Castlemon Harry
Julian Mortimer

At the end of a fortnight the fighting was all over, the excitement had somewhat abated, the settlers and miners had resumed their various avocations, and the major and his boys were once more in peaceable possession of their home, which soon began to wear its old familiar look again. The high stone wall which surrounded the rancho was leveled to the ground, and flowers planted where it stood. The officers of the fort visited there regularly as of old, and the rooms which had so long been silent and deserted echoed to the sound of laughter and music.

Everybody looked upon Fred and his brother as heroes. The almost inexhaustible fund of stories the former had collected during his connection with the robber band, as well as the adventures he met with while in the performance of his perilous duties, were listened to with interest by all the visitors at the rancho, and none were more delighted with them than the officers who tried so hard to capture him. He and his brother for a few weeks led a life of quiet ease, for the keen and rational enjoyment of which they had been fully prepared by their recent perils and excitements. The time never hung heavily on their hands. They had much to talk about, and when weary of fighting their battles over again, there were their horses, hounds, guns and fishing-rods always at their command. We might relate many interesting incidents that happened in that valley before the boys bade good-by to their father and their mountain home to become students in an Eastern academy, but “A Brave Boy’s Struggles for Home and Fortune” are ended, and our story must end with them.

The few who had remained faithful to their employer during his exile were not forgotten. The major and his boys showed them every kindness and attention in their power, and among all those who had claims upon their gratitude and esteem none commanded a larger share than Silas Roper, the guide.

AN IDEA AND A FORTUNE.

By Owen Hacket.

WITH their backs toward Placer Notch two young men of about twenty-one, burdened with prospectors’ kits, came silently down the trail. The well-worn way ran beside the murky stream that for the twenty-five years had run through the sluices of the Placer Notch Mining Company’s claim, which, singularly, included in their four acres the only paying claims that had ever been staked in McGowan’s Pass.

As the young prospectors neared Sol Brunt’s supply depot at the foot of the pass, the latter broke the silence and said moodily:

“I wish I had known three months ago as much as I know now.”

“Three months ago, Tom, we both knew what we had to expect; that was all talked over.”

“Well, it’s one thing to see hardship and failure at a distance, but it’s another thing to go through them. I didn’t know then, as I do now, what real hardship was. I thought I did. Handy man on a farm seemed about as near slavery as we could find in a free country.”

“Our experience is not unusual, Tom. We may succeed yet – we may not. I am going to stick it out another month and so are you – ”

“I’m not so sure of that,” interrupted Tom.

“Yes you will, if I know you, Tom, and I guess I do. You like to have your little growl now and then, and I’m glad you do; it makes me argue on the bright side, and to see the pleasant features and the hopeful prospects.”

“It’s a pity hopes don’t sell in the market, Phil; you’d be pretty well off if they did.”

“Come, now! none of your sarcasm, old man. I tell you we are going to stick this for a month yet. We have no money, it is true; but we can work our way, and we are free and are seeing the world. That beats eighteen hours a day on farm work.”

The trail here ran close to the edge of the stream and about a foot above it. Phil Gormley the hopeful, happened to step on a loose stone; it gave way and down went his right leg into the water.

“I like that!” he exclaimed in vexation, as he pulled his foot out with much difficulty. He regarded his shoe with surprise on seeing it covered to the top with soft mud. He sat down on a log and squeezed the water out of his trousers leg, gazing all the while at the muddy shoe in a reverie that attracted Tom Danvers’ attention.

“What’s up?” he asked.

“I was trying to account for such deep mud in the bed of a mountain stream. I am certain this mud is the year’s deposit of the dirt that is separated from the gold in the sluices above at Placer Notch.”

“Well, what of it?”

“It simply flashes across me that this silt must be very rich in the waste gold that is washed out with the dirt from the sluices.”

“Are you thinking of staking out a mud claim?”

“Not quite as bad as that. A man might scoop mud out and wash it till doomsday without getting enough to keep his pipe alight from year to year. But just fancy how many millions must have passed down this stream! You heard what the miner said up in the Notch – twenty per cent of the gold product was washed away from the sluices. If they have panned out fifty million dollars there, that would make ten million swept away into the big river below, with more constantly going the same way.”

