CHAPTER XIII
THE ORE-THEFT
At half past five next morning Joe and I slipped out of bed, leaving TomConnor, who had to go to work again at seven, still fast asleep. WhileJoe quietly prepared breakfast, I went out to examine by daylight thescene of last night's explosion.
The first discovery I made was the imprint in the mud of footsteps, halfobliterated by the rain. The tracks were very large and very far apart,proving that the owner of the boots that made them was a big man, andthat he had gone off at a great pace; a discovery which tended toconfirm in my mind Tom's guess that it was indeed Long John who had donethe mischief.
At this moment the tenant of the house next to the east came out--HughyHughes was his name; a Welshman--and as he walked towards me I saw himstoop to pick up something.
"That was a rascally piece of work, wasn't it?" said he, as he joinedme. "Scared us 'most to death, it did. See, here's the fuse he used. Ijust picked it up; fifteen feet of it. Wonder who the fellow was. Prettystate of things when folks take to blowing up each other's houses. Likeenough Yetmore has his enemies, but it's a pretty mean enemy as 'd tryto get even by any such scalawag trick as this."
This speech enlightened me as to what would be the general theoryregarding the outrage. It would be set down as an act of revenge on thepart of some enemy of Yetmore's; and so Tom and Joe thought, too, when Iwent back to the house and told them about it.
"That'll be the theory, all right," said Tom. "And as far as I see, wemay as well let it go at that. We have no evidence to present, and itwould look rather like malice on our part if we were to charge Long Johnwith blowing his best friend's house to pieces just because we happen tosuspect him of it. And so, I guess, boys, we may as well lay low for thepresent: we shan't do any good by putting forward our own theories.
"I dare say," he went on, after a moment's reflection, "I dare say, ifwe were to go around telling what we thought and why we thought it, wemight influence public opinion; but, when you come to think of it, wehave no real proof; so we'll just hold our tongues. Are you in a hurryto get home?"
"No," I replied. "We shan't be able to plow for two days at the veryleast, so there is nothing to hurry home for."
"Well, then," said Tom, "I'll tell you what I wish you'd do. I must goback to work in a few minutes, but I wish you two would go down town andhear what folks have to say about this business, and then come back hereand have dinner with me at twelve. Will you?"
"All right," said I. "We'll do that."
We found the town in a great state of excitement. Everybody was talkingabout the explosion, which, as the newspaper said, "would cast a blightupon the fair fame of Sulphide." Yetmore's store was crowded withpeople, shaking hands with him and expressing their indignation at theoutrage; the universal opinion being, as we had anticipated, that somemiscreant had done it out of revenge.
Joe and I, squeezing in with the rest, presently found ourselves nearthe counter, when Yetmore, catching my eye, nodded to me and said:
"How are you, Phil? I didn't know you were in town."
"Yes," said I, "we came in last evening and spent the night in TomConnor's house."
Yetmore started and turned pale.
"In Tom Connor's house?" he repeated, huskily.
"Yes," I replied. "We were asleep in his back room when that explosionwoke us up."
At this Yetmore stared at me for a moment, and then, as he realized hownarrowly he had missed being party to a murder, he turned a dreadfulwhite color, staggered, and I believe might have fallen had he not sathimself down quickly upon a sack of potatoes.
A draft of water soon brought back his color, when, addressing thesympathizing crowd, Yetmore said:
"It made me feel a bit sick to think what chances these boys ran lastnight. Every one knows how hard it is to tell those houses apart; andthat fellow might easily have made a mistake and blown up Tom Connor'shouse on one side or Hughy Hughes' on the other."
"Yes," said I; "and all the more so as Joe and I last evening put asecond window into Tom's house, so that any one coming across lotsafter dark might just as well have taken Tom's house for old Snyder's."
"Phew!" whistled one of the men in the crowd. "Then it's Hughy Hughesthat's to be congratulated. If that rascal _had_ made such a mistake,and had chosen the second house from Tom's instead of the second housefrom Snyder's we'd have been making arrangements for six funerals aboutnow. Hughy has four children, hasn't he?"
I could not help feeling sorry for Yetmore. Convinced as I was that hehad at least connived in a plot to destroy Tom's house, I felt sure thathe had been far from intending personal injury to any one; and I feltsure, too, that he was thoroughly sincere, when, rising from his seatand addressing the assemblage, he said:
"Men, I'm sorry to lose my house, of course--that goes withoutsaying--but when I think of what might have happened it doesn't troubleme that much"--snapping his finger and thumb. "I tell you, men, I'mdownright thankful it was _my_ house that was blown up and nobodyelse's."
