Henty George Alfred
Captain Bayley's Heir: A Tale of the Gold Fields of California

CHAPTER XVII.
THE LONELY DIGGERS

THE camp increased rapidly, for although no extraordinarily rich finds were made, the valley bottom widened out at this point, and the gold was generally disseminated in quantities sufficient to enable the miners to live, and every one hoped that, as they got deeper, their claims would increase in value. Every day added to the number of tents and huts. Three bars competed with each other for the favour of the diggers, and two large stores drove a profitable trade in food and mining tools and materials; brawls at the gambling-tables were of nightly occurrence, and no small proportion of the gold obtained by the more fortunate diggers found its way into the pockets of the gamblers.

"I tell you what, Abe," Frank said, a short time after their arrival, when they heard that a young man had been shot down by one of the most notorious ruffians in the camp, "I think it would be a good plan if we were all to agree that we will not enter one of these saloons. I know it's a temptation, after work is over, to saunter in there; but I think such a party as we are are enough for each other. We have done well enough for months out on the plains, and I don't see why we should not do so now. We are friends, and should be awfully sorry to see any one of our number losing his share of our joint earnings at the gambling-tables, or brought home with a bullet-hole in his head.

"If we want a little change, we can always ask one or two of the quiet men to join us round our fire. If we want drink, it is cheaper and better to buy it by the bottle, and have a glass in company here. There is no doubt that any one who takes to drink here may as well hang himself at once, for he will never do any good. I don't know that any of us are inclined that way, but I think it would be a good plan to enter into a sort of agreement with each other that, as long as we are in partnership, none of us shall enter a saloon or stake a dollar in play."

"I agrees with you, Frank. Time has been when I have gone in for as heavy sprees as any one. I don't think as I am likely to do it again, but I am sure that an agreement like that would be a good thing for me as well as the others. What do yer say, boys?"

"The only thing is," Peter suggested, "that we might, one or other, very well get into a bad quarrel by refusing to drink when we are asked. You see it's pretty nigh a deadly offence to refuse to drink with a man; and if it got noticed that none of us ever went into a bar, there are men here who would make a point of asking us to drink just for the sake of making a quarrel if we refused."

"I allow there's something in that," Abe said; "there's no surer way of getting into a mess among a set of men like this than in refusing to drink."

"Well, if that's the case," Frank said, "we must modify the arrangement, and agree that none of us will go into a bar unless actually asked to go and take a drink – that wouldn't be very often, the invitation is generally given inside. We come back from work about the same time that every one else knocks off, and they are not thinking of going to the bars till they have had a meal, and when we are once quietly seated round the fire here no one is very likely to ask any of us to get up and go off to one of the saloons."

The suggestion was adopted, and all bound themselves not to enter a saloon to drink or gamble unless invited to take a drink under circumstances in which a refusal would be taken in bad part.

"I am mighty glad you proposed that," Abe said, afterwards. "Rube is all right, but Peter and Dick are both of 'em fond of going on a spree now and then, and this may keep them from it. I told 'em when we started that I was ready to go partners as long as they kept from drink, but I wasn't going to tie myself up with any one as was going in for that. When we dissolves partnership each one will have a right to do with his share what he likes; he can gamble it away, or drink it away, or fool it away as he chooses, but no man as drinks overnight will do his fair share of work next day. Besides, luck may at any time go agin us, and we may have to fall back on what we have laid by when times were good; and if any one had been and spent his share he couldn't be looking to the others to support him. Besides, as I pinted out, we might want all the money we has got atween us to buy up a claim in a good place. They agreed to it, and so far they have kept to it; not, of course, as they had much chance to do otherwise on the way. Still, I think this fresh agreement's likely to do good. We are working here on shares, and each man is bound to do his best for the others."

After sitting by the fire for some time of an evening, Frank generally got up and strolled round the camp, accompanied by Turk. There were many phases of life presented to him. While the successful diggers were drinking and gambling in the saloons, there were many who could barely keep life together. It was true this was in most cases their own fault, for men willing to work could earn their five dollars a day by labouring in the claims of wealthier or more successful diggers; but many would hold on to their own claims, hoping against hope, and believing always that the ground would get richer as they went down.