“That’s all very well in theory, but what does it amount to any way? We can’t get hold of any of these millions.”

“No, of course not. But this I do believe: if any one could afford to turn this stream into a reservoir and wait ten years he would have enough gold silt to tackle in a wholesale sort of way that would pay. It would be only a question of devising a cheap system of washing the silt from the gold more thoroughly than they do at the mines. I’d take the contract to invent the process, too. But come! We won’t waste any more time over it. No one is going to wait ten years to get his good money back.”

They took up their journey again, and had not walked five minutes when a turn in the trail and the stream brought them in sight of the tidy establishment of Sol Brunt. Sol was one of those who came into the hills with the rush when gold was discovered, but had seen fit to find his fortune in trade while others tramped the hills for paying claims. Those who thus went into business invariably had a sure fortune before them. Sol’s place had grown up from a shanty store to a tidy house that in time had received additions, making it a very considerable establishment. The trail had been much used in the past, but besides what he made out of the casual traffic over it, he supplied all the Placer Notch wants by contract, and turned a pretty penny out of it, too.

No man had ever come into sight of Sol Brunt’s while the sun was up and failed to find the Star Spangled Banner flying at the staff head.

Sol’s tidy wife came out to meet the boys, closely followed by the trader himself.

Phil was spokesman.

“Mr. Brunt this is my partner, Tom Danvers; my name is Phil Gormley. We’ve been in the hills three months and haven’t found a grain, but we don’t give up just yet. We have no money between us, but we have been hoping you could give us enough work this week to pay for board and lodging and some stores to give us a lift to the next range.”

“Well, boys, I’m right glad to see you,” said Sol, and Mrs. Brunt looked at them with pitying eyes. “As to the lodging and the things, I’ll just take verbal acknowledgement of the debt when you leave. Young fellows who talk as you do usually get along and pay their debts too. As to the work, I want a little help on my hay this week, and I don’t mind reducing your little bill in that way.”

“Just the thing for us,” exclaimed Tom Danvers. “You’ll find we’re experts in that line.”

“So much the better then, my boy,” responded their genial host.

The shadows were falling in the valley as the sun sank behind the mountain tops, and Mrs. Brunt went inside. Her reappearance was heralded by savory odors from the kitchen, and after a refreshing splash in cool water from a mountain rill the boys sat down with their hosts to a bountiful supper. Then chairs were brought to the doorway, where in the gloom they watched the rising and falling light of Sol’s pipe while he spun countless yarns of mining life which were, in truth, largely interspersed with mining death, mostly tragic in character.

Before bidding the boys good night, Sol delicately offered to give them some advice, which the boys eagerly accepted.

“I like pluck,” said Sol, “and I don’t want to discourage it; but I do hate to see it turned into an empty sluice. You’ve prospected all over the pass here and found nothing. Thousands have done the same before you. What is true of Placer Notch is pretty generally true of all the hills. In the early days the country swarmed with men, and almost every acre was gone over many times. What wasn’t found is not worth looking for. I don’t say the richest pay dirt ever discovered may not yet be turned up, but to waste your best years on a gamble is not the thing for boys with grit in them. Go into some business; it will pay you better if you have to start on three dollars a week; with a head and a backbone you may get to be of some account in a line where every minute sees something to be accomplished.”

As the boys were preparing for bed, Tom remarked:

“It looks like prospectors without a prospect.”

“What Mr. Brunt said as to our chances is probably true, judging from our experience so far; but I wish to prove it to my own satisfaction before I accept it,” replied Phil. “Whatever my judgment may tell me, I can’t help feeling that there is rich pay earth somewhere in the hills.”

“Well, I think you’d better stop right here and tackle the mud yonder.”

“Perhaps I will when the month is up,” replied Phil good-naturedly. “Good night!”

“Good morning, Mrs. Brunt! We’ve had a splendid sleep and are ready to pitch in with the pitchfork,” exclaimed Phil the next morning when the boys came downstairs bright and early.

“I’m glad to hear it,” responded Mrs. Brunt heartily. “You’ve been sleeping on the best mattress within fifty miles, and that accounts for it. Perhaps you’d like to look around a little before breakfast. You’ll find Mr. Brunt milking the cow down by the pond. Just follow the trail and you’ll find him.”