As he said this he looked at Joe and me, and I felt convinced that itwas to us and not to the assembled throng that he addressed his remark.The people, however, not knowing what we did, loudly applauded themagnanimity of the sentiment, and many of them pressed forward to shakehands again.
Yetmore had never been so popular as he was at that moment. Everybodysympathized with him over his loss; everybody admired the dignified wayin which he accepted it; and everybody would have been delighted to hearthat some compensating piece of good fortune had befallen him.
Strange to say, at that very moment that very thing happened.
Suddenly we were all attracted by a distant shouting up the street.Looking through the front window, we saw that all the people outside hadturned and were gazing in that direction. By one impulse everybody inthe store surged out through the doorways, when we saw, still somedistance away, a man running down the middle of the street, waving hiscap and shouting some words we could not distinguish. We were all ontiptoe with expectation.
At length the man approached, broke through the group, ran up toYetmore, who was standing on his door-step, shook hands with him, andthen turning round, he shouted out:
"Great strike in the Pelican, boys! In the old workings above thefifth--Yetmore's lease. One of those pockets of tellurium that's neverbeen known to run less than twenty thousand to the ton. Hooray forYetmore!"
The shout that went up was genuinely hearty. Once more the mayor wasmobbed by his enthusiastic fellow citizens and once more he shook handstill his arm ached--during which proceeding Joe and I slipped away.
We had not gone far when I heard my name called, and turning round I sawa man on horseback who handed me a letter.
"I've just come up through your place," said he, "and your father askedme to give you this if I should see you."
The note was to the effect that the rain had been heavy on the ranch, noplowing was possible, and so we were to stay in town that day and comedown on the morrow after the mail from the south came in, as he wasexpecting an important letter, and it would thus save another trip upand down.
We were glad enough to do this, so, making our way up the street pastthe knots of people, all talking over and over again the two excitingtopics of the day, we retraced our steps to Tom's house, where we gotready the dinner against Tom's return. Shortly after twelve he came in,when we related to him what we had learned in town; demanding in ourturn particulars of the great strike.
"It's a rich strike, all right," said Tom, "but there isn't much ofit--about five hundred pounds--just a pocket, and not a very large one.But it is very rich stuff, carrying over three thousand ounces of silverand a thousand of gold to the ton. The five hundred pounds should beworth ten or twelve dollars a pound. They've found the same stuffseveral times before in the Pelican, always unexpectedly and always inpockets."
"Then," remarked Joe, "Yetmore will have made, perhaps, six thousanddollars this morning."
"No, no," said Tom; "he won't hav
e done anything of the sort; though Idon't wonder you should think so after the way the people have beencarrying on down town. They've just been led away by their enthusiasm.Most of 'em know the terms of Yetmore's lease well enough, but they haveforgotten them for the moment. Yetmore pays the company a certainpercentage of all the ore he gets out, and it is specially provided inthe lease that should he come upon any of the well-known tellurium ore,the company is to have three-fifths of the proceeds and Yetmore onlytwo-fifths. He'll make a good thing out of it though, anyway."
"You say there's about five hundred pounds of the ore: have they takenit all out already?" asked Joe.
"Yes, taken it out, sorted it, sacked it in little fifty-pound sacks,sewed up the sacks and piled them in one of the drifts, all ready toship down to San Remo to-morrow by express."
"Why do they leave it in the mine?" I asked. "Is it safer than taking itdown to the express office?"
"Yes: it would be pretty difficult to steal it out of the mine, with allthe lights going and all the miners about, whereas, if it was juststacked in the express office, somebody might----"
"Somebody might cut a hole in the floor and drop it through," remarkedJoe, laughing.
"That's so," said Tom, adding, "I tell you what it is, boys: I begin tothink I wasn't quite so smart as I thought I was when I got back thatcoal oil for the widow. I wouldn't wonder a particle if it wasn't justthat that decided Yetmore to come and blow my house to smithereens."
"I shouldn't either," said Joe.
Tom having departed to his work again, Joe and I once more went intotown, where we spent the time going about, listening to the talk of thepeople, who were still standing in groups on the street corners,discussing the great events of the day.
But if the people were excited, as they certainly were, their excitementwas a mere flutter in comparison with the storm which swept over thecommunity next morning.
The ten sacks of high-grade ore had been stolen during the night!
The news came down about eight o'clock in the morning, when, at once,and with one accord, all the men in the place who could get away swarmedup to the Pelican--we among them.
The thief, whoever he was, was evidently familiar with the workings ofthe mine, for, going round into Stony Gulch, he had forced the door atthe exit of the old tunnel, cutting out the staple with auger and saw,and then, clambering through the disused, waste-encumbered drifts, hehad carried out the little sacks one by one and made away with themsomehow.
