The Trail of The Badger: A Story of the Colorado Border Thirty Years Ago

by Anonymous

  CHAPTER VII

  DICK'S DIPLOMACY

  Running to the door, I saw Dick striding down toward the cabin, whilebehind him on a stout pony rode Uncle Tom. Just as I stepped out, thepair approached one of the drifts of snow which ridged the valley, andinto this Dick plunged at once. Though it was up to his waist, he prettysoon forced his way through, when it was Uncle Tom's turn.

  Evidently it was not the first time the pony had tackled a snow-drift,for he showed no disposition to shirk the task, but wading in up to hisknees, he did the rest of the passage in a series of short leaps, verylike buck-jumping; a mode of progression extremely discomforting to hisplump, short-legged rider.

  "Oh! Ah!" gasped Uncle Tom at each jump. "Heavens! What a country! Dick,you imp of darkness, I thought you said it was an easy trail."

  At this I could not help laughing, when Uncle Tom, who had notperceived me before, transferred his attention to me.

  "You young scamp, Frank!" cried he, shaking his fist at me as I ranforward to meet him. "This is a nice way to treat your respecteduncle--first scare him half to death and then laugh at him. Lucky for methere's only one of you: if you had been born twins I should have beenworn to a rag long ago. How are you, old fellow?" he went on, reachingdown to shake hands with me. "Any the worse for your adventure?"

  "Not a bit," I replied. "Sound as a bell, thank you."

  "Thank Dick, you mean. I'll tell you what, Frank," he continued, leaningdown and whispering; Dick having walked on toward the house: "that's anuncommonly fine young fellow, in my opinion. His coming down in thestorm last night to tell me that you were all safe was a thing that fewboys of his age would have done and fewer still would have thought ofdoing. Ah! This is the professor, I suppose. Why, I've seen him before!"

  So saying, Uncle Tom jumped to the ground, and hastening forward, heldout his hand, exclaiming:

  "How are you, Herr Bergen? I'm glad to meet you again. We are oldacquaintances, though I had forgotten your name, if I ever heard it."

  "I believe you are right, Mr. Allen," responded the professor. "Yourface seems familiar, though I am ashamed to say I cannot recall when orwhere we met."

  "I can remind you," said Uncle Tom. "It was at Fort Garland, six orseven years ago. I was on my way to investigate an alleged golddiscovery in the Taos mountains, when you rode into the fort to ask thecavalry vet to give you something to dress the wounds of a burro whichhad been clawed by a mountain-lion. I got into conversation with you,and learning that you also wanted some cartridges for a little Ballardrifle, I gave you a box of fifty. Do you remember?"

  "I remember very well," replied the professor. "The cartridges were forDick: he learned to shoot with a Ballard. Well, this is a great pleasureto meet an old acquaintance like this. Come in out of the cold. Romerowill take your pony."

  Soon we were all seated before the fire, Uncle Tom puffing away hisaches and pains with the smoke of the inevitable cigar, when theprofessor, turning to him, asked:

  "And how long do you intend to stay in camp, Mr. Allen? Will this snowdrive you out?"

  "Not at all," replied Uncle Tom. "I expect to be here a couple of weeks,in spite of the snow. The drifts will settle in a day or two, and theminers will break trails to their claims, and then I shall be able toget about--there won't be any difficulty. Though if it were going to beas hard work as it was coming up here this morning I might as well gohome again at once--it took us an hour to make the one mile from town."

  "You came to inspect the mines, I understand. Do you confine yourself tosilver mines, or do you deal in mines of all sorts?"

  "Silver and gold," replied Uncle Tom. "Though, as it happens, I am onthe lookout this time for a copper mine as well. Before I left St. LouisI notified a Boston firm, with whom I have frequent dealings, of myintention to come here, and received from them in reply a telegram,saying, 'Find us a good copper mine. Price no object.' There was noexplanation, and I am rather puzzled to understand why they shouldsuddenly branch out into 'coppers' in this way."

  "I expect the explanation is simple enough," remarked the professor.

  "What is it, then?" asked Uncle Tom.

