IV
"Money was so scarce in that country that the babies had to cut their teeth on certified checks." --_Bluebeard for Happiness._
"The cauldrified and chittering truth." --THE ETTRICK SHEPHERD.
"As I was a-tellin' you, when I got switched off," said Adam, in thestarlit road, "I found gold dust in 'Pache Canyon nigh onto a year ago.Not much--just a color--but it set me to thinkin'."
"How queer!" said Charlie.
"Yes, ain't it? You see, a long time ago, when the 'Paches were thickabout here, they used to bring in gold to sell--coarse gold, big asrice, nearly. Never would tell where they got it; but when they wantedanything right bad they was right there with the stuff; coarse gold.All sorts of men tried all sorts of ways to find out where it camefrom. No go."
"Indians are mighty curious about gold," said Charlie. "Over in theFort Stanton country, the Mescaleros used to bring in gold that sameway--only it was fine gold, there. Along about 1880, Llewellyn, he wasthe agent; and Steve Utter, chief of police; and Dave Easton, he waschief clerk; and Dave Pelman and Dave Sutherland--three Daves--and oldPat Coghlan--them six, they yammered away at one old buck till at lasthe agreed to show them. He was to get a four-horse team, harness andwagon, and his pick of stuff from the commissary to load up the wagonwith. They was to go by night, and no other Indian was ever to knowwho told 'em, before or after--though how he proposed to accountfor that wagonload of plunder I don't know. I'll say he was ashort-sighted Injun, anyway.
"Well, they started from the agency soon after midnight. They had togo downstream about a quarter, round a fishhook bend, on account of amess of wire fence; and then they turned up through a _cienaga_ on acorduroy road, sort of a lane cut straight through the swamp, with the_tules_--cat-tail flags, you know--eight or ten feet high on eachside. They was going single file, mighty quiet, Mister Mescalero-manin the lead. They heard just a little faint stir in the _tules_, anda sound like bees humming. Mister Redskin he keels over, shot full ofarrows. Not one leaf moving in the _tules_; all mighty still; theycould hear the Injun pumping up blood, glug--glug--glug! The white menwent back home pretty punctual. Come daylight they go back, police andeverything. There lays their guide with nine arrows through his midst.And that was the end of him.
"But that wasn't the end of the gobbling gold. Fifteen years after,Pat Coghlan and Dave Sutherland--the others having passed on or away,up, down, across or between--they throwed in with a lad called Durbinor something, and between them they honey-swoggled an old Mescaleronamed Falling Pine, and led him astray. It took nigh two months, butthey made a fetch of it. Old Falling Pine, he allowed to lead 'em tothe gold.
"Now as the years passed slowly by, Lorena, the Mescaleros had gotquite some civilized; this old rooster, he held out for two thousandplunks, half in his grimy clutch, half on delivery. He got it. Andthey left Tularosa, eighteen miles below the agency, and ten milesoff the reservation, about nine o'clock of a fine Saturday night.
"Well, sir, four miles above Tularosa the wagon road drops off themesa down to a little swale between a sandstone cliff and TularosaCreek. They turned a corner, and there was nine big bucks, wrapped upin blankets, heads and all! There wasn't no arrows, and there wasn'tnothing said. Not a word. Those nine bucks moved up beside FallingPine, real slow, one at a time. Each one leaned close, pulled up aflap of the blanket, and looked old Falling Pine in the eye, nose tonose. Then he wrapped his blanket back over his face and faded away.That was all.
"It was a great plenty. The plot thinned right there. Falling Pine, hehanded back that thousand dollars advance money, like it was hot, andhe beat it for Tularosa. They wanted him to try again, to tell 'emwhere the stuff was, anyhow; they doubled the price on him. He saidno--not--_nunca_--nixy--_neinte_--he guessed not--_nada_--notmuch--never! He added that he was going to lead a better life fromthen on, and wouldn't they please hush? And what I say unto you isthis: How did them Indians know--hey?"
"Don't ask me," said Adam. "I've heard your story before,Charles--only your dead Injun had thirty-five arrows for souvenirs,'stead of nine. The big idea was, of course, that where gold is foundthe white man comes along, and the Indian he has to move. But all thisis neither here nor there, especially here, though heaven only knowswhat might have been under happier circumstances not under ourcontrol, as perhaps it was, though we are all liable to make mistakesin the best regulated families; yet perhaps I could find it in myheart to wish it were not otherwise, as the case may be."
"Nine arrows!" said Charlie firmly.
"Young fellow!" said Adam severely. "Be I telling this story or be Inot? I been tryin' to relate about this may-be-so gold of mine, eversince you come--and dad burn it, you cut me off every time. I do wishyou'd hush! Listen now! Of course there's placer gold all roundHillsboro; most anywheres west of the river, for that matter. Butit's all fine dust--never coarse gold beyond the river--and it runs soseldom to the ton that no Injun would ever get it. So, thinks I, whynot look in at Apache Canyon? It's the plumb lonesomest place I know,and I don't believe anybody ever had the heart to prospect it good. SoI went up to Worden's and worked up from the lower end.
"That was last year, and I have been prognosticatin' round, off andon, ever since, whenever I could get away from my farmin'. I found atrace, mostly. You can always get a color round here, and no one placebetter than another. But when the rains begun this year, so I couldfind water to pan with, I tried it again, higher up. And in a littleflat side draw, leadin' from between two miserable little snubby hillsoff all alone, too low to send much flood water down--there I begun tofind float, plumb promisin'. I started to follow it up. You knowhow--pan to right and left till the stuff fails to show, mark the edgeof the pay dirt, go on up the hill and do the like again. If the goldyou're followin' has been carried down by water the streak getsnarrower as you go up a hillside, and pay dirt gets richer as it getsnarrower. If the hill has been tossed about by the hell fires downbelow, all bets is off and no rule works, not even the exceptions.That's why they say gold is where you find it. But any time you find afan-shaped strip of color on a hill that looks like it might havestayed put, or nearly so, it's worth while to follow it up. If youfind the apex of that triangle you're apt to strike a pocket that willland you right side up with the great and good. Sometimes the apex hasdone been washed away; these water courses have run quite elsewhereother times. Oh, quite! But there's always a chance. Follow up anarrowing color and quit one that squanders round casual. Them's therules.
