The Gold Seekers E-Book

Vivian Stuart

• Herausgeber: Jentas Ehf
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Serie: The Australians
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 349

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

The thirteenth book in the dramatic and intriguing story about the colonisation of Australia: a country made of blood, passion, and dreams.   Against overwhelming odds they fought to tame a savage land, now they must fight to keep it.   During the 1850s on a promise of fertile soil, the wilderness of Australia had been tamed by proud men and passionate women like the Broomes or Tempests. This first line of pioneers had worked the land for the betterment of the colony. But when gold was discovered in the rugged hills and desolate outback, a different type of pioneers made their way into the wilderness: The Gold seekers.

Leseprobe

The Gold Seekers

The Australians 13 – The Gold Seekers

© Vivian Stuart, 1985

© eBook in English: Jentas ehf. 2022

Series: The Australians

Title: The Gold Seekers

Title number: 13

ISBN: 978-9979-64-238-1

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchase.

All contracts and agreements regarding the work, editing, and layout are owned by Jentas ehf.

The Australians

The ExilesThe PrisonersThe SettlersThe NewcomersThe TraitorsThe RebelsThe ExplorersThe TravellersThe AdventurersThe WarriorsThe ColonistsThe PioneersThe Gold SeekersThe OpportunistsThe PatriotsThe PartisansThe Empire BuildersThe Road BuildersThe SeafarersThe MarinersThe NationalistsThe LoyalistsThe ImperialistsThe Expansionists

———

This book is dedicated to my brother-in-law, Squadron Leader John Chisholm Ward, a seventh-generation descendant of one of Australia’s pioneer families.

CHAPTER I

“Keep her going, young Luke!” Daniel Murphy urged cheerfully. He grinned as, with powerful arms, he shovelled the contents of his barrow into the slanting, oblong box of the gold-mining rocker they were working. “This one may yield more than dust. Others have made big strikes—why shouldn’t we? Morgan says the gold’s here, and he knows what he’s doing, don’t he?”

His brother Luke, standing thigh-deep in the cold, murky waters of the creek, responded with an indifferent shrug.

“Does he, Dan?” he questioned. “Does he?” But not waiting for an answer, and with now-practiced skill, he bailed water into the cradle and began shaking it on its rockers in order to separate the mass of sand and gravel. Larger fragments of rock and useless pebbles were retained by a perforated metal sheet secured across the upper part of the box, the rest falling through into the sloping bottom, for the water to wash it past a series of slats or riffles. At the end of each day, someone would carefully scoop from behind the riffles the particles of gold that had settled there, mixed, inevitably, with sand.

Luke straightened up, smothering a sigh. Unlike his older brother, Daniel, who was a well-muscled six feet, he was small and slight and, just past his eighteenth birthday, the younger by three years. Until four months ago, when Captain Jasper Morgan had entered their lives on his way to the goldfields, both he and Dan had been content enough to work on their father’s small, isolated farm in California’s Sacramento Valley, raising hogs and horses and supplying the gold rush travellers and the mining camps with food and timber in addition to replacements for their worn-out teams.

Their father was a Mormon. Although he had been one of the early converts, he had found existence under Brigham Young in Great Salt Lake City too restrictive and had deserted the New Zion in order to return to the life and work he knew and loved best. But he had retained the principles of his faith, and the all-prevailing gold fever now gripping the state of California in the year 1850 had left him unmoved, for he had heeded the Mormon leader’s stern injunction that gold was for paving city streets and not for personal enrichment.

Luke, bareheaded under the relentless sun, mopped his brow as he watched his brother walk away, pushing the heavy barrow in the direction of the bank, where their two companions were toiling with picks and spades.

The coming of Captain Jasper Morgan had changed everything. Handsome, elegant, and worldly-wise, Morgan had an eloquent tongue and an answer for any argument. He had charmed them all initially and had even contrived to refute Brigham Young’s dictum by listing the advantages certain to accrue to those who had the wit and knowledge to prospect successfully for the gold that, he had claimed, was there for the taking. He had that knowledge; in a matter of a few weeks, his musical Welsh voice had asserted—or at most a couple of months—he would find a suitable site, and the skill he had acquired in the coal and tin mines of his native land would ensure success beyond the dreams of avarice.

