The Gold Hunters - James Oliver Curwood (superbooks4u .TXT) 📗

a breath he stood on the edge of the rock, then with a cry he leaped with the fierce agility of an animal far out into the swirl of the cataract! For an instant he was visible in the downward plunge of the water. Another instant and with a heavy splash he disappeared in the deep pool under the fall!

Wabi and Mukoki had seen the desperate leap and the young Indian was beside the pool before Rod had recovered from his horrified astonishment. For centuries the water of the chasm stream had been tumbling into this pool wearing it deeper and deeper each year, until the water in it was over a man's head. In width it was not more than a dozen feet.

"Watch for him! He'll drown if we don't get him out," shouted Wabi.

Rod leaped to the edge of the pool, with Mukoki between him and Wabigoon. Ready to spring into the cold depths at the first sign of the old man's gray head or struggling arms the three stood with every muscle ready for action. A second, two seconds, five seconds passed, and there was no sign of him. Rod's heart began to beat with drum-like fierceness. Ten seconds! A quarter of a minute! He looked at Wabigoon. The young Indian had thrown off his caribou-skin coat; his eyes, as he turned them for a moment toward Rod, flashed back the white youth's fear.

"I'm going to dive for him!"

In another instant he had plunged head foremost into the pool. Mukoki's coat fell to the ground. He crouched forward until it seemed he must topple from the stone upon which he stood. Another fifteen seconds and Wabigoon's head appeared above the water, and the old warrior gave a shout.

"Me come!"

He shot out and disappeared in a huge splash close to Wabi. Rod stood transfixed, filled with a fear that was growing in him at every breath he drew. He saw the convulsions of the water made by the two Indians, who were groping about below the surface. Wabigoon came up again for breath, then Mukoki. It seemed to him that an age had passed, and he felt no hope. John Ball was dead!

Not for a moment now did he doubt the identity of the mad hunter. The strange, wistful light that had replaced the glare in the old man's eyes when he heard his own name called to him had spoken more than words. It was John Ball! And he was dead! For a third time, a fourth, and a fifth Mukoki and Wabigoon came up for air, and the fifth time they dragged themselves out upon the rocks that edged the pool. Mukoki spoke no word but ran back to the camp and threw a great armful of dry fuel upon the fire. Wabigoon still remained at the edge of the pool, dripping and shivering. His hands were clenched, and Rod could see that they were filled with sand and gravel. Mechanically the Indian opened his fingers and looked at what he had unconsciously brought up from under the fall.

For a moment he stared, then with his gasping breath there came a low, thrilling cry.

He held out his hands to Rod.

Gleaming richly among the pebbles which he held was a nugget of pure gold, a nugget so large that Rod gave a wild yell, and in that one moment forgot that John Ball, the mad hunter, was dead or dying beneath the fall!

CHAPTER XVI JOHN BALL AND THE MYSTERY OF THE GOLD

Mukoki, hearing Rod's cry, hurried to the pool, but before he reached the spot where the white youth was standing with the yellow nugget in his hand Wabigoon had again plunged beneath the surface. For several minutes he remained in the water, and when he once more crawled out upon the rocks there was something so strange in his face and eyes that for a moment Rod believed he had found the dead body of the madman.

"He isn't—in—the—pool!" he panted. Mukoki shrugged his shoulders and shivered.

"Dead!" he grunted

"He isn't in the pool!"

Wabigoon's black eyes gleamed in uncanny emphasis of his words.

"He isn't in the pool!"

The others understood what he meant. Mukoki's eyes wandered to where the water of the pool gushed between the rocks into the broader channel of the chasm stream. It was not more than knee deep!

"He no go out there!"

"No!"

"Then—where?"

He shrugged his shoulders suggestively again, and pointed into the pool.

"Body slip under rock. He there!"

"Try it!" said Wabigoon tersely.

He hurried to the fire, and Rod went with him to gather more fuel while the young Indian warmed his chilled body. They heard the old pathfinder leap into the water under the fall as they ran.

Ten minutes later Mukoki joined them.

"Gone! Bad-dog man no there!"

He stretched out one of his dripping arms.

"Gol' bullet!" he grunted.

In the palm of his hand lay another yellow nugget, as large as a hazelnut!

"I told you," said Wabi softly, "that John Ball was coming back to his gold. And he has done so! The treasure is in the pool!"

But where was John Ball?

Dead or alive, where could he have disappeared?

Under other conditions the chasm would have rung with the wild rejoicing of the gold seekers. But there was something now that stilled the enthusiasm in them. At last the ancient map had given up its secret, and riches were within their grasp. But no one of the three shouted out his triumph. Somehow it seemed that John Ball had died for them, and the thought clutched at their hearts that if they had not cut down the stub he would still be alive. Indirectly they had brought about the death of the poor creature who for nearly half a century had lived alone with the beasts in these solitudes. And that one glimpse of the old man on the rock, the prayerful entreaty in his wailing voice, the despair which he sobbed forth when he found his tree gone, had livened in them something that was more than sympathy. At this moment the three adventurers would willingly have given up all hopes of gold could sacrifice have brought back that sad, lonely old man who had looked down upon them from the wall of the upper chasm.

