第39章

"Great Scott!you didn't hear of it?Didn't hear of the 'arthquake that shook us up all along Galloper's the other night?Well,"he added disgustedly,"that's jist the conceit of them folks in the bay,that can't allow that ANYTHIN'happens in the mountains!"The urgent telegrams of his foreman now flashed across Key's preoccupied mind.Possibly Skinner saw his concern,"I reckon your mine is all right,Mr.Key.One of your men was over yere last night,and didn't say nothin'."But this did not satisfy Key;and in a few minutes he had mounted his horse and was speeding towards the Hollow,with a remorseful consciousness of having neglected his colleagues'interests.For himself,in the utter prepossession of his passion for Alice,he cared nothing.As he dashed down the slope to the Hollow,he thought only of the two momentous days that she had passed there,and the fate that had brought them so nearly together.There was nothing to recall its sylvan beauty in the hideous works that now possessed it,or the substantial dwelling-house that had taken the place of the old cabin.A few hurried questions to the foreman satisfied him of the integrity of the property.There had been some alarm in the shaft,but there was no subsidence of the "seam,"nor any difficulty in the working."What I telegraphed you for,Mr.Key,was about something that has cropped up way back o'the earthquake.We were served here the other day with a legal notice of a claim to the mine,on account of previous work done on the ledge by the last occupant.""But the cabin was built by a gang of thieves,who used it as a hoard for their booty,"returned Key hotly,"and every one of them are outlaws,and have no standing before the law."He stopped with a pang as he thought of Alice.And the blood rushed to his cheeks as the foreman quietly continued:--"But the claim ain't in any o'their names.It's allowed to be the gift of their leader to his young sister,afore the outlawry,and it's in HER name--Alice Riggs or something."Of the half-dozen tumultuous thoughts that passed through Key's mind,only one remained.It was purely an act of the brother's to secure some possible future benefit for his sister.And of this she was perfectly ignorant!He recovered himself quickly,and said with a smile:--"But I discovered the ledge and its auriferous character myself.

There was no trace or sign of previous discovery or mining occupation.""So I jedged,and so I said,and thet puts ye all right.But Ithought I'd tell ye;for mining laws is mining laws,and it's the one thing ye can't get over,"he added,with the peculiar superstitious reverence of the Californian miner for that vested authority.

But Key scarcely listened.All that he had heard seemed only to link him more fatefully and indissolubly with the young girl.He was already impatient of even this slight delay in his quest.In his perplexity his thoughts had reverted to Collinson's:the mill was a good point to begin his search from;its good-natured,stupid proprietor might be his guide,his ally,and even his confidant.

When his horse was baited,he was again in the saddle."If yer going Collinson's way,yer might ask him if he's lost a horse,"said the foreman."The morning after the shake,some of the boys picked up a mustang,with a make-up lady's saddle on."Key started!While it was impossible that it could have been ridden by Alice,it might have been by the woman who had preceded her.

"Did you make any search?"he inquired eagerly;"there may have been an accident.""I reckon it wasn't no accident,"returned the foreman coolly,"for the riata was loose and trailing,as if it had been staked out,and broken away."Without another word,Key put spurs to his horse and galloped away,leaving his companion staring after him.Here was a clue:the horse could not have strayed far;the broken tether indicated a camp;the gang had been gathered somewhere in the vicinity where Mrs.Barker had warned them,--perhaps in the wood beyond Collinson's.He would penetrate it alone.He knew his danger;but as a SINGLE unarmed man he might be admitted to the presence of the leader,and the alleged claim was a sufficient excuse.What he would say or do afterwards depended upon chance.It was a wild scheme--but he was reckless.Yet he would go to Collinson's first.

At the end of two hours he reached the thick-set wood that gave upon the shelf at the top of the grade which descended to the mill.

As he emerged from the wood into the bursting sunlight of the valley below,he sharply reined in his horse and stopped.Another bound would have been his last.For the shelf,the rocky grade itself,the ledge below,and the mill upon it,were all gone!The crumbling outer wall of the rocky grade had slipped away into immeasurable depths below,leaving only the sharp edge of a cliff,which incurved towards the woods that had once stood behind the mill,but which now bristled on the very edge of a precipice.Amist was hanging over its brink and rising from the valley;it was a full-fed stream that was coursing through the former dry bed of the river and falling down the face of the bluff.He rubbed his eyes,dismounted,crept along the edge of the precipice,and looked below:whatever had subsided and melted down into its thousand feet of depth,there was no trace left upon its smooth face.Scarcely an angle of drift or debris marred the perpendicular;the burial of all ruin was deep and compact;the erasure had been swift and sure--the obliteration complete.It might have been the precipitation of ages,and not of a single night.At that remote distance it even seemed as if grass were already growing ever this enormous sepulchre,but it was only the tops of the buried pines.The absolute silence,the utter absence of any mark of convulsive struggle,even the lulling whimper of falling waters,gave the scene a pastoral repose.