Wrapping his feet in old rags in order to disguise his foot-prints, hehad taken the sacks of ore across the gulch to the stony ground beyond,where his boots would leave no impression, and there all trace of himwas lost. Whether he had buried the sacks somewhere near by, or, if not,how he had managed to spirit them away, were matters of generalspeculation; though to most minds the question was settled when one ofYetmore's clerks came hastily up to the mine and called out that theroan pony and the two-wheeled delivery cart, used to carry packages upto the mines, were missing. The thief, seemingly, had not only stolenYetmore's ore, but had borrowed Yetmore's horse and cart to convey itaway.
If this were true, it proved that the thief must have an intimateknowledge of the country, for, in spite of the heavy rain of the nightbefore, not a sign of a wheel-mark was there to be found: the cart hadbeen conducted over the rocks with such skill as to leave no tracewhatever. Cart, pony, ore and thief had vanished as completely as thoughthe earth had opened and swallowed them.
At first everybody sympathized with Yetmore over his loss, but presentlyan ugly rumor began to get about when people bethought them of the termsof the lease. Those who did not like the storekeeper, and they were nota few, began to pull long faces, nudge each other with their elbows, andwhisper together that perhaps Yetmore knew more of this matter than hepretended.
Joe and I were at a loss to understand what they were driving at, untilone man, more malicious or less discreet than the others, spoke up.
"How are we to know," said he, "that Yetmore didn't steal this orehimself? Three-fifths of it belongs to the company--he'd make a mightygood thing by it. I'm not saying he did do it, but----"
He ended with a closing of one eye and a sideways jerk of his head moreexpressive than words.
"Oh, that's ridiculous!" Joe blurted out. "Yetmore isn'tover-scrupulous, I dare say, but he's a long way from being a fool, andhe'd never make such a blunder as to steal the ore and then use his ownhorse and cart to carry it off."
"Well, I don't know," said the man. "It might be just a trick of his toput folks off the scent."
And though Joe and I, for our part, felt sure that Yetmore had hadnothing to do with it, we found that many people shared this man'ssuspicions; the consequence being that the mayor's popularity of the daybefore waned again as suddenly as it had arisen.
In the midst of this excitement the mail-coach from the south came in,when Joe and I, carrying with us the expected letter for my father, setoff home again; little suspecting--as how should we suspect--that theore-thief, whoever he might be, was about to render us a service ofgreater value by far than the ore and the cart and the pony combined.
We were jogging along on the homeward road, and were just rounding thespur of Elkhorn Mountain which divided our valley from Sulphide, whenJoe suddenly laid his hand on my arm and cried: "Pull up, Phil. Stop aminute."
"What's the matter?" I asked.
"Get down and come back a few steps," Joe answered; and on my joininghim, he pointed out to me in a sandy patch at the mouth of a steep drawcoming in from the left, some deeply-indented wheel-marks.
"Well, what of that, Joe?" said I, laughing. "Are you thinking you'vefound the trail of the ore-thief?"
"No," Joe replied, "I'm not jumping at any such conclusion; but, at thesame time, it's possible. If the ore-thief started northward from thePelican, and the chances are he did, for we know he carried the sacksacross to the north side of Stony Gulch, this would be the natural placefor him to come down into the road; for it is plain to any one that hecould never get a loaded cart--or an empty one either, for thatmatter--over the rocky ridge which crowns this spur. If he was makinghis way north, he had to get into the road sooner or later, and thisgully was his last chance to come down."
"That's true," I assented; "and this cart--it's a two-wheeler, yousee--was heavily loaded. Look how it cuts into the sand."
"Yes," said Joe; "and it was drawn by one smallish horse, led by a man;a big man, too: look at his tracks."
"But the ore-thief, Joe, had his feet wrapped up in rags, and these arethe marks of a number twelve boot."
"Well, you don't suppose the thief would walk over this rough mountainwith his feet wrapped up in rags, do you? In the dark, too. They'd becatching against everything. No; he would take off the rags as soon ashe reached hard ground and throw them into the cart; for it is not to beexpected either that he would leave them lying on his trail to showpeople which way he had gone."
"No, of course not. But which way did he go, Joe; across the road ordown it?"
"Down it. See. The wheel-tracks bear to the left. And if you wantevidence that he came down in the dark, here you are. Look how one wheelskidded over this half-buried, water-worn boulder and slid off andscraped the spokes against this projecting rock. Look at the blue paintit left on the rock."