But he needed help, Morgan had conceded—strong arms and young men accustomed to hard labour, since he himself —Luke smiled wryly at the memory—he himself, having followed a military profession and lived as a gentleman, was deficient on that score.

Dan had been eager to take him up on the offer of a partnership. Dan, for all their strict upbringing and their Mormon principles, had always hankered after the chance to join the thousands of gold seekers who had come flooding into the bleak, inhospitable land since James Marshall’s discovery at Sutler’s Mill. And Luke’s smile widened into one of deep affection. Where Dan went, he went, too. When their father had given his consent and their mother her cautious approval, they had signed the deeds of partnership, and leaving in their places the two old Mexicans Morgan had brought with him from San Francisco, they had undertaken the chore of driving their new partner’s wagon, with its tents and mining gear, to the site he had chosen.

It had been a weary journey, through abandoned diggings and deserted mining camps, for the gold-hungry invaders were constantly moving on as news of fresh strikes reached them and new arrivals added daily to their number, now rumoured to be more than one hundred thousand. California had been ceded to the United States by Mexico and was now a state of the Union; millions of empty acres, uncultivated and uninhabited, were—as Morgan had said of the gold they were yielding—there for the taking. The miners formed their own committees, elected leaders, and made what laws they deemed necessary, and any man might stake a claim and hold it for as long as he continued to work it and left his tools or his tent on the site.

But Morgan did not share these democratic notions. He had a theory which, Luke reflected sullenly, he had not seen fit to divulge either to Dan or himself or to the two other men—both Australians and brothers, by the name of Gardener, Frank and Tom—whom he had also picked up on the way and taken into partnership.

They had passed through the largely canvas city of Sacramento, on through the sealike valley, and through the oak-clad foothills to the broad plateau of the Sierra, then down once again to the Feather River region, where finally Morgan had ordered a halt. They had set up camp in a dim gorge, known locally as Windy Gully, through the steep, rocky center of which ran a shallow stream. Morgan had displayed a secretive expertise while he made a survey of his chosen site but had finally pronounced the rocks gold-bearing and assured his anxious partners that the stream, conscientiously worked, would yield as much alluvial gold as they could wish for.

He had supervised the setting up of their rocker, had doled out spades and buckets from the wagon, and, having instructed them as to the procedure they must follow, had taken two of the horses and absented himself for almost three weeks. Dan came back, trundling another barrowload of sand and pebbles, and Luke dealt with it in brooding silence.

“Cheer up, lad,” his brother said. “It’ll be grub time soon, and Frankie trapped us a couple o’ plump buck rabbits, so we’ll eat well at least. Even if we don’t have much to show for a hard day’s work.”

“We never do have much,” Luke retorted, refusing to be placated. “A few bags of dust, that’s all, and sweat enough to find that.” He shook the rocker box with angry violence. “And there’s Captain Morgan, always giving orders and never lending us a hand himself! Some partnership this is, with the four of us doing all the work.”

“He’s learnt us what to do, Luke,” Dan reminded him. “And paid for the wagon and the horses and the supplies.” He jerked his head skyward. ”‘Twill be sundown in half an hour. You’ll feel differently when you’ve a decent meal inside you.”

Maybe he would, Luke agreed, but without conviction, his resentment of Jasper Morgan growing. The captain had returned after his three-week-long absence, bringing, it was true, more supplies and a second wagon. He had also brought a girl with him—his daughter, according to Tom Gardener, the only one to have seen her—and instead of living with the rest of them in the tents, he had moved into the storekeeper’s house at Flycatcher’s Bend, three miles away, and spent less time than before on their claim.

Luke scowled up at the setting sun, shivering now that the upper part of his body was deprived of its earlier warmth, and found himself wondering about the girl, Morgan’s daughter. Morgan kept her well out of sight, which, in view of the proximity of the area’s main mining camp, was perhaps understandable. The men there were, on the whole, sober and well behaved; but there were more than two hundred of them, and inevitably there were a few that stepped over the traces, given the opportunity. They were men from all corners of the earth—Americans, of course, and British, Australians, Blacks from the southern states, Mexicans, Germans, Frenchmen, a few Irish, and a small bunch from Chile.