"I am sorry we cut down the stub," said Rod.

They were the first words spoken.

"So am I," replied Wabi simply, beginning to strip off his wet clothes. "But—" He stopped, and shrugged his shoulders.

"What?"

"Well, we're taking it for granted that John Ball is dead. If he is dead why isn't he in the pool? By George, I should think that Mukoki's old superstition would be getting the best of him!"

"I believe he is in the pool!" declared Rod.

Wabi turned upon him and repeated the words he had spoken to the old warrior half an hour before.

"Try it!"

After the attempts of the two Indians, who could dive like otter, Rod had no inclination to follow Wabi's invitation. Mukoki, who had hung up a half of his clothes near the fire, was fitting one of the pans to the end of a long pole which he had cut from a sapling, and it was obvious that his intention was to begin at once the dredging of the pool for gold. Rod joined him, and once more the excitement of treasure hunting stirred in his veins. When the pan was on securely Wabi left the fire to join his companions, and the three returned to the pool. With a long sweep of his improvised dredge Mukoki scooped up two quarts or more of sand and gravel and emptied it upon one of the flat rocks, and the two boys pounced upon it eagerly, raking it out with their fingers and wiping the mud and sand from every suspicious looking pebble.

"The quickest way is to wash it!" said Rod, as Mukoki dumped another load upon the rock. "I'll get some water!"

He ran to the camp for the remaining pans and when he turned back he saw Wabi leaping in a grotesque dance about the rock while Mukoki stood on the edge of the pool, his dredge poised over it, silent and grinning.

"What do you think of that?" cried the young Indian as Rod hurried to him. "What do you think of that?"

He held out his hand, and in it there gleamed a third yellow nugget, fully twice as large as the one discovered by Mukoki!

Rod fairly gasped. "The pool must be full of 'em!"

He half-filled his pan with the sand and gravel and ran knee-deep out into the running stream. In his eagerness he splashed over a part of his material with the wash, but he, excused himself by thinking that this was his first pan, and that with the rest he would be more careful. He began to notice now that all of the sand was not washing out, and when he saw that it persisted in lying heavy and thick among the pebbles his heart leaped into his mouth. One more dip, and he held his pan to the light coming through the rift in the chasm. A thousand tiny, glittering particles met his eyes! In the center of the pan there gleamed dully a nugget of pure gold as big as a pea! At last they had struck it rich, so rich that he trembled as he stared down into the pan, and the cry that had welled up in his throat was choked back by the swift, excited beating of his heart. In that moment's glance down into his treasure-laden pan he saw all of his hopes and all of his ambitions achieved. He was rich! In those gleaming particles he saw freedom for his mother and himself. No longer a bitter struggle for existence in the city, no more pinching and striving and sacrifice that they might keep the little home in which his father had died! When he turned toward Wabigoon his face was filled with the ecstasy of those visions. He waded ashore and held his pan under the other's eyes.

"Another nugget!" exclaimed Wabi excitedly.

"Yes. But it isn't the nugget. It's the—" He moved the pan until the thousand little particles glittered and swam before the Indian's eyes. "It's the dust. The sand is full of gold!"

His voice trembled, his face was white. From his crouching posture
Wabi looked up at him, and they spoke no more words.

Mukoki looked, and was silent. Then he went back to his dredging. Little by little Rod washed down his pan. Half an hour later he showed it again to Wabigoon. The pebbles were gone. What sand was left was heavy with the gleaming particles, and half buried in it all was the yellow nugget! In Wabi's pan there was no nugget but it was rich with the gleam of fine gold.

Mukoki had dredged a bushel of sand and gravel from the pool, and was upon his knees beside the heap which he had piled on the rock. When Rod went to that rock for his third pan of dirt the old warrior made no sign that he had discovered anything. The early gloom of afternoon was beginning to settle between the chasm walls, and at the end of his fourth pan Rod found that it was becoming so dark that he could no longer distinguish the yellow particles in the sand. With the exception of one nugget he had found only fine gold. With Wabi's dust were three small nuggets.

When they ceased work Mukoki rose from beside the rock, chuckling, grimacing, and holding out his hand. Wabi was the first to see, and his cry of astonishment drew Rod quickly to his side. The hollow of the old warrior's hand was filled with nuggets! He turned them into Wabigoon's hand, and the young Indian turned them into Rod's, and as he felt the weight of the treasure he held Rod could no longer restrain the yell of exultation that had been held in all that afternoon. Jumping high into the air and whooping at every other step he raced to the camp and soon had the small scale which they had brought with them from Wabinosh House. The nuggets they had found that afternoon weighed full seven ounces, and the fine gold, after allowing the deduction of a third for sand, weighed a little more than eleven ounces.

"Eighteen ounces—and a quarter!"

Rod gave the total in a voice tremulous with incredulity.

"Eighteen ounces—at twenty dollars an ounce—three hundred and sixty dollars!" he