"Blue paint!" I cried. "Joe, Yetmore's cart was painted blue! I rememberit very well. A very strongly-built cart, as it had to be to scramble upthose rough roads that lead to the mines, painted blue with blacktrimmings. Joe, I begin to believe this is the ore-thief, after all."
"It does look like it. But where was he going? Not down to the smelterat San Remo, surely."
"Not he," I replied. "He would know better than that. The smelter hasundoubtedly been notified of the robbery by this time, and the characterof the Pelican tellurium is so well known that any one offering any ofit for sale would have to give a very clear story as to how he came byit. No; this fellow will have to hide or bury the ore and leave it lyin
gtill he thinks the robbery is forgotten; and even then he will probablyhave to dispose of it at a distance in small lots or broken up very fineand mixed with other ore."
"In that case," said Joe, "we shall find his trail leaving the roadagain on one side or the other."
"I expect so. We'll keep a lookout. But come on, now, Joe: we mustn'tdelay any longer."
The road had been traveled over by several vehicles since last night,and the trail of the cart was undistinguishable with any certainty untilwe had passed the point where the highway branched off to the right togo down to San Remo; after which it appeared again, apparently headedstraight for the ranch.
"Do you suppose he can have crossed our valley, Phil?" asked mycompanion.
"No, I expect not," I replied. "Keep your eyes open; we shall find thetracks going off to one side or the other pretty soon--to the left mostlikely, for the best hiding-places would be up in the mountains."
Sure enough, after traversing a bare, rocky stretch of road, we foundthat the tracks no longer showed ahead of us. The man had takenadvantage of the hard ground to turn off. Pulling up our ponies, we bothjumped to the ground once more, and going back a short distance, we madea cast on the western side of the road. In a few minutes Joe called out:
"Here we are, Phil! See! The wheel touched the edge of this little sandyspot, and if you look ahead about forty yards you'll see where it ranover an ant-hill. It seems as though he were heading for our canyon. Doyou think that's likely?"
"Yes," I replied. "I think it is very likely. There is one place wherehe can get down, you remember, and then, by following up the bed of thestream for a short distance he will come to a draw which will lead himto the top of the Second Mesa--just the place he would make for. For, toany one knowing the country, as he evidently does, there would be athousand good hiding-places in which to stow away ten small sacks ofore--you might search for years and not find them."
"Yes," said Joe. "But there's the horse and cart, Phil. How will hedispose of them?"
"Oh, that will be easy enough. He would tumble the cart into some canyon,perhaps, turn loose the horse, and be back in Sulphide before morning.But come on, Joe. We really mustn't waste any more time; it's getting onfor six now."
It was fortunate we did not delay any longer, for we found my fatheranxiously pacing up and down the room, wondering what was keeping us.Without heeding our explanation at the moment, he hastily tore open theletter we had brought, read it through, and then stepping to the foot ofthe stairs, called out:
"Get your things on, mother. We must start at once. The train leaves atseven forty-five. There's no time to lose."
Turning to us, he went on: "Boys, I have to go to Denver. I may be gonefive or six days--can't tell how long. I leave you in charge. If you canget at the plowing, go ahead; but I'm afraid you won't have the chance.If I'm not mistaken, there's another rain coming--wettest season Iremember. Joe, run out and hitch up the big bay to the buckboard. Phil,you will have to drive down to San Remo with us and bring back the rig.Go in and get some supper now; it's all ready on the table."
In ten minutes we were off, I sitting on a little trunk at the back ofthe carriage, explaining to my father over his shoulder as we drovealong the events of the last two days, and how it was we had taken somuch time coming down from Sulphide.
"It certainly does look as though the thief had come down this way,"said he; "and though we are not personally concerned in the matter, Ithink one of you ought to ride up to Sulphide again on Monday and giveyour information. Hunt up Tom Connor and tell him. And I believe"--hepaused to consider--"yes, I believe I would tell Yetmore, too. I'm surehe is not concerned in this robbery; and I'm even more sure that if hewas a party to the blowing up of that house, he never intended any harmto you. Yes, I think I'd tell Yetmore. It will prove to him that we bearhim no ill-will, and may have a good effect."
Having seen them off on the train, I turned homeward again, goingslowly, for the clouds were low and it was very dark. The consequencewas that it was nearly ten by the time I reached the ranch, and before Idid so the rain was coming down hard once more.
"Wet night, Joe," said I, as I pulled off my overcoat. "No plowing for aweek, I'm afraid."
"I expect not," replied my companion. "It isn't often we have tocomplain of too much rain in Colorado, but we are certainly getting anover supply just now. There's one man, though, who'll be glad of it."
"Who's that?"
"That ore-thief. It will wash out his tracks completely."