The elected camp committee had drawn up the bylaws, which were strictly and sometimes brutally enforced. But some of the miners struck it rich and then went to celebrate their good fortune by getting drunk, despite the extortionate price the storekeepers in the locality charged for liquor, most of which was rotgut stuff, illicitly distilled. The camps themselves were primitive; in some there were a few rough timber huts, but most of the miners slept under canvas. A handful of the men—those who had exhausted their grubstakes in their quest for a strike—existed without even a tent; and a pretty young female—and Morgan’s girl was pretty, Tom had asserted—would clearly be a sore temptation to such men, the more so since they had, for the most part, been deprived of feminine company for a long time.

Even so, Luke told himself sourly, Jasper Morgan had no call to spend half his time with her, leaving his partners to do all the work on the claim. They were not paid a wage, and because he had supplied their food and equipment, Morgan had demanded and arbitrarily taken a fifty percent share of their so-far meagre returns.

“The captain’s a gentleman,” Dan always reminded him when he voiced his doubts. “And like he says, his word is his bond. He’ll not cheat us, Luke.”

But was he really a gentleman? Certainly Morgan talked with all the arrogant assurance that went with social superiority. His commission, he had told them, had been granted by the Queen of England, and he had fought in the Carlist War in Spain, as a soldier of fortune, with a splendid, jewel-encrusted gold medal, bearing Queen Isabella’s head, to prove his claim and his courage. But for all that, and in spite of the man’s glib talk of past glories and wide travel, Luke’s doubts had not been set at rest. Rather, they had increased and worried him more, particularly since the girl’s arrival. Her name was Mercy, Tom had said, which might or might not be Welsh. Or it was, perhaps, a shortened form of Mercedes...

“Hi, there, Luke old son!” Tom himself hailed him from the creek bank, a big, genial fellow who, whatever the temperature, worked with his torso bared and in pants cut off above the knee. He and his brother shared most of the heavy digging with Dan, and in addition, Frankie Gardener had volunteered to act as camp cook. “Frankie’s roastin’ them rabbits he snared, an’ he says they won’t be long. You c’n knock off now, lad, an’ git into some dry clothes. I’ll ‘tend to the riffles.”

“Thanks, Tom,” Luke acknowledged gratefully. He straightened up, flexing his cramped muscles and conscious of the pangs of hunger. It had been a long day, and he hoped, as he did most days, that they would have more than sand and a sprinkling of gold dust to show for it, although such hopes were seldom fulfilled. Morgan would not hear of their moving on, however small their return; he had chosen the Windy Gully site, bringing all his expert knowledge to the task, and to abandon it would be to call that knowledge into question.

As Luke made his way along the water’s edge, an appetizing smell of roasting meat greeted him, and he gave Frankie Gardener a friendly wave. At least he and Dan had struck it rich where the other members of their partnership were concerned, he reflected. The Gardeners were as fine a pair of men as any he had ever met—honest, hardworking, utterly dependable, and the best of company, even in the face of disappointment. He enjoyed listening to the yarns they told about Australia as they hunkered down beside their campfire in the evening. Both had been seamen until, like so many others, they had jumped ship in San Francisco and come to try their luck in the goldfields.

Neither of them planned to stay in America.

“Soon as we make a worthwhile strike, we’ll be off back to Sydney Town,” Tom had said many times, and smiled as he went on to talk of his wife and children and his longing to end what had become a three-year separation from them. He had talked also of a fellow Australian named Hargraves, Luke recalled, a merchant seaman serving in the same ship, with whom Jasper Morgan had had some dealings.

Frankie had said of Hargraves, “He has his head screwed on the right way, has Ned. Reckons the country in our Bathurst an’ Goulburn areas is as like this here as to make no difference. So if there’s gold here in California, then there’s every chance there’ll be gold in New South Wales, an’ I, for one, can’t wait to go back an’ find out. All Tom an’ me are waiting for is just one good strike an’ we’ll be hightailin’ it home!”

But there had been no good strike — Just a few small bags of dust, won after days and weeks of backbreaking toil and sweat. And it was backbreaking, Luke thought sourly. Each spadeful of earth took effort; each laden barrow must be wheeled over the rough ground to the cradle, tipped into it, rocked, and washed. Placer mining, it was called. Panning was easier but less rewarding, and in any case, after a day spent swilling river sand in a heavy metal pan, a man’s muscles ached and his head reeled. And they were working their claim with the knowledge that other miners, more skilled and experienced than they themselves, had worked Windy Gully and moved on. Besides—

“Hey, Luke boy!” Frankie, hands cupped about his mouth, hailed him from the tent site. Luke obediently halted and looked up to the top of the rocky bank, some thirty feet above.