The boys gladly acted on the suggestion, and sauntered over a rustic bridge that spanned the stream. The trail led them into a thick grove of firs filled with the murmurs of the babbling waters, which here flowed over a sharp descent. A sudden turn in the path brought them to the edge of the grove where a splendid prospect burst upon their view.

One feature of it made Phil Gormley stop and clutch Tom by the arm!

The mountain pass widened suddenly at this point in the form of a semicircle on each side, while a quarter of a mile away the flanking mountains swept so close together again that there was only a very narrow outlet between two opposing spurs. A great basin was thus formed of over a quarter of a mile across – how deep, they could not tell, because a great sheet of still water filled the hollow. Beyond, from spur to spur, ran a chain of spile heads, which showed that man, not nature, had made this lake. Over the dam the water lazily trickled, forming the continuation of the stream they had followed from Placer Notch. It was not necessary for Tom to ask the cause of Phil’s agitation. Their conversation of the day before had flashed across him as the artificial lake burst into view. Just below them was Sol, seated on a rock and milking his single cow, in a strip of meadow that fringed the sheet of water.

Phil’s face was flushed and his eyes were very bright, but he made a visible effort to calm himself as he approached.

The boys and their host passed cordial morning greetings, and then Phil said carelessly:

“Such a fine sheet of water is something of a surprise in such a spot. Did you build the dam, Mr. Brunt?”

“Not I,” replied the storekeeper. “There’s a story to that. They say a mining inspector named John Martin, who took in Placer Notch on his circuit twenty-five years ago, saw this hollow when he first passed by and got the idea into his head that if he could trap the muddy water that ran off from the sluices and thus collect the tailings, in the course of time the mass of mud in the bottom would pan out rich from the gold that was constantly going to waste. He located this place in the land office, and had the dam built. Before he could take title he disappeared while on his rounds, and was never again heard of. I finally got the title myself, for it struck me that perhaps some day if the country around here grew up and there was any use for it, I could use the pond for water power: or I could drain it off and plant on the bottom, which ought to be the richest kind of soil. There’s thirty feet of mud on that bottom, I calculate.”

“He must have had a tremendous job to build a dam that would make a pond over thirty feet deep,” commented Tom.

“No; it wasn’t such a big job. Luck was with him and started the work. Just before Martin began, a landslide filled up the narrow space between the two mountains where they come together. You can see this from the other side of the dam. There wasn’t much left to be done; he drove some logs and did some filling in; the stream gradually filled up the hollow, and when the water rose as high as the dam it began to run off down the pass just as it used to, leaving a deposit on the bottom of the basin that has been rising ever since.”

“But, Mr. Brunt,” asked Phil indifferently, “haven’t you ever thought of following up the inspector’s idea of separating the gold that is in the bottom?”

“I can’t say I have – not seriously. There must be a great deal of the dust there, but the proportion is so small that I guess it wouldn’t be worth while to waste any money on such a scheme.”

Hearing this, Tom cast a sly glance at Phil as if to say, “What did I tell you?” but he saw that Phil was driving at something and he had sense enough to say nothing.

The milking was done, and they all went back to breakfast, where they were met by Mrs. Brunt, whose round face was all aglow from the labors of cooking. Then they went down to the strip of meadow again and made an onslaught on the hay-field, in which Tom, who tackled that part not yet mowed, cut such a swath as made old Sol stare. They finished early in the day, and as they turned back to the store the owner surveyed the stack he and Phil had built with the greatest satisfaction imaginable, remarking that the two had accomplished in less than a day what would have taken him the best part of a week.

Phil had indeed worked hard during the day; he had thought hard also. Ideas had been chasing through his head in numbers. How rich in gold was the deposit? How could he test it? How could it be separated in bulk at a cost low enough to pay? Ah, that was the vital question of the whole matter! And yet if that were solved other questions would follow. How to promote or float the scheme? Whom to apply to? How to proportion the profits? Yes, Phil had been thinking very hard, indeed, and thinking to such purpose as to be fully prepared to talk to the point. The subject of the pay bottom was not referred to again during the day; but when they had taken their places in the doorway, as on the previous evening, while the merry rattle of the plates and the “clink” of the knives and forks and spoons betokened dish washing in the kitchen, Phil began to speak his little piece.

