well. I think I'll go down to the sluice a while.”
Banion rose and left the cabin, stooping at the low door. Moodily he walked along the side of the steep ravine to which the little structure clung. Below him lay the ripped-open slope where the little stream had been diverted. Below again lay the bared bed of the exploited water course, floored with bowlders set in deep gravel, at times with seamy dams of flat rock lying under and across the gravel stretches; the bed rock, ages old, holding in its hidden fingers the rich secrets of immemorial time.
Here he and his partner had in a few months of strenuous labor taken from the narrow and unimportant rivulet more wealth than most could save in a lifetime of patient and thrifty toil. Yes, fortune had been kind.
And it all had been so easy, so simple, so unagitating, so matter-of-fact! The hillside now looked like any other hillside, innocent as a woman's eyes, yet covering how much! Banion could not realize that now, young though he was, he was a rich man.
He climbed down the side of the ravine, the little stones rattling under his feet, until he stood on the bared floor of the bed rock which had proved so unbelievably prolific in coa.r.s.e gold.
There was a sharp bend in the ravine, and here the unpaid toil of the little waterway had, ages long, carried and left especially deep strata of gold-shot gravel. As he stood, half musing, Will Banion heard, on the ravine side around the bend, the tinkle of a falling stone, lazily rolling from one impediment to another. It might be some deer or other animal, he thought. He hastened to get view of the cause, whatever it might be.