CHAPTER XXVII
THE ROBBERY
We cooked ourselves a meal, and built ourselves a fire. About midnightwe heard the sounds of horses rapidly approaching. Immediately we leapedfrom our bunks and seized our rifles, peering anxiously into thedarkness. A moment later, however, we were reassured by a shrill whistlepeculiar to Buck Barry, and a moment later he and Don Gaspar rode intocamp.
We assailed them with a storm of questions--why had they returned? whathad happened? where was Yank? had there been an accident?
Don Gaspar, who appeared very weary and depressed, shook his head sadly.Barry looked at us savagely from beneath his brows.
"The gold is gone; and that's an end of it!" he growled.
At these words a careful, dead silence fell on us all. The situation hadsuddenly become too serious for hasty treatment. We felt instinctivelythat a wrong word might do irreparable damage. But in our heartssuspicion and anger and dull hatred leaped to life full grown. Wetightened our belts, as it were, and clamped our elbows to our sides,and became wary, watching with unfriendly eyes. Johnny alone opened hislips.
"Lost? I don't believe it!" he cried.
Barry cast an ugly look at him, but said nothing. We all saw that look.
"Where's Yank?" I asked.
"Dead by now, I suppose," flung back Barry.
"Good God!" I cried; and under my breath, "Then you've murdered him!"
I don't know whether Barry heard me or not, and at the time I did notmuch care. His sullen eye was resting on one after the other of us as westood there in the firelight. Every face was angry and suspicious. Barryflung himself from his horse, tore the pad from its back, slapped it onthe flank, and turned away, reckless of where it went. He cut himself asteak and set to cooking his food, an uncompromising shoulder turned inour direction; nor did he open his mouth to utter another word until thegeneral discussion later in the evening. Don Gaspar, who owned the onlyriding saddle, unharnessed his horse, led it to water, knee haltered it,and turned it loose to graze. While he was gone no one spoke, but weglanced at each other darkly. He returned, sat down by the fire, rolledhimself a cigaretto, and volunteered his story.
"My fren'," said he, with a directness and succinctness utterly foreignto his everyday speech, "you want to know what happen'. Ver' well; itwas like this."
He told us that, after we had left them, they hurried on as fast aspossible in order to reach the settled country. Owing to the excellenceof his animal he was generally some distance in advance. At one point,stopping on a slight elevation to allow them to catch up, he looked backin time to see two men on horseback emerge from the chaparral justbehind his companions. Don Gaspar shouted and leaped from his saddle;but before the warning had reached the others, a riata from the hand ofone of the men had fallen with deadly accuracy around Yank's arms andbody, jerking him violently from the saddle. The thrower whirled hishorse to drag his victim, Don Gaspar fired, and by great good luck shotthe animal through the brain. It fell in a heap, pinning its riderbeneath it. In the meantime Barry had leaped to the ground, and frombehind the shelter of his horse had shot the first robber through thebody. Our two companions now drew together, and took refuge behind somelarge rocks, preparing to receive the charge of a band of half dozen whonow appeared. The situation looked desperate. Don Gaspar fired andmissed. He was never anything of a marksman, and his first shot musthave been a great piece of luck. Barry held his fire. The robbers eachdischarged his rifle, but harmlessly. Then just as they seemed about tocharge in, they whirled their horses and made off into the brush.
"We could not tell the why," observed Don Gaspar.
The two men did not speculate, but ran out to where Yank lay, apparentlydead, his arms still bound close to his body by the noose of the riata.Barry cut the rope with his bowie knife, and they rolled him over. Theyfound he still breathed, but that, beside the shock of his violent fall,he had been badly trampled by the horses. After a moment he came toconsciousness, but when they attempted to lift him upright, they foundthat his leg was broken.
At this moment they heard the sound of voices, and, looking up, sawcoming from the other direction a band of a dozen men, half of whom wereon horseback, and all of whom were armed. This looked serious.
"We got behind the rock," said Don Gaspar, "but we think to ourself ourgoose is cook."
The newcomers, however, proved to be miners, who had heard the shots,and who now came hurrying up. Evidently the robbers had caught sight orsound of their approach. They were much interested in the state ofaffairs, examined the horse Don Gaspar had killed, searched for andfound the body of the robber Barry had shot. It proved to be a Mexican,well known to them all, and suspected to be a member of Andreas Amijo'scelebrated band. They inquired for the dead horse's rider.
"And then, for the first time," said Don Gaspar, "we think of him. Hewent down with his horse. But now he was gone; and also the horse ofSenor Yank. But I think he crawl off in the chaparral; and that thehorse of Senor Yank run away with the other horse of the dead man."
And then, I must confess, to our disbelief in the tale, Don Gaspar toldus that the miners, their curiosity satisfied, calmly prepared to returnto their diggings, quite deaf to all appeals for further help.
"They say to us," narrated Don Gaspar evenly, "that they wash much gold,and that they cannot take the time; and when I tell them our friend isdying, they laugh, and essay that we ought to be glad they come andessave _our_ lives; and that we get along all right."
We did not believe this, though we could see no object in Don Gaspar'sdeceiving us on the point. Three months had passed while we had beenisolated in the valley of the Porcupine; and we had not yet been taughtwhat a difference three months can make in a young country. In that timethousands had landed, and the diggings had filled. All the world hadturned to California; its riffraff and offscourings as well as its truemen. Australia had unloaded its ex-convicts, so that the term "Sydneyduck" had become only too well known. The idyllic time of order andhonesty and pleasant living with one's fellow-men was over. But we wereunaware of that; and, knowing the average generous-hearted miner, welistened to Don Gaspar with a certain surprised skepticism.
"But I follow them," said Don Gaspar, "and I offer them to pay; andafter a while two of them come back with me, and we make a litter ofbranches with many blanket; and we carry Senor Yank down to the town.There is a town there now. And by good chance," concluded Don Gasparwith a little show of quiet racial pride, "we find a California man andhis wife, and they do their bes' for Senor Yank, who is very essick, andI think he is now dead from the tramp of the horses. And we borrow thefresh horse and come back."
It was indeed, as I think of it, a wonderful ride in the darkness; butat the time my mind was full of our poor friend. The others, however,thought only of the gold.
"We have left," replied Don Gaspar to the rudely expressed shower ofquestions, "just the one half. It is well known to all that Senor Yankcarried the most of the gold."
"Yes, and we have Munroe to thank for that," snarled Missouri Jones.
"As far at that is concerned, I was against sending out the gold fromthe very start," I retorted. "If you'd listened to me, it would have allbeen safe right here."
"If we'd had a decently strong guard, we'd have been all right," growledMcNally.
We all saw the futility of our first instinctive flare of suspicion. Itwas obvious that if Don Gaspar and Buck Barry had intended treacherythey would never have returned to us. I think that, curiously enough, wewere unreasonably a little sorry for this. It would have beensatisfactory to have had something definite to antagonize. As it was, wesat humped around our fire until morning. For a long period we remainedsullenly silent; then we would break into recriminations or intoexpressions of bitter or sarcastic dissatisfaction with the way thingshad been planned and carried out. Bagsby alone had the sense to turn in.We chewed the cud of bitter disappointment. Our work had been hard andcontinuous; we were, as I have pointed out, just ready for a reaction;and now th
is catastrophe arrived in the exact moment to throw us intothe depths of genuine revulsion. We hated each other, and the work, andthe valley of the Porcupine, and gold diggings, and California with afine impartiality. The gray morning light found us sitting haggard,dejected, disgusted, and vindictive around the dying embers of our fire.