Thunder Mountain Read online

  “Rich!” ejaculated Kalispel, incredulously.

  “We’ll sell out for a million. An’ damn me, I’ve a hunch we’ve struck it this time. But even if we can’t find the lode there are good diggin’s all up and down this bench, one way or another!”

  “Sam, are you talkin’ sense?”

  “Kal, he’s been up since daybreak, roarin’ around,” interposed Jake.

  “If it doesn’t turn out my luck to have other prospectors driftin’ in here,” muttered Sam, somberly. “Thet has happened before.”

  “What difference would it make, Sam, if we located first?” asked Kalispel.

  “Wal, a lot. If we can’t find the lode we can clean up a fortune off this bench—giving us time.”

  “Ah-huh. Sam, do you trust thet Nez Percé?” added Jake, scratching his stubbly chin.

  “You bet. He’ll not tell. An’ let’s not borrow trouble. We ought to be singin’. Come on an’ eat. After thet we’ll set to work. We’ll move our camp out of these rocks. There’s a likely sheltered spot across the stream. Kal, you fetch in some meat an’ hang it up in the shade. Then you might scout around a bit. Have a look at the outlet of this valley. Jake, you stick your pan in every sand an’ gravel bar along this stream. I’ll take a pick an’ look for the lode.”

  Kalispel found it impossible not to respond to Sam’s forceful optimism. Sam had always been a bom prospector. Always seeing the pot of gold at the foot of the rainbow! And he had always been poor. He had never made a real strike. On more than one occasion he had almost had fortune in his grasp. This time would probably end like all the others. Yet Kalispel felt himself profoundly stirred by his eldest brother’s inevitableness. Kalispel did not have the gold fever in his blood. He was not given to false hopes. As a cowboy he had been the poorest gambler on the whole Montana range. But he responded to the thrill, the dream of what impetus it would give life actually to find gold.

  When camp had been moved to a pretty sheltered spot, Kalispel took his rifle and made off for the widest part of the valley. At the moment he did not see any game. The spring morning was fresh, clear, cold. A film of ice gleamed on still pools; red buds showed on the willows. He remarked the absence of small game and birds. The first living creatures he espied were Sam’s burros. Next he located a herd of elk fairly high on the south slope. He kept on, however, up the stream, making for the widest part of the valley. It proved to be a high bench, well wooded, and merging on a steep mountain slope where the black timber came down thickly to the level. He caught a glimpse of moving gray objects. Presently a small group of deer, does and fawns, trooped out of the brush to stand at gaze, long ears erect. As he approached them they bounded away as if on springs. Soon after that he sighted a buck, which he shot. It was too heavy to pack into camp, so he dressed it on the spot, and carried it in quarters.

  While passing to and fro over the bench, taking a straight cut to camp, he spied numerous deer. The ground was cut up by tracks of hoofed game. He saw beds in the grass, and the bones of two cougar kills, one old and the other comparatively fresh. Cougar tracks showed in every patch of soft ground. Game trails led down off the south slope to the water, but he did not note that they crossed the stream. The problem of meat, which constituted the main food supply for hunters and prospectors in the mountains, appeared to be solved for an indefinite period.

  This hunting job attended to, Kalispel washed his bloody hands, remarking again the icy shock of the water, and then strolled down the valley. The sun shone overhead now and lent brilliance to the many colors of slope and cliff. On one side the valley was stark and naked, on the other fringed and patched with forest, green ledges, and gray crags.

  He proceeded far down around the bend to where the valley boxed in a red-walled canyon. This he could have entered, and perhaps followed for some distance, had he chosen to wade. But he did not like the idea of immersing to his neck in the melted snow water. Retracing his steps, he halted in a sunny spot with fragrant sage all around, and there he flung himself at length, as had been his wont so often on the cattle range. He liked the intimacy of the great walls. The monotonous purple reaches of the Montana ranges had palled upon him.

  “Dog-gone!” soliloquized Kalispel. “I’d like to settle in this country. That cottonwood flat over on the Salmon River shore took my eye.”

  And he gave himself over to a daydream, fostered by Sam’s ineradicable hope of the good fortune about to be.