“Yeah, Frankie? You want something?”

“A bucket o’ fresh water, lad. Make sure your bucket’s clean—it’s for makin’ the coffee. Don’t want to swaller no dust with our coffee, do we? Nor any nuggets, neither.”

It was a jest that had long since worn thin, and Luke did not laugh. He glanced back to where Tom and Dan were busy scraping out the riffles and saw Dan shake his head in answer to his unspoken question. Just dust, then, he thought with bitterness—dust, a pinch of which would buy a drink or two, and a handful sell for twenty dollars; barely enough to keep them in flour and coffee, with prices what they were at the diggings. It took nearly an ounce of dust a day just to keep one miner fed and working...

“Right,” he called back, swallowing his disappointment. “I’ll get your water, Frankie.”

He returned to the stream, the water squelching out of his worn cowhide boots. Conscientiously he rinsed the bucket, then filled it with fresh creek water. The bank at this point was steep; there was an easier ascent a few yards back, but in his present mood of black depression, Luke did not bother to walk back.

That this was a mistake he quickly realized as his wet boots slipped on the lichen-covered rock and he had to put out his free hand swiftly to grasp the exposed roots of a scrubby manzanita growing in a crevice, in order to avoid spilling the contents of his bucket. He managed to steady himself, losing only a few drops of the water, but then, without warning, the manzanita roots lost their frail hold, and Luke found himself having to cling to the edge of the crevice with both hands, letting the bucket fall.

Cursing, he watched the bucket roll out of reach and was about to go down to retrieve it when something in the interior of the crevice caught his eye. Where the roots of the mountain shrub had been there were pebbles lying as they might have done in a bird’s nest; only the pebbles were larger than any bird’s eggs he had ever seen, and in the last, faint rays of the setting sun they possessed a dull, reflected gleam.

Scarcely daring to believe the evidence of his eyes, Luke reached into the crevice and picked up one of the pebbles, an impulsive shout strangled in his throat. Best to make sure, he told himself, his heart pounding like a living thing against his ribs. There had been so many failures, so many dashed hopes; it wouldn’t do to yell out to Dan and the others that at long last he had made the strike they had dreamed of. Not until he was sure.

It did not take him long to make sure. He had seen and handled other nuggets before, and there was no mistake about these: Weight and feel were right. They were gold! And there were—God in heaven,—there were eight of them, varying in size and shape, the largest, as nearly as he could guess, weighing around five pounds.

An even larger one was embedded in the rock. His hands trembling, Luke took out his jackknife and, with infinite care and some difficulty, pried it out. Again resisting the impulse to call to the others, he filled his pockets with the smaller nuggets and clambered down to fetch his bucket, into which he placed his last find.

The light had almost gone, and he strode back to the gentle ascent they usually took, mounting it as if he were walking on air. Dan and Tom were spreading out the day’s small mixture of sand and dust to dry in front of the fire, and Frankie, busy with his rabbits on their spits, observed, without turning around, his tone mildly reproachful, “That you, Luke? Took your time, didn’t you? Let’s have the water; these rabbits are just about done.”

“I brought something better than water,” Luke said. His voice was so hoarse with excitement that it sounded unnatural, even to himself, and Dan, quick to sense the emotional strain under which his brother was labouring, jumped up and grasped him by the shoulders.

“What is it, young Luke? What is it, boy?”

“This,” Luke stammered, his throat tight. “We—we m-made it, Dan; we made our strike! Praise be to God!”

He dropped to his knees by the fire, and as the other three watched in stunned amazement, he turned out first his pockets and then upended the heavy bucket, placing his haul on the strip of canvas on which the few handfuls of dust and sand were drying.

They stared with mouths agape, momentarily bereft of words. Then Tom picked up the largest of the nuggets and leaped to his feet, emitting a wild, triumphant yell.

“Jesus, boys, we’re rich! This must be worth—God Almighty, a bloody fortune! We can go home, Frankie! The kid’s made it for us, and made it big! Luke, you’re a marvel!”

One of the precious jackrabbits fell from its spit into the fire, but Frankie did not trouble to retrieve it. He wrung Luke’s hand, his tanned face aglow and his blue, seaman’s eyes full of tears as he sought vainly for words.