Frank chatted freely with every one, and he and his great dog were soon known to every one in camp. He was able to do many little acts of kindness to those whose luck was bad; for on arriving at the end of the journey each of the party had, at Abe's suggestion, put twenty dollars into the common fund, and beyond this amount the sum he had brought with him from Omaha was still untouched; and many a man who would otherwise have gone to bed supperless after a hard day's work, was indebted to him for the means of procuring a few pounds of flour and a pound or two of pork.

His attention had been particularly attracted to two men who lived in a small tent a hundred yards away from any of the others, and who worked a claim by themselves. They did not seem to have any communication with the rest of the diggers, and kept themselves entirely apart. While at work Frank had heard several jeering remarks as to the absurdity of working a claim in a part of the ground which had over and over again been tried and abandoned, and Frank felt sure that the men were doing badly.

One day he observed that only one of the men was at work, the younger of the two; and as he continued to wield his shovel after the others had thrown down their tools for the evening, Frank walked over to him.

"Is your partner ill?" he asked. "I see he is not working with you to-day."

The man nodded, but continued his work without speaking. He was evidently indisposed for conversation.

"Why I asked," Frank said, "was not for mere curiosity, but because we have brought up with us from Sacramento a few bottles of fever medicine, and other things likely to be wanted here, and if any of them would be of use you will be heartily welcome to them. We ought all to help each other, for no one knows whether he himself may not want a helping hand next."

"Thank you," the man said, somewhat gruffly; "we shall get on all right, and my mate isn't fond of strangers."

"I need not trouble him myself," Frank said; "I can bring you round any medicines here, and you can give them to him without saying how you got them."

"Thank you; medicine wouldn't do him any good," the man said, and resumed his work as if anxious to avoid further conversation.

Frank, however, was not to be discouraged. The man looked thin and haggard, and Frank suspected that it might be food rather than medicine of which the man's mate was in need. He therefore stood his ground.

"I am afraid you haven't hit on a very good spot," he said. "I don't know much about it myself, for I have only been here about a month; but I hear every one say that there have been several trials made here, and that none of them have found anything to speak of."

"We must work where we can," the man said. "The places were pretty well all taken up when we came, and it didn't suit us to go further."

"Well," said Frank, "I don't want to be inquisitive, mate, or to interfere in other people's affairs, but I noticed your mate looked an elderly man, and that you seemed pretty much alone. I am only just out here myself, and I and the party I am working with are doing fairly; so I thought it would be only neighbourly to come over and see if I could be of use in any way."

"No, thank you," the man repeated; "there's nothing we want."

Frank saw that at present he could do nothing; but he had little doubt that the two men were really suffering severely. Still he understood and respected their pride, and with a friendly "Good evening," strolled off to his own hut.

The next evening he again went round to the solitary workman.

"How is your mate?" he asked.

The man shook his head. "He's pretty bad."

The tone was softer and less repellent than that which he had used the evening before. He was a young man of not more than three or four and twenty, and Frank saw that his lip quivered as he turned away from him and dug his shovel into the ground.

"If your mate is worse," Frank said, "you have no right to refuse my offer. I cannot help feeling that you are doing badly; in that case, why should you not let me lend you a hand? There's no disgrace in being unlucky. Here men are unlucky one week, and make a rich strike on the week following, and then they can lend a hand to others, just as a hand may have been lent to them when they wanted it. I think by your accent that you are an Englishman, and an educated one, just as I am myself. Why on earth don't you let me be a friend to you?"

The man did not reply; but Frank could guess by the random way in which he was doing his work, that a struggle was going on.

"He would not hear of it," he said at last.

"Then don't let him hear of it," Frank said promptly. "If he has any mistaken ideas about taking help from a stranger, the sort of ideas one would naturally have at home, and is ill and wants something, we must help him in spite of himself. If, as I suspect, he needs other matters as well as medicine, you should provide him, even if it be necessary to carry out a little harmless deception."

"I would not tell him a lie," the man said, almost fiercely.