  Kalispel marked that spot. Somehow it had induced lingering hours of happy reverie, to which he had long been stranger. The place was down around the bend from the valley, where a bench of sage nestled under a great wall. The melodious murmur of the stream came up; the warm sun beat down, reflected from the cliff; a still, sweet, drowsy languor pervaded the place; the sweetness of sage was almost intoxicating; the solitude was omnipresent; and across the canyon sheered up a tremendous broken slope as many-sided as that mountain could boast. Long glistening slants of talus, rugged narrow defiles winding up, grassy benches fringed with firs, huge sections of splintered cliff hanging precariously, and patches of black lodge-pole pines stepped up endlessly to the blue sky. This wonderful mountainside would have been fascinating to Kalispel without a sign of life. But the reward of searching, patient exercise of keen vision made hours there seem like moments. At first the vast slope had appeared bare of life; before the westering sun had turned Kalispel campward he had espied elk, bear, sheep, deer, cougar. And to see cougar in the sunlight was rare indeed.

  He found camp deserted. Evidently neither Sam nor Jake had been in since morning. That augured well for this first day. Kalispel set to work at camp tasks, pausing once to laugh when he heard himself whistling. He put things in shipshape, halting only for the mixing of biscuit dough, at which he was a signal failure. But he liked to swing an ax, which art he had mastered during his boyhood along the hardwood creek bottoms of Missouri.

  Meanwhile the colored lights of the valley had succumbed to waning afternoon. Kalispel began to grow anxious about his brothers. Presently Jake appeared some distance up the stream. He looked a tired man. Kalispel halloed and waved. Jake made a weary response. Upon nearer view Jake was a sight to behold. He was the dirtiest, muddiest, wettest, raggedest object of a man Kalispel had ever seen. He carried under his arm his gold pan, and in his left hand something small and heavy wrapped in a bandana handkerchief.

  “Dog-gone-it, Jake!” ejaculated Kalispel, undecided whether to laugh or whoop. Then as Jake staggered into camp, Kalispel met a wonderful look in his eyes.

  “Boy, look ahere,” panted Jake, and he forced the bandana into Kalispel’s hands.

  The contents were soft, wet, heavy, significant to the touch. Kalispel knew what it contained without being told, and suddenly he was mute. Jake fell on his knees beside his pack and began to fumble around in it.

  “Whar’s my weighin’-scales? ... My Gawd!—gotta have them!...Ah-ha!...Kal, cluster around now an’ pour out thet gold.”

  Kalispel did as he was bidden, and as the tiny golden stream of grains and nuggets thudded into the scales he became aware of trembling hands and knocking heart. Three times the scales had to be emptied before all the gold could be weighed.

  “Ten ounces—an’ over,” boomed Jake, breathing thickly. “At eighteen dollars the ounce.... Hundred an’ eighty dollars!... An’ as Sam ordered, I only panned one pan at each bar.”

  “Heavens!” ejaculated Kalispel, incredulously. He fingered the shiny nuggets, some of which were as large as peas. All were smooth and worn, due, no doubt, to the action of water and gravel. The majority of the gold was like fine sand, and it slipped from Kalispel’s palm in a yellow stream. Suddenly he sat down to stare at Jake.

  “Boy, we’re rich! Rich!... Our fortunes are made. Sam hit it plumb center this time.... My Gawd! if mother could be alive now! We was always so poor.”

  “Jake, it—it’s hard to—believe,” replied Kalispel, choking. “But here it is. Gold!... An’ you panned all that in a s
ingle day?”

  “Boy, I could have doubled—trebled thet ten ounces. But Sam wanted me to cover all the bars. So I did. All showed yellow. But some more than others—Several were lousy with gold.”

  “Gosh! I’m glad for Sam—an’ you, Jake....Reckon for myself—a little.”

  “Lee, you be a hell of a lot glad for yourself,” replied Jake, deep-voiced and husky. “Your cattle ranch is in sight.”

  Suddenly Kalispel leaped up to let out such a cowboy yell as had never pealed from his lungs. “Whoopee!” The stentorian sound rang along the walls and beat back in hollow echo. It was answered, too, by a halloo from upstream.

  “You hear that?” cried Kalispel.

  “Shore. Thet was Sam....An’ there he comes.”

  “Gosh! Is he drunk, staggerin’ along like that?”

  “Boy, Sam’s packin’ a heavy load.”

  “Can’t be firewood. Too small.”

  “Nope....It’s white....An’ shore as you’re born—it’s a rock.”

  “Rock! What’d Sam be packin’ a rock for?...He hadn’t got his pick an’ crowbar, either—Jake!”