“Where?” he managed at last. “Where did you find all these, Luke?”

Luke told him, feeling suddenly as if it were all a dream and fearful that he might waken from it. “Pinch me,” he pleaded. “I—I can’t believe it, even now.”

It was Dan who brought them down to earth. He rescued the charred remnants of their supper and said soberly, “Ain’t you forgetting—half o’ this belongs to Captain Morgan?”

“He didn’t find them nuggets,” Tom protested. “Young Luke did, on his own.”

“We got a partnership agreement, Tom,” Dan reminded him. “Morgan staked us, and he brought us here. He’s entitled to fifty percent; we four divide the rest between us.” He grinned at the young Australian’s chagrin. “Why, for crying out loud, lad, there’s enough for all of us! That lump o’ gold you’re holding must weigh ten or twelve pounds by itself, and the storekeepers are paying sixteen dollars an ounce. They pay more at the Branch Mint in ‘Frisco by all accounts—twenty dollars maybe.”

Tom attempted to work out figures in his head and finally, his smile returning, resorted to counting on his fingers.

“God!” he exclaimed, awed. “Oh, my God!”

“And there could be more,” Dan pointed out, “buried in the bank o’ the creek where Luke found this little lot.” He gestured to the congealing rabbit meat. “Let’s have our meal, boys, an’ put some coffee on. You fetch up the water, Tom.”

“I fancy going to the camp,” Tom countered obstinately, “and buyin’ me a skinful o’ whiskey to celebrate. We’ve waited long enough for something we can celebrate, haven’t we?”

Dan sighed. “Not till we tell Morgan. He has a right to know. Go fetch the water, lad. There’ll be time enough to celebrate. And Luke, get you into some dry gear. You don’t want to die of pneumonia, do you, now that we’ve made it at last?”

They both obeyed him, and Frankie asked, taking out his knife to slice the rabbits, “You aiming to tell Morgan tonight, Dan?”

“No.” Dan’s headshake was firm. “At first light we’ll take a good look at where Luke made his find. Then, when Morgan does show up, we’ll tell him and see what he has to say.”

Next day, when Jasper Morgan arrived on horseback for his accustomed daily visit to the scene of his partners’ activities, he had plenty to say—little of it to their liking, Luke thought rebelliously as he listened.

Tall and well dressed, with his Colt revolver slung as always from his belt, Morgan dismounted and, throwing his horse’s rein to Frankie, inspected the nuggets with little visible sign of emotion, apart from a gleam in his dark eyes that swiftly faded. He said peremptorily, “There’ll be no going to the mining camp—understand that, all of you. If there’s even a whisper of our having made a find of this magnitude, the gully will be overrun. We want to keep it to ourselves, and we cannot hope to do so if any of you shoots his mouth off. If you want a drink to celebrate, I’ll supply it.”

He silenced Tom’s objections with an icy glance and turned to Luke.

“I confess I’m astonished that you were the one to stumble on this find, boy. But for once your clumsiness has been turned to good account, has it not? Now wipe that inane grin off your face and show me where you found the nuggets. There’s probably more gold there, and I must decide the best way to get it out. It may be just a random deposit, but if it’s in or near bedrock, we’ll have to sink a shaft and dig right into the hillside.”

Luke seethed with resentment at Morgan’s disparaging words, but a warning glance from Dan was sufficient to cause him to curb his tongue. He led the way in silence, and the others followed. Their early-morning search had revealed only two small nuggets that Luke had missed in his excitement, and Jasper Morgan, despite a minute inspection of the crevice where the manzanita had sunk its tenuous roots, found no more.

Nevertheless, he was optimistic, lecturing them on the geology of the gold-bearing region and reeling off technical terms as, with a small hammer he had sent Frankie to fetch from his saddlebag, he tapped at the rock and talked knowledgeably of lodes and seams and the upheaval of the Sierra millions of years before, when the earth’s interior had opened, spewing out its riches.

He was a great talker, Luke reflected, and the fact that most of his lecture was beyond his partners’ understanding did not appear to deter him. And he was unexpectedly deft and nimble, taking off his well-tailored jacket in order to climb up and down the bank in shirtsleeves and breeches, displaying more energy than he had since they had first come to Windy Gully.