"No, there's no occasion for that," Frank went on. "You can tell him that you have come across that nugget in the claim," and Frank tossed into the hole a nugget for which he had half an hour before given a digger ten dollars from his own store.

For a moment the man stood irresolute, and then burst into a passion of tears. Frank saw that he had gained the day, and saying, "I will come round for a chat to-morrow afternoon. That's my camp up there – that tent just on the ridge. I have really medicines, if you think they will be of any use," strolled away to his supper. He glanced round when he had gone a little distance, and saw the digger running at full speed towards the solitary tent.

The next evening the young man dropped his shovel as he approached him, and came to meet him.

"I did not thank you last night," he began.

"Nonsense," Frank said, interrupting; "there is no occasion whatever for thanks. Why, it's the custom here, whenever any one is taken ill, or is unfortunate, and has to move on, a few friends, or, as it often happens, a few strangers, will each chip in a pinch of gold dust to help him on. It's the rule here that we stand by each other, and being both Englishmen, it is natural we should lend each other a hand. How is your mate?"

"He is a good deal better, thanks to the food I was able to get for him; for, as you guessed, we have been nearly starving the last fortnight."

"But why did you keep on working at such a place as this?" Frank asked. "Why didn't you go on wages? There are plenty of men here who would be glad to take on an extra hand if they could get him."

The young man hesitated.

"I know it must seem utter folly," he said at last, "but the fact is my partner has a fixed idea that claim will turn out well; he dreamt it."

"Pooh!" Frank said; "diggers are constantly dreaming about lucky places – and no wonder, when they are always thinking about them. I consider it madness to keep on toiling here, even if your mate is ill. It is folly to give in to him in this way, and for you both to be half-starved when you can earn, at any rate, enough to keep you both by working for others."

"That is just what I knew you would say," the young man replied, "and I feel it myself, thoroughly."

"Then why on earth do you keep on doing it?"

"I have a reason, a very particular reason, though I am not at liberty to explain it."

"Well, then, there's no more to be said," Frank replied, vexed at what he regarded as obstinate folly. He talked for a few minutes, and then strolled away, and for the next two days did not go near the digger who seemed so bent on slaving uselessly.

The third day Frank noticed that the man was not at work on his claim. As soon as he knocked off in the evening he walked across to the spot. The tools still lay in the hole, showing that the claim had not been abandoned, although work had temporarily ceased.

Next day the claim was still unworked; the tent stood in its place, showing that the diggers had not moved away. Although, from their previous conversation, Frank thought that he might not improbably meet with a repulse, after work was done he strolled over to the tent.

"Are you in, mate?" he asked, outside. "Seeing you were not at work for the last two days, I thought I would walk over and ask you if anything was the matter."

The young man came out from the tent; he looked utterly worn-out.

"My father has been too ill for me to leave him," he said, in a low tone. "I spoke of him as my mate before, but he is my father."

"Can I do anything?" Frank asked.

"No, thank you; I don't think any one can do anything. If there were a doctor in camp, of course I should call him in; but I don't think it would be of any use. He's broken down, altogether broken down. We don't want for anything, thanks to your kindness."

"You look worn-out yourself," Frank said.

"I suppose I do. I have not lain down for the past five days."

"Then," Frank said, "I insist on taking your place to-night. Is he sensible?"

The young man shook his head.

"Sometimes, for a little while, I think he knows where he is, but most of the time he lies perfectly still, or just talks to himself.

"Very well, then," Frank said, "he will not know the difference. Besides, you can lie down in the tent, and I can wake you at once if there is any occasion."

The man hesitated; but he was too worn-out to resist, and he made no opposition as Frank entered the tent. An elderly man lay stretched upon some blankets, one of which was thrown loosely over him. Frank stooped and put his fingers on his wrist. He could scarcely feel the pulse.

"What have you been giving him?"

"I got a piece of fresh meat and boiled it down into broth."

"Have you given him any stimulants? I think he wants keeping up."

"He never touches them," the young man said.