  “Boy, I reckon I’m a little weak on my pins.” Jake sat down heavily.

  Kalispel stared, his thoughts whirling. Sam came on sturdily, but manifestly under great physical strain. He plunged into camp to thump his heavy burden upon the ground in front of his brothers.

  “Look at—thet!” he panted.

  Kalispel saw a thick slab of white quartz, brilliantly veined and belted with gold. It appeared to be the most beautiful inanimate object that he had ever beheld. But he could not speak, and Jake strangled over incoherent words.

  Sam wiped the sweat from his face which betrayed traces of feeling. He now appeared calm, though his eyes held a singular effulgence.

  “I went straight—to the lode—like steel to a magnet,” he said, in cool, slowly expelled words. “Thar’s five hundred dollars—in thet chunk....An’ a million more—where it come from!”

  CHAPTER

  * * *

  2

  EXCITEMENT prevailed in the Emerson camp.

  Sam succumbed to some extent to the uncontained joy of his brothers. Jake declared it was a good thing that there was not any whisky in the packs. They fell over each other preparing supper and partaking of it. Jake could not decide what he wanted to do with his share. Lee had his ranch picked out, his herds, his horses, and he decided that a rich young cattleman, not bad-looking, might possibly find a wife.

  Faint thunder came rumbling from the darkness.

  “Ah-huh! Thar’s the old-man mountain grumblin’ thet we ain’t got the gold yet,” exclaimed Sam.

  A menace seemed momentarily to hold the three in thrall. It passed, and with it the hilarity, the boyish indulgence in wild prospect.

  “Listen, boys,” spoke up Sam, seriously. “We’ve struck gold. Maybe I need to tell you thet the majority of prospectors who strike it rich never reap the profits of their discovery.”

  “Why’n hell not?” roared Jake, aghast, his rugged visage red in the firelight.

  “It’s just a fact, thet’s all. Prospectors ain’t business men. They’re usually ignorant, heedless, improvident. They lose out somehow.”

  “We ain’t gonna lose nothin’,” declared Jake, belligerently, he who had formerly been the most pessimistic. The gold fever had inflamed his brain. Kalispel looked on silently, conscious of a sinking sensation within his breast.

  “If we can sell out for a hundred thousand dollars we’d be wise to do it,” said Sam, ponderingly.

  “Hell no!” yelled Jake, and entreated Kalispel to side with him.

  “A hundred thousand seems a lot of money, but—” muttered Kalispel, struggling with his feelings.

  “Right here we form a company,” went on Sam, emphatically. “Thet is, a company to work this quartz vein. Thet’ll leave us free to take up placer-minin’ claims on the bench. We want to pick out the three richest claims before the stampede.”

  “Stampede?” echoed Jake.

  “Shore. They’ll be a mad rush to this valley the day thet chunk of quartz is shown in Challis, Boise, or Salmon.”

  “I might have figgered thet,” admitted Jake.

  “Sam, why need anyone learn about the quartz vein?” queried Lee.

  “It’ll take a ten-ton stamp-mill to work this mine.”

  “Ten-ton!” ejaculated Kalispel. “How on earth could such a mill be gotten here?”

  “Packed in on mules. It can be done. It must be done....An’ now you see why we must sell out, or sell a half interest, at least. We have no money.”

  “Why not keep the quartz mine secret, while we work all this placer mine for ourselves?” asked Kalispel. “Then afterward sell out or finance the job ourselves?”

  “Thet’s a big idee,” agreed Jake.

  “It may be a good idee, but it’s not good business. We want action. We’d risk everythin’ to keep this quartz mine a secret. Because sooner or later, while we are workin’ the placers, other miners will drift in. The Bitter Root range an’ the Lemhi are full of them.”

  “Well, let them drift,” declared Kalispel. “We can take care of ourselves an’ hang on to our holdin’s. All the time we’ll be diggin’ gold while keepin’ our best secret. Then, when we are forced to show our hand, all right. An’ the situation will be precisely the same as it is now.”