He was not an old man, of course; Jasper Morgan could not be much more than forty—or forty-five, perhaps, at most. His hair was black, with only a powdering of grey at the temples, which added to his air of gentlemanly distinction, and he was still what women would consider good-looking, Luke decided, studying him with more than usual care. His face was strong and unlined, the mouth straight beneath its heavy moustache, the skin darkly and healthily tanned. Yet there was something about him that ... Luke shrugged, unable to put a name to it or even to find a plausible reason for his mistrust. Yet it was there, constantly nagging at him and—

Dan’s voice broke into his thoughts. “We’re to give up placer work in the creek bed, Luke, and drive a shaft into the bank, right below where you found those nuggets. The captain says there’s every chance of a rich seam in there—you heard him, didn’t you? We’ll need timber for props, which we’re to cut, and more tools, as well as blasting powder, which he’s going to bring in for us. He’s setting off now, soon as he’s had some coffee.”

He went into detail, but Luke scarcely heard him. Jasper Morgan had donned his jacket, he saw, and was heading back to the tent site, deep in conversation with Frankie and Tom.

“He’s not taking the nuggets, is he, Dan?” Luke asked, frowning. “Did he say he was?”

Dan shook his head. “No, he didn’t. I reckon he’ll leave ‘em with us. But he did say that it’ll be best if he takes the lot —nuggets and dust—to ‘Frisco in a week or two. The U.S. Mint’s paying twenty-two dollars an ounce, so we’d lose out if we take what they’re paying here or in Sacramento.”

“We’ll lose a lot more if he doesn’t come back,” Luke objected.

“He’ll come back,” his brother asserted. “He always has, hasn’t he? And there’s the girl, his daughter. It’s a rough trip to ‘Frisco, Luke; he won’t take her with him, so he’ll have to come back. Besides, we’ve gotten a partnership agreement, ain’t we? And Captain Morgan’s a gentleman. You want to learn to trust folk more, Luke boy, and that’s a fact. Come on.” He put an arm around Luke’s shoulders. “I’m dry, I don’t know about you. Let’s get us a cup o’ coffee.”

“All right,” Luke conceded reluctantly. “But seeing what I found, I’d like to take a bag of dust to the old folk. Pa could do with it, and Ma will be wondering how we’re getting along. I could be there and back before Morgan brings us the tools.”

“Ask Morgan, boy. Sounds reasonable enough to me.” Dan smiled down at him. “Aye, and not such a bad idea at that. You ask him.”

Luke did so, making his request with restrained politeness, but Jasper Morgan’s refusal was terse. “There’s much to be done whilst I’m gone, and I’ll not be gone more than three or four days. Besides, boy, I don’t want you blabbing your head off about our strike; we’ve got to keep quiet about it, understand?”

“I made the find,” Luke reminded him.

“And now you want to trade on it, eh?”

“No, sir, not that. And I know how to keep a still tongue in my head. I won’t blab.”

But Morgan was adamant. The find was a good one, but compared with what he expected the site to yield, it was a drop in the ocean.

“In any event,” he finished loftily, “your esteemed father has religious objections, has he not? Wants to pave streets and tile houses with gold, not put it to sound commercial use. You stay here and put your back into some tree felling, boy. This claim has cost me plenty, and I want to see a return for what I’ve spent. I shall not be gone long, as I told you.”

He was as good as his word. By noon on the third day he was there with the wagon, and once again he stripped to his shirtsleeves and went energetically about the task at hand. He left the hard work to his young partners, it was true, but he would not permit any of them to handle the gunpowder. That he was expert in its use Luke was forced to admit, and as Dan frequently remarked, the carefully controlled explosions he arranged saved them hours of backbreaking toil.

The shaft was through the rock in less than a week, and twenty feet into the hillside, with timber props installed at regular intervals, three days later. Morgan spent hours underground, with an oil lantern and his small geologist’s hammer. His reports were encouraging, although only a few lumps of gold-bearing ore and two more nuggets, weighing less than ten ounces, were unearthed. All the while he was unusually garrulous, although when the alcalde—the elected chairman of the miners’ standing committee—appeared with two of his committee members from the camp at Thayer’s Bend to inquire as to the reason for the explosions, Morgan gave them short shrift.

The alcalde was a white-haired veteran named Ephraim Crocker, who had come to the diggings in the spring of 1848. He listened to Jasper Morgan’s curt explanation with unconcealed scepticism and then observed flatly, “You’re plumb crazy, Cap’n.”