“I want to talk to you seriously, Mr. Brunt, about a matter that I have had in mind since yesterday. As we came down from the Notch I noticed the muddy bed of the stream, and remarked to Tom here, that I believed if that sediment could be coraled there would be money in it. I found this morning that another great mind – and Phil laughed at his own conceit – had run in the same channel, and had built twenty-five years ago what I had proposed yesterday as a good thing.

“Now, Mr. Brunt, if I can show you that your idle pond is exceedingly valuable in gold, I want to know if you will share equally with me any profits that I may show you the way to get out of it?”

Sol chuckled good-naturedly, but incredulously, and said:

“Aye, aye, my boy! You can have half the profits and more too.”

“It is agreed seriously?” persisted Phil.

“All right, my boy – only understand I put up no money.”

“That leads me right to the next point. Providing, as before, I could prove value here, a third man or syndicate, or something meaning capital, would have to be brought in. Speaking in a general way, will you agree to give the use of this bottom and your adjoining land on a basis of, say, one-third of the profits to each of the three concerned – you, for your mine; myself, for the process I know I can invent, and the third man for his money to float the enterprise.”

Phil was conscious all the while that he was furnishing Mr. Brunt with more amusement than matter for earnest thought, but having obtained a really serious promise of the donation of land on the basis referred to – always providing of course, it could be proved by actual test that the gold could be separated at a profit – Phil took Sol inside, where in the lamplight he told all his ideas and schemes, his theory of the separating process and a score of other points, while Tom could only stare open mouthed and wonder where his chum had learned all this about stock companies and spiral wheels and hydraulics.

By-and-by the dubious smile vanished from the face of Sol Brunt, and he not only listened seriously and admiringly to Phil, but also supplemented his proposals with suggestions, corrections and advice that his mature experience stamped as very valuable. But Sol’s part in the discussion was taken only on the hypothesis that the twenty per cent of waste gold that was doubtless in the silt could be got at, and it was arranged that the next day a test should begin by hand. If the test panned out, machinery would step in and do in one hour what manual labor would take days to accomplish; and, as Phil shrewdly pointed out, one of Sol’s own original ideas would supply by natural means one of the necessities for the mechanical process – power – which otherwise would be a huge item of running expenses.

Accordingly, next morning the boys sallied out, accompanied by Sol, to overlook their operations. They carried with them a barrel, buckets to carry the silt and a scale to weigh it. They set up a barrel and half filled it with water, then into it they dumped several bucketfuls of silt. With staves they stirred the mixture so violently that each particle of fine silt must have been separated from the others. When at last they stopped they were dripping with perspiration. They gave the muddy water a few minutes to partly settle and allow the grains of gold, if any there were, to make their way to the bottom of the barrel; then by tipping the barrel carefully the water was drained off, leaving only a few inches of residue at the bottom of which was a thin layer of mud – and gold? – that was the question. It was not time to answer yet. In went half a barrelful of water and more buckets of silt. This was agitated as before and the water again drawn off.

When this had been repeated several times it was noticed that the layer of mud on the bottom was a foot deep. Thereupon two washings of this were had in the same way without adding new silt, until the deposit at the bottom had been partly drained off. Then more silt was stirred in, and so they labored nearly all day, until Sol called time, saying there was no use of wearing themselves out.

The next day the work was continued until afternoon when they had at the bottom of the barrel the residue of about two hundred and fifty pounds of silt; in this residue, only some six inches thick, was to be found nearly every grain of gold that the successive lots of silt had contained. It was time for the test. They broke the barrel, and carefully scraped and washed every grain of the muddy residue into the largest porcelain basin that Sol’s store contained, and in this more limited way made many successive washings until at last at the bottom of the white basin there gleamed nothing but a fine golden sand sparking in the sunlight. There was gold in the mud, that was certain. How much and in what proportion was the next question? They thoroughly dried the golden sediment and called Sol’s fine apothecary’s scales into requisition. The dust weighed just five penny-weights.