"All the better," Frank replied; "they will have all the more effect upon him as medicine. If you will wait here a few minutes, I will go up to my tent and fetch down a blanket and a few things. I will be with you in ten minutes."

Frank briefly announced to his comrades that he was going to sit up for the night with a sick man. He put a bottle containing a glass or two of brandy in his pocket, and went into a store and purchased some lemons and a piece of fresh beef; this he took back to the camp fire, and asked Abe to put it on and let it simmer all night in the ashes, in just enough water to cover it, and then to strain it in the morning, and bring the broth across to what was known in the camp as the "lonely tent." He took a small phial of laudanum and quinine from the store of medicines, to use if they might appear likely to be needed, and then went back to the tent.

"Now," he said to the young man, "you lie down at once. If you are wanted I will be sure and wake you. I shall make myself comfortable, never fear; one of my mates will bring me down a pannikin of tea the last thing."

He squeezed one of the lemons into a tin drinking-cup, and added water and a few spoonfuls of brandy, and, with a spoon he had brought down with him, poured some of it between the old man's lips.

"I don't know whether it's right," he thought to himself, "but it's the best thing I can do for him. It is evident he must be kept up. When Abe comes down I will ask his advice; after knocking about as many years as he has been, he ought to know what is the best thing to be done."

In half an hour he gave the patient a few spoonfuls of the broth which had been prepared, and continued every half-hour to give him the lemonade and broth alternately.

When Abe came down with the tea Frank went outside to meet him, and explained some of the circumstances of the case, and then took him in to see his patient.

"I think you are doing the right thing, lad," Abe said, when they went out into the air again. "He is evidently pretty nigh gone under. I expect he has been working beyond his strength, and starving, like enough, at that. He's regular broke up, and has got the fever besides. I should just keep on at that till morning, and then we shall see; if he gets on raving you might give him a few drops of laudanum with his brandy, but I wouldn't do it otherwise. I will bring down that broth first thing in the morning, it will be a sight stronger than that stuff you are giving him now."

Fortified by this opinion, Frank lit his pipe, and sat down to his long watch. He was the more satisfied that he was doing right by the fact that the pulse was distinctly stronger than it had been when he first felt it. Occasionally the patient muttered a few words, but he generally lay perfectly still, with his eyes staring wide open. It was this fixed stare that tempted Frank at last to give him a few drops of laudanum, and in an hour later he had the satisfaction of seeing him close his eyes.

Abe was round soon after daylight, with two pannikins of tea, some rashers of bacon, and a jug of the essence of beef.

"How is your patient, Frank?"

"I can't tell, except by his pulse; but that certainly seems to me to be stronger. I gave him a few drops of laudanum a couple of hours ago, and it seems to me he has been dozing since; at any rate his eyes have been half-closed. I think that it is extreme weakness more than anything else; he has overtaxed his strength, and is worn-out with fatigue and starvation. I shouldn't be surprised if he gets round all right with quiet and food." The opening of the tent, and the sound of voices outside, roused the younger digger, who had slept without stirring from the moment he had lain down. He joined the others outside.

"How I have slept!" he said. "I can't tell you how much I am obliged to you; I was regularly done up, and now I shall be able to take a fresh start again."

"My partner, Abe, here, has just brought us down some tea and breakfast, and some really strong soup for your mate." For Frank did not know whether the young man would wish the fact of the relationship between him and his companion generally known.

"Thank you, heartily," the young man said, as he seated himself by the side of Frank, on the stump of a felled tree, and took the tea and food from Abe's hands.

"I feel ready to go on again now; but last night I quite broke down. I have no one to speak to, you see, and it was awful to see him lying there, and to be able to do nothing. Your friend here," and he nodded to Frank, "had been so kind to us a week ago, that I felt sure he would not mind sitting up with him, though I know he thought me a fool to go on digging at that wretched hole. I think he looks " – and he motioned to the tent – "a little better this morning. Of course there's not much change; but his face does not look quite as it did yesterday. I don't know what the difference is, but I am sure there is a difference."

