CHAPTER XXV.
THE RELIC OF A FIGHT.
The next morning the three started back to the place where the boys hadfound the gold. On their way there, Jack explained to Hugh in greaterdetail, that the dust had really been discovered by Joe, and asked himto whom, in his opinion, it belonged.
"Why," said Hugh, "you two boys are just like a couple of fellows thatstart out to prospect. You are partners, and whatever either partnerfinds, belongs to both, share and share alike. It would have been thesame if you had found it instead of Joe, half of it would have belongedto him. Now here I'm going out with you this morning, if any of us wouldfind anything to-day, I oughtn't to have as big a share of it as eitherof you two, because you found the place and are taking me there andshowing it to me. I am more like a man that you have hired to work onyour claim and so I only get what you choose to give me. You and Joe arethe bosses, I'm the hired man."
"Seems to me," said Joe, "that White Bull ought to share in what wefound yesterday. Because you see Jack and me didn't know what we'd foundand we had to take it to somebody and ask, and maybe if we had taken itto some one else, he'd have cheated us out of it all, so I think weought to divide that gold into three parts, and all three share it."
"Why, yes," said Jack, "that's the best yet."
"No," said Hugh, "I guess we won't do that, you boys will have to keepyour gold, and if we find any more to-day, why, maybe I'll get a chanceat it, but what you found is yours and nobody else's."
"Well, but say, White Bull, you know we've got to be asking questionsall the time and got to be told what to do with the dust, for neither ofus know enough to get along without help. I think you ought to take yourshare."
"So do I," said Jack, "and I vote that unless Hugh comes in as apartner, you and I say we won't take any of this gold."
"Well, well," said Hugh, "we ain't got no chance to spend that moneynow, and we needn't decide right off about this. We can't do nothingwith it until we get into the settlements, but when we get there, webetter get paper for it, unless Joe would rather have the coin.
"Speaking of coin," he went on. "Did I ever tell you that story aboutYoung Dog's father?"
"No. What was that, Hugh?" asked Jack.
"Why," said Hugh, "a good many years, I don't know how long, nor justwhere it was, Young Dog's father and some of his young men were off onthe war path, and they came across a few white men travelling over theprairie, and they fought them for two or three days, and in the end theykilled the last one of them and captured all their stock. They got a fewhorses and two or three mules, and of course some food and a littleclothes and the men's arms. But one of the mules was loaded with fourwooden boxes, almighty heavy by what they tell. They couldn't get intothem but they broke one of them open with an axe, and saw that the boxwas full of yellow buttons, and after breaking open each one of theboxes, they saw that each one had nothing in it but these same yellowbuttons. But the queer thing about these buttons was, that none of themhad eyes on to fasten them to the coat with. So they see they could notbe used, and just emptied them out on the prairie and just left themthere. Queer, wasn't it?"
Hugh cut tobacco, filled his pipe, lighted it and rode on, while theboys waited for him to finish his story. After a while, as he saidnothing, Jack said, "Well, what happened then, Hugh?"
"When?" said Hugh.
"Why, after they went off."
"Oh, nothing happened," said Hugh, "they just went off, and after awhile they got back to the village."
"Well, but," said Jack, "is that all of the story?"
"Yes," said Hugh, "that's the end."
"Well," said Jack, "I don't see anything queer about that."
"Well," said Hugh, "you see, them buttons was ten dollar gold pieces."
"Oh!" said Jack.
"I often tried," said Hugh, "to find out just where it was that thosefour boxes of gold were left, but I never managed to find out."
By this time they were almost at the point where they had left theirhorses the day before, and before long the three were standing about theplace from which the sack of gold had been unearthed. Hugh sifted theloose soil at the bottom of the hole through his fingers and discovereda few small nuggets that had escaped the boys, and then they made acareful search of the prairie near at hand. Nothing was discovered, andat length, Hugh told the boys to mount their horses and the three spreadout riding back over the prairie, looking carefully over it and into allthe ravines, to see if signs of any sort could be seen.
The search was fruitless, and at length, from the top of a high knoll,Hugh rode his horse in a circle to call the boys to him. They camegalloping toward him from either hand, but suddenly, Joe, who haddisappeared behind a ridge, rode up onto it and in his turn rode in acircle, and Hugh and Jack went toward him. When they reached the ridge,he had ridden down again into the hollow and was standing at the edge ofa little green place, and when they got to him, they saw before him, theskeleton of a horse, which had long been dead. Hugh looked at itcarefully and then said, "Mule." Fragments of wood, lying by theanimal's back-bone, were evidently the remains of a pack saddle, butnothing else was seen.