Phil had no sooner ascertained the weight than he began figuring excitedly on a scrap of paper. This is what he was figuring on: “A layer of mud, quarter mile square and average thickness of thirty feet – how many tons of silt are there?”

His recollection of tables of weights and measures was perfect and he could therefore calculate this approximately, as can any schoolboy. He figured about three hundred and sixty thousand tons. Then he calculated: “Five penny-weights of gold to about two hundred and fifty pounds of silt, makes, say forty dollars per ton and – ”

“Mr. Brunt,” said Phil, looking up and with difficulty restraining his excitement, “I figure there is at this moment in that pond nearly FIFTEEN MILLION DOLLARS’ worth of dust!”

Months had passed; Phil and Tom had come to Cheyenne City with a letter from Sol Brunt to the president of the Placer Notch Mining Company – Mr. Van Amrandt – introducing Phil’s scheme and authorizing Phil to represent him in the preliminary discussion of the whole matter.

Phil had impressed Mr. Van Amrandt most favorably as a young man whose youthful enthusiasm was held in check by a thoughtfulness and judgment beyond his years. But time had passed; the president had been very busy with other matters, or there had always been some other reason to keep things at a stand-still for a long while. Finally the president went so far as to have the superintendent of the “P. N.” mine go down to Sol’s place and assay a quantity of the silt. Phil and Tom had been enabled to bide a winter’s delay as far as actual needs went, through the kindness of the president who had given them both subordinate clerical positions in the company’s office; there Phil was looked upon rather suspiciously by his fellow clerks as a sort of upstart who, by some hook or crook, could procure long interviews with the president and engineer, and come out of their respective offices looking as if he had been discussing questions of tremendous importance, as, in fact, he had.

One afternoon in March the door of Mr. Van Amrandt’s private office opened and the president himself stood on the threshold with a paper in his hand.

“I say, Gormley, come here, will you?” and he retired again to his desk.

Phil rose and entered the private room.

“Shut the door and sit down. I have here the report of Jasper who has been assaying up at Brunt’s “duck pond.” He reports forty-one dollars to the ton – a little better than your own estimate.”

Phil’s heart beat away at a tremendous rate all this while, and when the result of the assay was announced it seemed to stop altogether. The president continued in a most matter-of-fact tone:

“I have just told the engineer to go over those plans of yours which he has approved in a general way and, in connection with yourself, perfect the details of your device.”

Phil seemed to hear this from a great distance, and Mr. Van Amrandt seemed to be far off and in a sort of mist. He could not move or speak or even think – he could only comprehend the joyful news.

“By the time the designs are perfected I shall have procured the necessary appropriation from the directors for the machinery. They have terrible tales to tell of the weather up in the Notch it seems, Gormley; only last week there was a heavy fall of snow which the superintendent says is swelling the streams greatly as it melts. To return to the subject, though, I have just sent Jasper’s messenger back with a message to Brunt, asking him to come into town to sign a conveyance of his claim to the company; then we will issue the new stock to Brunt and yourself on the basis we spoke of last month.”

By this time Phil had regained his self-possession. He rose and began:

“Mr. Van Amrandt, I thank you very – ” when the door opened and Sol Brunt appeared on the threshold. He advanced dejectedly and said:

“The dam burst yesterday! Twenty streams from the sides of the hollow are tearing into the basin, and what silt is left by to-morrow I will sell you for a ten dollar note!”

The clerks outside were startled by the sound of a heavy fall.

Phil Gormley had given way under the blow.

A fortune lost! you will say. Yes; part of the fourteen millions was washed away, part was covered by the debris of land slides which the unusual freshet of that spring caused. What remained amounted to nothing in comparison. That was five years ago. The Placer Notch Mining Company has been reorganized since – just a few weeks ago, in fact, and this whole matter was only brought back to my mind at this time by the receipt of a letter from a friend of mine, who announced that he has just been put in on the reorganization as secretary of the company. I refer, of course, to Phil Gormley. He lost his lucky fortune, but he is working out a better one, because it is coming slowly and with honest difficulty. But it was his idea of working the “duck pond” that planted this slow-growing tree of fortune, for it was that which took him to the company’s office.