“How I work my claim is my affair, Mr. Crocker,” Morgan returned coldly, cutting short the old man’s attempt to point out to him the disadvantages of tunnelling into the hillside. “In any event, we are outside your jurisdiction here, I’ll thank you to remember.”

Crocker exchanged glances with his committeemen and shrugged his bowed shoulders.

“Have it your own way, mister. I was just tryin’ to offer a piece o’ friendly advice, that’s all. Up to you whether or not you take it. I been around the diggings over two years, an’ I learnt the hard way what works an’ what don’t. Alluvial gold’s easy dealt with, but gold-bearing quartz is another matter—has to be crushed, don’t it? And you ain’t got the tools nor the men to git it out, even supposin’ you find it.”

He nodded to his companions, and they fell into step with him and moved away before Jasper Morgan could find words with which to reply. But Crocker’s warning worried Luke, and that evening he took his brother aside with the intention of voicing his doubts, only to find that Dan now shared them.

“Maybe Morgan knows what he’s doing—I’ve always given him credit for that. But”—Dan’s expression was wary —“so does old Eph Crocker, that’s for sure.”

“I’d like to talk with Pa about it,” Luke said.

To his relief, his brother nodded. “Yeah, Luke boy, I reckon the time’s come when you should.”

“Morgan wouldn’t give me leave. He said there was too much work to be done.”

“And we’ve done it,” Dan returned, an edge to his voice. “We’ve done everything he’s asked of us. I’ve been thinking, Luke, these last few days, wondering what good we’re doing with this darned mine. We’ve nothing much to show for our work, have we? Not even as much dust as we were getting from the rocker or Frankie got panning.”

He hesitated and then took a small buckskin bag of gold dust from the pocket of his coat. He passed it to Luke. “Set off home tonight, boy, and take this to Pa. It’s only a fraction of the value of them nuggets you found, so I reckon you’ve earned it. And you can talk to Pa, ask his counsel.”

“What’ll Morgan say,” Luke questioned anxiously, “when he finds out I’ve gone?”

“We’ll cover for you. He won’t find out. Anyway—” Again Dan hesitated, reddening a little. “Tom thinks he’s preparing to go to ‘Frisco. He had the new wagon out yesterday, when Tom went to the cabin for stores, and seemed like he was overhauling it, ready for a trip.”

“Did he say he was going?”

Dan shook his head. “Not for definite, no. But he mentioned the price the Mint’s paying for dust, and old Eph Crocker said the same when I asked him. Twenty-two dollars an ounce.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Luke boy, we’ve got to trust him,” Dan insisted, anticipating the question. “And like I told you, he won’t take his little girl with him. He said he wouldn’t. She’s his daughter; he must come back for her. And twenty-two dollars an ounce is a lot more than sixteen, ain’t it?”

It was, Luke had to concede, but he asked uneasily, “Dan, does Morgan have our gold—does he have all of it out at the cabin?”

Dan’s colour deepened. “Yes, he does.”

“And you let him take it?”

“He said he wanted to weigh it, so’s he could account for it to us. In writing, Luke—he promised me he would put it in writing before he left here. I just kept that one bag back, for you to take to Pa.” Dan got to his feet. “If you’re going, you’d best start out pretty soon, boy. I’ll saddle your horse for you while you’re getting your gear together.”

“All right,” Luke agreed. He looked up into his brother’s honest, open face and said diffidently, “Dan, you’ve worked out what our strike is worth, haven’t you?”

“Only roughly, in my head.”

“Well, how much do you reckon?”

“You’d best not tell Pa,” Dan warned. “But roughly, if it brings twenty-two dollars an ounce, around ten thousand dollars. Half o’ that is Morgan’s, and the four of us divide the rest.” He grinned. “If we stick together and pool our shares, Luke boy, we could buy us a tidy spread.”

“Yeah, Dan, we could!” Luke’s heart lifted. It was a small fortune—a sum beyond his wildest dreams. A farm in the foothills, stocked with cattle and hogs—aye, and horses, too —he and Dan together. He could ask no more, and they would see Pa and Ma right, of course. Take land near them and build Pa the barn he had always hankered after and have a harmonium for Ma, shipped from the East. He flung his arms around his brother’s neck and hugged him. “I’d no idea it would be so much.”

