CHAPTER II.--LOOKING BACKWARD AND FORWARD.
It is not a little remarkable that the six dwellers in Gold Cave Campshould represent four of the five types into which scientists divide thehuman race, but this though curious in itself, is not nearly so much soas their being residents of this sparsely settled wilderness, andliving, as it were, in caves in the depths of the earth.
Mr. Willett had been a merchant in Detroit, Michigan, where his onlychild, Sam, was born.
He had been very happy in his married life and very prosperous in hisbusiness; but, alas, for the stability of human affairs, his wife died.Following this awful calamity came a series of reverses in businesswhich no human foresight could prevent. His property was swept away, andin his fortieth year he found himself a poor man, with a son to educateand care for and all life's battle to fight over again.
Mr. Willett had been educated as a mining engineer, and though he hadnever followed his profession he, very naturally, looked to it as ameans of support when all his other resources were gone.
In the days of his great distress and perplexity he read of suddenfortunes being made in the newly-discovered gold fields of the San Juancountry in Southwestern Colorado, and thither he determined to go.
Although still in the prime of life, Mr. Willett concentrated all thelove of his brave heart on his son and resolved to devote his time andthought to his care and education.
Sam's maternal grandfather, Mr. Shirley, was a very rich, but a verymorose and eccentric old man, who chose never to become reconciled tohis daughter's marriage to Mr. Willett. But when Sam's mother died, theold gentleman offered to adopt his grandson and make him his sole heir,if the father would consent to renounce all claims to him.
In his son's interest Mr. Willett might have considered this proposalfavorably had not Sam himself upset the scheme by saying stoutly:
"Father, do not ask me to leave you, for I feel it would be sending meto death. If you go to the West, I shall go with you. There are only twoof us left, why should we be parted?"
Mr. Willett replied to this query by kissing his son, and so it wassettled that they should go to the West together.
Ike was an orphan lad who, in some inexplicable way, had drifted up toMichigan from Kentucky. Mr. Willett found and cared for the boy, and herepaid this generosity by a fidelity and devotion worthy of all praise.
Mr. Willett could see no use for Ike in the West, but when the time fordeparture came, the black boy appeared at the depot with an old huntingbag, containing all his clothing, slung at his back, and aremarkable-looking shot-gun folded in his arms.
"Dar's no use a talkin' to me, boss," he said to Mr. Willett, when thatgentleman expressed his surprise at the boy's appearance. "Ize bound togo 'long wid Mistah Sam. Oh, don't yeh feel skeat 'bout de cash foh depassage. Ize got ebery cent I ever earned stored away har; its more'nfifty dollar, an' I'll foot de bills till de las' red cent's gone."
In proof of this bold statement, Ike drew from the depths of histrousers' pockets a bag containing several pounds weight of bronze,nickel and silver coins.
Ike found an eloquent advocate in Sam; and so it came about that at thevery last moment Mr. Willett decided to take the colored boy with him,though he could not be made to avail himself of the generous fellow'shoardings.
The three went to Denver, thence over the Rocky range to St. Luis Park,and over the Sierra Madre mountains to the San Juan country.
They had procured horses to ride on, and two pack mules to carry theirsupplies and mining tools.
While at Port Garland in the St. Luis Park, they met with Hank Tims andthe Ute boy, Ulna, who was a nephew of the great chief Uray, whom thewriter of this narrative knew very well and greatly admired.
Hank Tims and Ulna were themselves thinking about going into the SanJuan country, and, as they were well acquainted with that region andappeared to take to Mr. Willett's party at once, they were readilyinduced to join his expedition.
It would be out of place in this brief but essential review to recountall the adventures that beset our friends till they reached the scene oftheir proposed labors.
After much wandering, they found Gold Cave Camp, but it was in thepossession of a wild, dissolute fellow named Tom Edwards.
As Edwards was working his claim all alone and was eager to leave it,Mr. Willett bought him out at his own price, and at once madepreparations to pan for such gold as might be found in the bed of thecanyon.
A few days after the commencement of operations, Wah Shin appeared inthe camp.
He looked as if he had been blown in from the bleak hills, but hemanaged to explain in his broken English that he had lost himself comingup from Santa Fe, and that he was a first-class cook.
He asked for "a job," but even before Mr. Willett had made up his mindto hire him, he set to work to give an exhibition of his skill; and theresult was so entirely satisfactory that he was retained on his ownterms.
But it is much easier to explain the presence of these people than it isto account for the strange home in which they lived.
Learned men claim that long before the coming of the white men to thiscontinent, long, indeed, before the coming of the Indians, that therewas a strange race of people in that Western land, whom, for the want ofa better name, they call "The Cave Dwellers."
But no matter how formed, or by whom they were first inhabited, thesecaves--they are quite common in that land--made ready and comfortablehomes for the mining adventurers.
Those occupied by Mr. Willett and his associates, consisted of a seriesof eight apartments, all opening on the plateau and all connected bypassage ways that must have been the work of human hands.
The apartments were circular in shape, and the largest, which was usedas a kitchen and general store room, was about twenty feet in diameterand ten feet in height.
As before stated there was an ample spring of delicious cool water inthis apartment, and the original hewers of the caves, no doubt, selectedthe place on this account.
After a hearty supper, Mr. Willett and Hank Tims lit their pipes and satbefore the fire, for though the days are warm in this land the nightsare unusually cool.
Drift wood, picked up from the crevices of the rocks in which it hadbeen lodged by floods caused by the melting of snow in the mountains,constituted the fuel of the camp, and the great pile near the fireshowed that it was to be had in abundance.
All had been working hard that day, so after a desultory talk about thegreat success that was meeting their search for gold, they lay down ontheir blanket cots in the other apartments and went to sleep--that is,all but Sam and his father.
Mr. Willett and his son slept together in the nearest room, but thoughthey lay down side by side they did not go to sleep at once.
"Sam," said Mr. Willett in a troubled voice, "since you left thismorning that fellow, Tom Edwards, has been here again."
"What did he want?" asked Sam.
"He appeared to be drunk, and he threatened to kill me if I did not givehim more money."
"But you have paid him the price agreed on?"
"Yes."
"Then I should not heed him."
"Still, I am afraid he will cause me trouble, so, to-morrow, I will rideover to Hurley's Gulch and consult a lawyer, and as that is our nearestmarket and post-office, I will take Hank and Ulna along with two packmules so as to carry back supplies."
"That is forty miles away, so that you will be gone several days. But ifyou must go, father, I will do the best I can while you are absent,"said Sam, laying his hand soothingly on his father's broad breast.
"I know you will, my boy, but there is another matter I wished to speakwith you about."
"What is that, father?"
"Why, this Tom Edwards brought me a letter from your grandfather'slawyer in Michigan. It tells me that the old man is dead, and that inhis will he leaves all his property to you, but you are not to have acent of it till you are twenty-one years of age----"
"Four years and a half, dear fath
er!" cried the excited Sam.
"But," continued Mr. Willett, "the will further says that if you shoulddie in the meantime that the property is to go to your grandfather'snephew, Frank Shirley."
"A bad, disreputable man to whom neither you nor mother would speak,"said Sam.
"He is all that, I fear, and it troubles me to learn from Edwards thatFrank Shirley has recently come into this land," said Mr. Willett.