Out here on my quiet farm I do not hear many echoes from the busy outside world, but none could give me greater pleasure than does such news of my dear friend Phil – for I am no other than Doubting Thomas Danvers.

THE GRANTHAM DIAMONDS

By Russell Stockton.

HOW it did snow, to be sure! The flakes, and very small ones they were, came down in slanting drives or bewildering spirals, to be taken up again from the earth in fierce gusts and whisked along in blinding drifts.

John, the austere-looking butler, was putting the finishing touches on a tempting spread in the dining-room of the Grantham mansion. There was a salad and a dish of nuts; there was a generous plate of cake and a heaping pile of gorgeous red apples; but it would never do not to have something hot on such a cold night as this, so, alongside of a silver chafing dish was a fine English cheese and two eggs, which of course meant rarebits, and a tea urn with six dainty and varied tea cups and saucers, which of course meant girls.

The antique hall clock blinked like an old man at the dancing flames in the great fire-place and slowly sounded eight o’clock. Almost at once there came the merry jingle of sleigh bells, then a few shrill shrieks, a ring, and then a fierce stamping of small feet on the veranda.

Almost before John’s dignity could carry him to the hall door, Miss Maud Grantham ran swiftly down the stairs, followed, partly on the stairs, but mainly on the bannisters, by little Bobbie Grantham. Four rosy and very pretty faces came in with the snow gust at the door; there was much embracing and such a chattering, Maud failed to get a word in edgeways, and so resorted to the exorcism of holding aloft the yellow sheet of paper she held in her hand so that every eye could see it. The effect was instantaneous: a hush fell on the quartet at the sight of that dreadful messenger – a telegram.

“Now don’t be afraid, girls! It’s nothing very terrible,” and she handed the sheet to Sadie Stillwell, who read aloud:

“Hudson, N. Y., Nov. 28, 1891.

“To C. V. Grantham, Yonkers, N. Y. – Train stalled. Don’t expect us till morning.

Wes.”

If the girls looked relieved for a moment they certainly showed regret the next, especially Minnie Trumbull; but she said nothing. Ella Bromley, on the contrary, exclaimed in great vexation:

“What a shame! For two whole days I’ve been promising myself such a time teasing that scamp Dick almost to death. I think it’s too bad.”

“Never mind,” replied Sadie; “you will have four days in which to work out your horrible purpose. Why, is not slow torture better than killing him off in one night?”

“Why, girls! How can you stand there joking,” spoke up Grace Waldron, “while those poor boys are slowly freezing to death in the middle of a snow bank?”

“Nonsense!” replied Maud. “Where there’s a telegraph office there must be a station and a stove. It is too bad, indeed, that Wes and Dick must miss the little surprise party. But come along! I’ve done everything to help out for a jolly time. There’s the supper – I’ve had that all fixed, and I’ve told John we wouldn’t want him, so he’s gone off to bed, I suppose. Then mamma and papa have gone to the Bruces’ musicale, so there isn’t a soul in the house to disturb. Isn’t that just delightful?”

With a deafening din of joyous exclamations they followed Maud Grantham into the music room, and there all the evening they played games, and gossiped, and danced and sang, totally unsuspicious of the grave proceedings that were taking place within sound of their voices.

While this festive event was in progress Wesley and Richard Grantham, the sons of a wealthy New York banker, were really speeding on toward their home by the Eastern express. About four o’clock in the afternoon they had run into a snow drift just after drawing away from the station at Hudson. Things had looked for a time as if they were to be held in that town over night: so, when the train had backed to the station they had sent the telegram to their father. But when they saw a crowd of laborers file off with spades and shovels toward the deep drift, they had followed and watched the work, done in the faint light of many lamps; and they had of course chafed and grumbled, as well they might at being delayed on the eve of a school holiday and almost at the threshold of their luxurious home, quite oblivious of the fortunate outcome of the delay.

The fierce winds that had swept the drift in place had helped to clear it away, and by six o’clock, when it had long been dark, the laborers had shoveled it nearly all off. The train moved out and plunged into the shallow layer of snow that remained, sweeping it up into the air in great feathery plumes, and the obstruction was vanquished.