“I’m only guessing,” Dan reminded him. “We don’t have scales. It could be less, or it could be a bit more. We’ll know for sure when Morgan puts it in writing.” He returned Luke’s hug and then pushed him away with a playful slap across the boy’s thin buttocks. “Off with you, boy, and get ready. Frankie’ll give you what grub you’ll need; I told him you’d probably be going in the next day or so. And you can take my mare; she’s a better ride than that pinto of yours, and Pa’ll be pleased to see she’s come to no harm.”

Luke’s preparations were soon completed, and the moon had risen by the time he had made his brief farewells. He swung himself onto the back of Dan’s bay mare, and with his blanket roll and small sack of provisions strapped to his saddle, he set off for home. The mining camp at Thayer’s Bend was in darkness as he rode down its rutted track, his passing setting a few dogs barking but arousing no one else, and he did not pause there.

He had a long way to go, he reminded himself, but he was glad to be going, and his spirits lightened with every mile. It would be great to see Ma and Pa again, great to tell Pa that he and Dan would soon be rich men and that they would be coming home for good the minute Jasper Morgan paid them their share and released them.

The mare trotted briskly along the shadowed track, picking her way carefully over the scars that countless wagon wheels had left in their wake, and Luke pursed his lips and whistled a cheerful little tune as he let her have her head.

CHAPTER II

Barely fourteen days since he had left the diggings, Luke found himself once more in sight of the huddle of tents and log cabins that constituted the Thayer’s Bend mining camp.

The visit home, by which he had set so much store, had lasted exactly a day, and he was returning from it chastened and more than a little rebellious. Religious scruples had again affected his father; the old man had refused the bag of gold dust, and during the waking hours of his brief stay Luke had been compelled to listen to a seemingly endless tirade of condemnation and reproach concerning his evil ways and the ungodliness of the search for riches in which he was engaged.

Two missionaries from Great Salt Lake City had called at the farm during his absence, his mother had confided wryly.

“Fine young fellers they were—mannerly and decent. But since they was here, your pa’s been having a real battle with his conscience. He feels now he shouldn’t never have let you and Dan go to the goldfields. You’ve gone against the will of God, both of you, he says, and he only wants you back here if you pay over the gold you’ve found to the church. D’you reckon you can do that, Luke?”

He had hated having to reject her suggestion, Luke recalled, feeling unmanly tears pricking at his eyes. Throughout the long ride back, his mother’s stricken face had haunted him, but he and Dan had worked too hard for their strike, he told himself, for either of them willingly to hand over the proceeds of their toil to a church to which they owed no real allegiance. True, they had been reared in the Mormon faith, but during the years their father had lapsed from its teachings, they, too, had lapsed by default, and their mother ... He sighed. Ma had tried hard, for the old man’s sake, but her heart had never really been in it, for she was of Irish descent and had been brought up as a Catholic. And she certainly did not hold with polygamy...

His tired horse stumbled, and Luke forced himself to give his attention to his riding. He was stiff and saddlesore, but another half hour should see him in the camp, and from there it was only five miles up the valley to their own claim. He would take a bottle of whiskey with him, he decided—buy it in camp with a few ounces of the dust his pa had scorned— and let Dan have a drink or two before listening to his account of his trip home. Dan would be upset, he knew, but would surely agree that they should not be expected to hand over their share of the strike to the Mormon church.

It wanted an hour to sunset when he reached Thayer’s Bend. The store was in a wood-built shanty in the center, kept by a man named Logan, assisted by his two young sons. Luke hitched his mare’s rein to the post outside and, taking the small buckskin bag of dust from his saddlebag, walked stiffly into the store. Logan’s elder son, Ted, was behind the counter, and to Luke’s astonishment the boy eyed him as if he had seen a ghost. Not waiting to ask him what he wanted, Ted backed away and went scuttling to the rear of the store, shouting for his father.

“Pa, come an’ see! It’s one o’ them Windy Gully fellers! Leastways it’s him or his spittin’ image!”

Logan himself appeared, a napkin tucked into his shirt, irritably cursing at what was evidently the interruption of his meal. But at the sight of Luke his eyes widened behind their rimless spectacles and the angry words died on his lips.

“Gawd Almighty!” he exclaimed, visibly startled. “You are one o’ Captain Morgan’s boys, ain’t you, from the Windy Gully claim?”