Raw Gold | Page 9

me, holding up Rutter's head. In a minute Bruce was back with
his hat full of water from the creek that whimpered just beyond the
willow patch. I peeled off my coat and spread it over the marred limbs,
and Bruce held the water so that I could dip in my hand and sprinkle
Rutter's face. After a little his mouth began to twitch. Queer gurgling
sounds issued from his throat. He moved his head slightly, looking
from me to MacRae. Presently he recognized us both; his face
brightened.
"Gimme a drink," he whispered huskily.
Mac propped him up so that he could sip from the hat. He came near
going off again, but rallied, and in a second or two his lips framed a
question:
"Did yuh--get 'em?"
I shook my head. "You might say that they got us," I answered.

"Who were they, Hans?" MacRae questioned eagerly. "And why did
they do this to you? We'll make them sweat blood for this night's work.
Did you know them? Tell us if you can."
"No," Rutter spoke with a great effort. Each sentence came as if torn
piecemeal from his unwilling tongue; short, jerky phrases, conceived in
pain and delivered in agony. "We--me'n Hank Rowan--comin' from the
North--made a stake on the Peace. They started it--at the Stone--yuh
know--Writin'-Stone. Hank an' me--you'll find Hank in the
cottonwoods--Stony Crossin'. I tried--tried t' make Walsh. Two of
'em--masked--tried t' make me tell--tell 'em--where we made the cache.
I'm--I'm done--I guess. The dust, it's--it's--a-a-ah----"
The gnarled hands shut up into clenched fists, and the feeble voice
trailed off in an agonized moan.
I laved his pain-twisted face with the cool water and let a few drops
trickle into his open mouth. He gasped a few times, then, gathering
strength again, went on with that horrible spasmodic recitation.
"They were after us--a long time. Lyn's at Walsh. There's a--a good
stake. Get it--for her. It's cached--under the Stone--yuh
know--Writin'-Stone. Three sacks. That's what--they wanted.
You'll--you'll--on the rock above--marked--gold--raw gold--that's
it--gold--raw gold--Mac--I want--I want----"
That was all. The tense muscles relaxed. His head fell back limp on
MacRae's arm, and the rest of the message went with the game old
Dutchman across the big divide. We laid him down gently, folded his
arms on his breast, and for a moment held our peace in tribute to his
passing.
MacRae was first to speak.
"There's a lot back of this that I can't understand," he said, more to
himself than to the rest of us. "It beats me why these two old cowmen
should be here in this country, tangled up with buried gold-dust, and
being hunted like beasts for its possession. Old Hans was certainly in

his right mind or he wouldn't have known us; and if he told us right,
Hank Rowan has been murdered too. If Lyn is at Walsh, she may be
able to shed some light on this. But I'll swear I feel like a man groping
in a dark room."
"If Lyn is at Walsh," I asserted stoutly, "she got there since I left this
morning. I was there two days, and I wasn't in the background by any
means; and she's the sort of girl that isn't backward about hailing a
friend. We know one thing--the men that killed Rutter are the ones that
held us up, and got off with that money of mine. And say--how did
those fellows know I had that money and where I was carrying it?
Good Lord! it sounds like the plot of a dime novel."
It was a stubborn riddle for us to try and read. And our surroundings at
that particular moment were not the most favorable to coherent thought
or plausible theory-building. When a man has been robbed at the point
of a gun, and set afoot in the heart of an unpeopled waste, with a dead
man and a dying fire for company, his nerves are apt to get a little bit
on edge. Things that wouldn't tax your fortitude in daylight look like
the works of the devil when you have to face them in the black hours of
the night. None of us are so far removed from savagery that a few
grains of superstition don't lurk in our souls, all ready to bob up if the
setting is appropriate. If it should ever be my lot to take the Long Trail
at short notice, I hope it will be under a blue sky and a blazing sun. It
was hard to be philosophic, or even decently calm, standing there in the
sickly glow of the fading coals with old Hans mutely reminding us that
life is a tenuous thread, easily snipped.
A little night breeze rustling the willows about us brought into my mind
the fact that