Hugh stood for a long time, looking at the skeleton, parts of which werescattered over quite a little area, showing where the wolves had pulledthe bones about. Suddenly Hugh bent forward, and working his fingers inthe grass near the animal's back-bone, drew forth a slender fragment ofwood, which he held up before the boys' eyes. It was a part of an arrow,though the bent gray wood seemed little like the straight, clean shaftthat they were accustomed to use. But by looking closely, they couldsee the grooves, and a little search in the soil and among the grassbrought to light another piece of the shaft and a rusted sheet iron headlong since separated from the wood.
For a long time, Hugh stood staring at the bones of the animal beforehim, and then walking away a few steps, he sat down on the ground andfilled his pipe and began to smoke. He said nothing, but kept his eyesfixed on the ground as if he expected to see, written there, somethingwhich would be an answer to his unspoken thoughts. The boys had thrownthemselves on the grass by his side, and were watching him and waitingpatiently, while the three horses fed about close at hand.
At length the pipe was smoked out, and Hugh raised his eyes and lookedat the boys, as if he had just discovered that they were near him. Thenhis face twisted up into a kindly smile, and he said, "Well, boys, whatdo you make of it?"
"I don't make anything of it, Hugh. What is it?" said Jack.
"Maybe there's been fighting here," said Joe.
"That's right, my son," said Hugh, "that mule was killed by the arrowthat we found, that's sure. I expect you both took notice that thatarrow was broken about the same time it was shot, likely it broke whenthe mule fell. What I want to find out is, who did the fighting, andwhether the man that lost the mule was the man that lost the gold, andwhere that man is now. I expect we've got to do a little climbing and dosome more hunting. This is the way I figure it as far as we've got:Somebody was jumped by Indians out here on the prairie, and made a runfor the river. He had a pack animal and tried to keep it with him aslong as he could, but the Indians caught up to him and shot at him andwounded the animal, and he had to let it go. I reckon he had the dustwith him on his saddle, or else tied to his body somewhere, and justbefore he got to the edge of the bluffs, he dropped it. Maybe it wasshot away. Then he went over the bluffs to hide or fight in the BadLands. Now I reckon, the best thing we can do, is to go back to whereyou found the gold and then go down into them breaks and see if we canfind there, any sign of where a man got killed. All this happened a goodmany years ago, as you can see from that skeleton over there and thearrow that's in it, and we won't find any signs at all unless the mandropped something else. Maybe his horse might have been wounded and hehad to leave that and it died, and maybe he himself got killed. Anyhow,we'll climb down there if you like, and take the natural way to theriver and go a little ways. I don't reckon we'll find nothing, but mightbe such a thing as we would."
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They mounted and rode back the way they had come, and then Hugh and Joeclimbed down the bluffs, for Hugh said to Jack, "I want you to stophere, son, and look after these horses. It ain't noways likely nothingwould happen to them, but it ain't good to leave your horses alone onthe prairie without some one to look after them."
Jack sat for a long time, holding the ropes of the three horses and atlength, as the sun sank lower and lower toward the west, he began towonder whether anything had happened. At length, however, he heard asound of rolling stones below him, and soon Hugh came in sight, followedby Joe. They were a long way off and could not be seen very distinctly,and every now and then they disappeared in some ravine or behind somepoint of bluff. But Jack thought that Hugh walked queerly, and with hishead bowed forward. At length they came in sight again, and for a littlewhile were in plain view, and then Jack could see that Hugh was carryingsome burden on his shoulders. As they climbed the last steep ascent, hecould see that this was a young mountain sheep, and as he had heard noshot fired, he felt sure that Joe must have killed it.
So it proved. Hugh and Joe had searched a number of the ravines withoutseeing anything, and had turned back to climb the hills, when suddenlythey came upon an old ewe and her lamb, and Joe's ready arrow had killedthe little sheep.
"Well, son," said Hugh, "we didn't find any sign of that man, but yourpartner here made a mighty good shot with his arrow and we brought alittle piece of meat along anyhow."
"Yes," said Jack, "when I saw you killed something, I knew it must beJoe for I hadn't heard any shot. Seems to me, Joe, you're pretty luckywith sheep."
"Yes," said Joe, "pretty lucky this time sure. I just had to fire quick,but I happened to hit him just in the right place."
"Well, boys," said Hugh, "let's tie this on behind the saddle and bemoving, it's getting late and I've got a pretty good hunger on. I wantto get to camp."
Before long they were riding swiftly over the prairie, and though thesun had set, it was not yet dark when they reached the circle of thelodges.