"His pulse is certainly a little stronger," Frank said, "and I hope we shall pull him round, though I did not think so when I saw him yesterday. I have been giving him broth every hour, and a few spoonfuls of lemonade with brandy in it between times, and I think the brandy has done him more good than the soup; if I were in your place, I would go on doing just the same to-day. This soup Abe has brought down is very strong, and two or three spoonfuls at a time will be all he will want; there is another lemon in there, and I would go on giving him brandy too; I think it's just strength he wants."

"Strength and hope," the young man said. "He has all along made up his mind that claim would pay, and I think its failure did more to break him down than even the fatigue and want of food; that was why I kept on working as long as he was sensible. He still believed in it, and would not hear of my stopping to nurse him. He was very bad that night I went home with the nugget, almost as bad as he was last night; but when I showed it him he seemed to revive, and it was only when three days passed without my being able to show another spec of gold that he fell back again."

"Oh! you did find a nugget, then?" Abe said. "No one thought you would strike on anything thar."

"I found it because your friend put it there," the young man said, "and he saved both our lives, for we were starving."

Abe grunted.

"You shouldn't have kept it so dark, lad. We ain't bad fellows, we diggers, though we are a rough lot, and no one need starve in a mining camp. But no doubt you had your reasons," he added, seeing the miner's face blush up. "But what on arth made your mate stick to that thar hole? Any one could have seen with half an eye that it wasn't a likely place."

"He has a sort of belief in dreams, and he dreamt three times, as he told me, of a stunted tree with gold underneath it. We have been to half the mining camps in the country, and never had any luck; but directly he came here he saw a tree standing just where our claim is, and he declared it was the one he dreamt of. I told him then it didn't seem a likely place to work, but he would have it that it was the tree, and that there was gold under it. He was already weak and ill, and to please him I set to work there. I may tell you, as I have told your friend, that he is my father; there is no reason that there should be any mystery about it, and my only reason for wishing that it should not be generally known is that he had a sort of fancy against it."

"I guessed as much, young man," Abe said, "when I saw you working together three weeks ago. A young man don't tie himself to an old partner who ain't no more good than a child at work unless there's some reason for it, and there's many a father and son, aye, and a father and four or five sons, working together in every mining camp here. Still, if the old man has a fancy agin it we will say nought on the subject. So he dreamt three times of the tree, did he? Well, then, I don't blame him for sticking to the claim; I don't suppose there are a dozen miners in this camp who wouldn't have done the same. I believes there's something in dreams myself; most of us do. And he recognised the tree directly, you say? Wall, it's time for my mate and I to be off to work, but this evening I will walk round and have a look at your claim; thar may be somewhat in it, arter all."

"You don't really believe in dreams, Abe?" Frank said, as they walked off together.

"I think thar's something in 'em," Abe said. "I have heard many a queer story about dreams, and I reckon thar ain't many men as has lived out all thar lives in the plains as doubts thar's something in 'em. The Injins believe in 'em, and, though they ain't got no books to larn 'em, the Injins ain't fools in their own way. I have known a score of cases where dreams came true."

"Yes, I dare say you have," Frank said; "but then there are tens of thousands of cases in which dreams don't come true. A man dreams, for instance, that his wife, or his mother, or some one he cares for, is dead; when he gets home he finds her all right, and never thinks any more about the dream, or says anything about it. If in one case out of ten thousand he finds she is dead, he tells every one about his dream, and it is quoted all about as an instance that dreams come true."

"Yes, perhaps there's something in that," Abe agreed. "But I think there's more than that too. I know a case of a chap who was out in the plains hunting for a caravan on its way down to Santa Fé. There weren't, as far as he knew, any Injins about, and what thar was had always shown themselves friendly and peaceable. He laid down by the fire and went to sleep, and he dreamed that a party of Injins scalped him. He woke in a regular sweat from fright, and he was so badly scared that he scattered the ashes of his fire and took to his horse, and led him into a cedar bush close by. He hadn't been thar twenty minutes when he heard tramping of horses, and along came a party of Injins. They halted not twenty yards away from where his fire had been, and camped till the morning, and then rode on again. He could see by thar dress and paint they were up to mischief, and the very next day they fell upon a small caravan and killed every soul. Now that man's dream saved his life; thar warn't no doubt about that. If he hadn't had warning, and had time to scatter his fire, and move quiet into the bush, and get a blanket over his horse's head to prevent it snorting, it would have been all up with him; and I could tell you a dozen tales like that."