  "To any one watching the progress of science," replied the professor,puffing away at his big porcelain pipe, "even to me, here on the raggededge of civilization, it is obvious that a new era is close at hand; anew force rapidly coming to the front."

  "Electricity?" asked Uncle Tom.

  "Yes, electricity. The science is still in the egg, as you may say, butto those who have ears to hear, the shell is beginning to crack. I amconvinced that before long we shall be lighting our streets withelectricity and using it in a thousand ways as a mechanical power. Theconsequence will be an immense increase in the demand for copper; andthat, I have no doubt, is why you have been asked to look out for acopper mine: they want to be ready when the time comes. What is this,Dick?"

  At the first mention of the words, "copper mine," the thoughts of Dickand myself had, of course, instantly reverted to the King Philip mine,and I was on the point of introducing the subject, when Dick, catchingmy eye, signed to me to keep quiet. Rising from his chair, he steppedsoftly to the rack where the rifles hung and took down the Mexican'sarrow, which he had put there the evening before. It happened that wehad not mentioned the episode of the wolves and the Mexican whendescribing to the professor our struggle homeward through thesnow-storm, and consequently, when my companion laid the arrow on thetable close to his elbow, it was only natural that the old gentlemanshould exclaim, "What is this, Dick?"

  Very briefly, Dick related how he had come by it, merely stating that wehad seen a Mexican shoot a wolf; that the Mexican had run away when wehailed him; and that we had gone and picked up his arrow. I wonderedrather why he did not call attention to the copper arrow-head; but Dickknew what he was about, as I very soon saw: he intended to let theprofessor discover it for himself, which a man of his habits of closeobservation was certain to do. In fact, the old gentleman had no soonertaken the arrow into his hands than he exclaimed:

  "Why, this arrow-head is made of copper! A Mexican, you say? Then heprobably came from Hermanos. You remember, Dick, how all the peopledown there---- Why, Mr. Allen, here's the very thing! You want a coppermine? Well, here is a copper mine all ready to your hand! All you haveto do is----"

  "To find it," interjected Dick, laughing.

  "That is true," the professor assented, laughing himself. "I hadforgotten that little particular for the moment, Dick. I'm afraid it isnot quite so ready to your hand as I was leading you to suppose, Mr.Allen; but that it is there, somewhere in the Dos Hermanos mountains, Ifeel sure."

  Thereupon the professor proceeded to tell the story that Dick hadalready told me, giving some further details of the information he hadderived from the Spanish gentleman, Don Blake.

  "It appears to have been a mine of some consequence," said theprofessor. "The records covered a period of fifteen years, and duringthe last five years of the time the shipments were constant and large.It is fairly sure, I think, that the product was native copper----"

  "Sure to be," interrupted Uncle Tom. "It would never have paid to shipany waste product so far. In fact, I am surprised that they should shipeven native copper such a long distance."

  "Yes; but as they did so, I think the inference is that the metal wasplentiful and easy to mine."

  "That is a reasonable assumption," said Uncle Tom, thoughtfully noddinghis head. "What beats me, though," he went on, "is that the memory ofthe spot should have been so totally lost. Considering that the mine wasproducing for fifteen years, there must be many traces of the work done,such as the waste dump, the old road or trail, and so forth: you can'trun a mine for that length of time and leave no marks. It is a wonder tome that the place has never been rediscovered."

  "I don't think there is anything surprising in that," replied theprofessor. "The villagers of Hermanos, agricultural people, seldom gofive miles from home; it is only old Galvez' _vaqueros_, his cow-men,who would be likely to come ac
ross the traces of mining, and if theydid, those peons are such incurious, unenterprising people they wouldpay no attention. Besides which, I gathered that even the cow-men neverwent up into the Dos Hermanos mountains: it is not a good cattlecountry--rough granite and limestone, little water and scant pasturage.Consequently, the cattle range southward toward the Santa Claras,instead of westward to the Dos Hermanos, and the Twin Peaks, therefore,remain in their solitary glory, untouched by the foot of man; andprobably they have so remained ever since the King Philip mine wasabandoned, a hundred and fifty years ago."