  Jake agreed with Kalispel, and they argued with Sam. But he was obdurate, and at length out of deference to his superior experience and judgment they let him have his way. Whereupon they fell to discussing the other aspects of the case. Sam finally worked out a plan. He would stay in the valley, guarding the quartz mine, while working the places along the stream. Jake and Kalispel were to trace the best trail possible out of the mountains and then make their way to Boise, where they would exhibit their quartz finding to prominent mining-men, and consider no less than a hundred thousand dollars for a half interest, the contracting parties to furnish the mill, have it packed in, and work the mine. If a good deal could not be consummated at Boise, they were to proceed to Challis and Salmon. Sam said he could stretch food supplies for a month and it would be necessary for one of the brothers, at least, to pack in before the expiration of that time. They settled all before going to bed at a late hour.

  Kalispel could not sleep at once. His mind was full. It seemed that the unlucky star under which he had always ridden had marvelously brightened. And while he lay there the old mountain rumbled its faint deep thunder of warning.

  On the following morning Kalispel and Jake, driving three lightly packed burros, headed up the valley on their important mission. Sam accompanied them as far as his quartz vein, which was located in an outcropping ledge of rock at the edge of the bench where it merged into the mountain. Jake, who did not like this separation, strode gloomily along without looking back. Kalispel, however, at a curve of the stream, turned to wave goodbye. But Sam had already forgotten them. His red-shirted frame bent over his precious gold-bearing ledge.

  Jake had been given the task of lining a trail that could be used later by a heavily-packed train of mules. Wherefore he kept to the watercourse. They found that the narrow valley did not box at all, but wound to the south, grading to a rough pass between forest-patched mountain summits. They headed the stream, and by noonday had worked to the divide from which an elk trail descended under beetling cliffs. It led to a wide valley through which ran the Middle Fork branch of the Salmon river. It was a wide, swift, shallow stream. They crossed with difficulty, finding the icy water and slippery rocks hard to contend with. They camped on the opposite bank, where a roaring fire, dry clothes, and hot food dispelled the discouragement that had attended the inception of this doubtful journey.

  Next day they zigzagged up a vast mountain slope, covered with a thick white grass, and picturesque for its numerous patches of black fir. Elk and deer scarcely took the trouble to move out of their path. Once on the summit of this range Jake encountered obstacles to th
e much-desired, easily-graded trail to the southwest. He made a false start and was compelled to return and more carefully study the baffling maze of sharp peaks and dark canyons. In the end he led around a mountain, from the higher shoulder of which, before sunset of that day, he pointed out to his brother the valley of the main Salmon, the town of Challis, the Lemhi mountains and to the south rolling, gray country that opened into the purple range.

  It took three days to grade out a trail down to Challis. The brothers camped on the outskirts of the little town. After supper Jake made inquiries, and to his dismay ascertained that a stage for Boise did not leave until Saturday, and that the supplies needed must be brought from Salmon, sixty miles down the river.

  Jake was a thoughtful man that night round the camp fire. Finally he unburdened himself.

  “Lee, I didn’t like leavin’ Sam alone in thet hole. An’ we can’t go on to Boise, make this minin’ deal, an’ come back to Sam inside of a month. So here’s what we’ll do. I’ll go on to Boise alone....Don’t worry. I won’t lose the quartz an’ I’ll be shore nobody gets a hunch about it. Reckon I’ll not need more’n a few dollars till I make the deal. So you can have this money. You go to Salmon an’ buy three more burros, an’ all the supplies you can pack on them, an’ rustle back to Sam.... What you think of my idee?”

  “It’s a damn good one,” replied Lee. “By the time I get to Salmon a week will be gone. It’ll take a couple of days to outfit there. An’ with six burros all loaded down, an’ allowin’ for the steep grades an’ rough ground on that trail we worked out on—why Jake, even with good luck I couldn’t make it back to Sam in two weeks.”

  “You shore couldn’t. Say a month. An’ then you’ll beat any cowpunchin’ job you ever had....Wal, it’s settled, an’ I’m relieved.”

  Late afternoon of the second day, on the way down the river, Kalispel came to where the Salmon made a wide, slow bend. The several hundred acres of land enclosed by the stream in that circling constituted the ranch he had seen from a mountain-top on the way in. From that far point he had made out several groves of cottonwoods, the wide, flat, brown and green fields, the fringe of trees bordering the river, the sheltered log cabin under the lea of the hill. But at close range this ranch appeared the finest prospect he had ever encountered. The soil was fertile. He crossed several brooks on his way toward the log cabin. On each side of the river sloped up endless acreage of grazing-land. Kalispel thrilled with his resolve to own that ranch.