"Well, sir, my pay dirt took to the side of that least hill, and shewas shaping right smart like a triangle. Then my water give out. I wasusin' a little tank in the rocks--no other without packing fromMacCleod's Tank, five mile. And I had to get in my last cuttin' ofalfalfa--pesky stuff! I cached my outfit and came on home.
"So there you are. It's been rainin' again; and I'm goin' out and tryanother whirl to-morrow, hit or miss. Go snooks with you if you're amind to side me. What say?"
"Why, Big Chump, you're not such a bad old hoss thief, are you? Well,I thank you just as much, and I sure hope you'll make a ten-strike andeverything like that; but, you see, I'm busy. Tell you what, Adam--youget Hob to go along, and I'll think about it."
"Oh, well, maybe it's a false alarm anyway," said Adam lightly. "I'veknown better things to fizzle. I get my fun, whatever happens. I can'tstay cooped up on that measly old farm all the time. I need a littlefresh air every so often. I'm a lot like Thompson's colt, that swumthe river to get a drink."
"Don't like farmin', eh?"
"Why, yes, I do. Beats hellin' round, same as a stack of hay beats astack of chips. They're right nice people here, Charlie, mightypleasant and friendly and plumb cheerful about the good time coming.And every last one of 'em is here because this is the very place hewants to be, and not because he happened to be here and didn't knowhow to get away. That makes a power of difference. They're plumbanimated, these folks; if so be they ain't just satisfied
any place,they rise up and depart. So we have no grand old grouches. All thesame, I'm free to admit that I haven't quite the elbowroom I need."
"I know just how you feel," said Charlie; "I've leased a township andfenced it in. That's why I'm not at some round-up; all my bossiesright at home. And dog-gone if I don't feel like I was in jail. Butyou people can't be making much real money, Adam--hauling over suchroads as these. It is forty miles from place to place, in here, whileout in the open it is only thirty or maybe twenty-five. That's onaccount of the sand and the curly places. And then you have nothing todo in the wintertime."
"Well, now, it ain't so bad as you'd think--not near. We raise plentyeggs, chickens, pork and such truck, and fruit and vegetables. Lotsof milk and butter, too; not like when we didn't have anything butcows. Some of us have our little bunch of cattle in the foothills yet,and fat the steers on alfalfa, and get money for 'em when we sell. Butthat won't last long, I reckon. We're beginning to grow hogs onalfalfa and fat 'em on corn, smoke 'em and salt 'em and cross 'em withT and ship 'em to El Paso. I judge that ham, bacon and pork will bethe main crops presently.
"Then we hurled up a grist mill since you was here, cooperative. Hob,he got up that. And we got a good wagon road through the mountain, toUpham. Goes up Redgate and out by MacCleod's Tank. Steepish, but nosand; when we get a car of stuff to ship we can haul twice as much aswe can take to Rincon. We can't buy nothing at Upham, sure enough, andsometimes have to wait for our cars. But we can have stuff shipped toUpham from El Paso, and it's downhill coming back. Also, Hobby allowsthis Upham project will ably assist Rincon to wake up and build us aroad up the valley."
"Hobby invented this wagon road, did he?"
"Every bit. We all chipped in to do the work. But Hob furnished theidea. That ain't all, either. From now on, we're going to have plentyto do, wintertimes. Mr. See, we got a factory up and ready to start.Yessir!"
"Easy, Big Chump! You'll strain yourself."
"Straight goods--no joking."
"Must be a hell of a factory!"
"She's all right, son. A home-grown factory. You go look at herto-morrow. Broom factory. Yessir! Every man jack of us raised a patchof broom corn. We sell it to ourselves or buy it of ourselves,whichever way you like it best; and anybody that wants to make broomsdoes that little thing. We ship from Upham and divvy up surplus. Everydollar's worth of broom corn draws down one dollar's share of the netprofit, and every dollar's worth of labor does just that--no more, noless. It works out--with good faith and fair play."
"Hob?" said Johnny.
"That's the man." Adam Forbes let his hand rest for a moment on theyounger man's shoulder. "Charlie, you and me are all right in ourplace--but there ain't goin' to be no such place much longer. I reckonwe ain't keepin' up with the times. So now you know why I wanted youshould go prospectin' with me. Birds of a feather gather no moss."
"I judge maybe you're right. We both of us favor Thompson's colt, andthat's a fact. Well, I am glad old Hob is making good. We had as gooda chance as he did, only he had more sense."
"Always did," said Forbes heartily. "But he ain't makin' no big sightof money, if that's what you mean. Just making good. He's not workingfor Hob Lull especially. He's working for all hands and the cook. Hobalways tries to get us to work together, like on a _'cequia_. There'sother things--a heap of 'em. We've bought a community threshingmachine. Hob has coaxed a lot of 'em into keeping bees. And he'sribbin' us up to try a cannin' factory in a year or two, for tomatoesand fruit. And a creamery, later. Hob is one long-headed youngpeople. We aim to send him to represent for us sometime."
Charlie See laughed. "Gosh! I wish you'd hurry up about it, then."
But there was no bitterness in his mirth.