  For a full minute Uncle Tom remained silent, thoughtfully blowing outlong spirals of cigar smoke, but presently he roused up again and said:

  "There is one thing more I should like to ask you, Professor, and thatis, why you conclude that the King Philip mine is in the Dos Hermanosmountains?"

  "For this reason," replied our friend: "In the first place, many of thereports were dated from the _Casa del Rey_. Of course, it is likelyenough that there are other _Casas del Rey_ in other parts of thecountry, but besides the frequent mention of the King's House, there wasalso mention of Indian fights at different places: 'at the crossing ofthe Perdita,' for instance, and 'near the spring by Picture Buttes';then there was the record of a snow-blockade on the Mosca Pass, in theSanta Claras; another of a terrible dust-storm on the Little CactusDesert, 'with the loss of one man and three mules'; and so forth. Now, aline running through these and other places mentioned would bring youinto the Mescalero valley at its southern end, and there is no doubt inmy mind that the _Casa del Rey_ named in the reports is the King's Housedown there at Hermanos."

  "It does seem so, doesn't it?" responded Uncle Tom. "Look here,professor," he went on, suddenly jumping out of his chair and castinghis cigar stump into the fire, "I must make an attempt to find thatcopper mine. It does, as you say, seem all ready to my hand. But how todo it, is the question. I can't go myself--can't spare the time--so theonly way, I suppose, is to hire some prospector, if I can."

  "I don't think you can get one," said the professor, shaking his head;"at least, not here in Mosby. They are all too intent on hunting forsilver, and I doubt if you could persuade one of them to waste a seasonin searching for a metal so commonplace as copper, the value of which israther prospective than immediate. I doubt very much if you could getone to go."

  "I suppose not," replied Uncle Tom. "And you can hardly blame them,either, when you consider that by the expenditure of the same amount oflabor a man may come across a rich vein of silver, every ounce of whichhe knows to be worth a dollar and twenty cents."

  "Just so," the professor assented.

  "What am I to do, then?" asked Uncle Tom. "Give it up? Seems a pity,doesn't it, when, more than likely, the old workings are lying thereplain to view, only waiting for some one with his eyes open to pass thatway. Still, if I can't get a man----"

  "Take a boy," suggested Dick, cutting in unexpectedly.

  Uncle Tom whirled round on his heels and stared at him; the professorremoved his long pipe from his mouth and stared at him too; while Dickhimself sat bolt upright in his chair, a broad and genial grinoverspreading his countenance.

  For some seconds they all maintained these attitudes in silence, whenUncle Tom suddenly broke into a hearty laugh.

  "You young scamp!" cried he, shaking his forefinger at Dick. "I believethat's what you've been aiming at all the time."

  "That's just what we have, Mr. Allen," replied my companion. "Frank andI were talking about it yesterday, saying what fun it would be to go andhunt for the old mine; though we never expected to get the chance. Butwhen you began to talk about copper mines, we cocked our ears, ofcourse, thinking that here, perhaps, _was_ a chance after all--and--andif you _can't_ get a man, Mr. Allen, why not send a boy? Would you letme go, Professor?"

  Our two elders looked at each other, and very anxiously we looked at ourtwo elders. Not a word did either of them say, until the professor,rising from his chair and knocking out the ashes of his pipe upon thehearthstone, remarked quietly:

  "Go out and chop some wood, boys. I want to talk to Mr. Allen."

  Regarding this order as a hopeful sign, out we went, and for a longhalf-hour we feverishly hacked at the heap of poles outside, making arather indifferent job of it, I suspect, until a tapping at the windowattracted our attention and we saw Uncle Tom beckoning us to come in.

  How anxiously we scanned their countenances this time, any one willguess. Both men were standing with their backs to the fire, Uncle Tomsmoking a fresh cigar and the professor puffing away again at his pipe,both of them looking so solemn that I thought to myself, "It's no go,"and my spirits fell accordingly; but looking again at Uncle Tom Idetected a twitching at the corner of his mouth which sent them up againwith a bound.

  "Well, Uncle Tom!" I cried. "What's it to be?"

  "It is a serious matter," replied my guardian, with all the solemnity ofa judge passing sentence. "The professor and I have discussed it veryearnestly, and we have decided--that you shall go!"