"I think that could be accounted for," Frank said. "The man perhaps was sleeping with his ear on the ground, and in his sleep may have heard the tramping of the Indians' horses as they went over a bit of stony ground, long before he could hear them when he arose to his feet, and the noise set his brain at work, and he dreamt the dream you have told me. But I know from what I have heard that gold-miners are, almost to a man, full of fancies and superstitions, and that they will often take up claims from some idea of luck rather than from their experience and knowledge of ground."

After the work was over Abe and Frank went down to the claim.

"Well, I am free to own," Abe said, "that I don't see no chance of gold here; it's clear out of the course of the stream."

Frank was silent for two or three minutes, and then said: —

"Well, Abe, you know I put no faith whatever in a dream, but if you look at that sharp curve in the opposite bank higher up, you will see that it is quite possible that in the days when this was a river instead of being a mere stream, it struck that curve and came over by where we are standing now. As the water decreased it would naturally find its way down the middle of the valley, as it does now; but I think it likely enough that in the old times it flowed under where we are standing."

"By gosh, lad, I think you are about right. What do you say to our taking up the claims next to this? We are not doing much more than paying our way where we are, and it's the horses who are really earning the money."

"I don't know, Abe. We are a good deal above the present bed of the stream, and should probably have to sink a considerable distance before we got down to paying ground; that young fellow said they have hardly found a speck of gold. It would be a risky thing to do; still, we can think it over, there's no hurry about it."

That night Abe insisted on taking his turn to sit up with the old man. The son, who had now told them that his name was James Adams, urged that the previous night's long sleep had quite set him up again, but Abe would not listen to him.

"It's done you good, lad, no doubt, but ye will be all the better for another. It wants more than one night's sleep when you have had four or five out of bed, and a night's watch is nothing one way or other to me. You just do as you are told."

So James Adams had another long night's sleep, while Abe sat by his father.

There was no doubt now that the old man was recovering from the exhaustion which had brought him to death's door; the set, pinched look of his features was passing away, and the evening following Abe's watch, when Frank went round to the tent to inquire how he was getting on, the son came out and said —

"He is better. He went off this morning in what looked like a natural sleep, and when he woke, an hour ago, I could see that he knew me. I don't suppose he knew he had been lying insensible for a week, but thought I had just come back from work. He whispered, 'How does it look to-day, Jim?' and after what you told me about what you thought about the old course of the river, I was able to say honestly, 'I think the chances look more favourable.' He whispered, 'We shall make a fortune yet, Jim,' and then drank some soup and went off to sleep again. Tomorrow morning I will set to work again. I don't believe a bit in the dream myself, but it will make him more comfortable to know that I am at work upon it; and after all it may turn out some good."

"My partners have more faith in it than I have," Frank said. "Abe told them about the dream, and about what I had noticed of the probable course of the river in the olden times, and I have a proposal to make to you. We will take up five claims by the side of your two, two on one side and three on the other; then three of us will help you sink your shaft. All that's found in your claims will be yours; and if it turns out rich you shall pay us just as if we had been working for you by the day. When we have cleared out your claims we are to have the right of using your shaft for working right and left along the bottom over our claims. I think that's a fair offer."

"I think it's more than fair; it is most kind," the young man said. "You are risking getting nothing for your labour if it turns out poor."

"Yes, we are risking that," Frank agreed, "but we are not doing ourselves much good now. The two who are working the horses earn enough to keep the five of us, and if by any chance your claims should turn out well, we shall be paid for our work for you, and will be able to work out our own claims very cheaply; if we sunk a shaft on our own account we should similarly lose our labour if it turned out poor, and should not get so much if it turned out rich. So I think the bargain is really a fair one; and if you do not agree, my mates have quite resolved to sink a shaft on their own account on the strength of your father's dream."