The Cave of Gold | Page 8

tale, nor have secured the skin map; and, if they had not heard the miner's tale and secured the skin map--But, I must let the story itself tell you all that resulted from these unexpected and seemingly unimportant happenings.
CHAPTER II
DEATH OF THE MINER
California and 1849! Magical combination of Place and Date! The Land of Gold and the Time of Gold! The Date and the Place of the opening of Nature's richest treasure-house! Gold--free for all who would stoop and pick or dig it out of the rocks and the dirt! The beginning of the most wonderful exodus of gold-mad men in the history of the world! "Gold! Gold!! GOLD!!! CALIFORNIA GOLD!" The nations of the world heard the cry; and the most enterprising and daring and venturesome--the wicked as well as the good--of the nations of the world started straightway for California. Towns and cities sprang up, like mushrooms, in a night, where the day before the grizzly bear had hunted. In a year a wilderness became a populous state. A marvelous work to accomplish, even for an Anglo-Saxon-American nation; but, get down your histories of California, boys, and you will learn that we did accomplish that very thing--built a great state out of a wilderness in some twelve months of time!
Of course, Thure and Bud (Bud with the grizzly's hide had soon overtaken Thure), as they rode along over the soft grass of the Sacramento Valley, on this clear July afternoon of the eventful year of 1849, did not realize that all these wonderful things were happening or were about to happen in their loved California. They knew that a great gold discovery had been made in the region of the American River some forty miles northeast of Sutter's Fort. Indeed, for the last year, all California had gone gold-mad over this same discovery; and now every able-bodied man in the country, who could possibly get there, was at the mines. Stores, ranches, ships, pulpits, all businesses and all professions had been deserted for the alluring smiles of the yellow god, gold, until it might be truthfully said, that in all California there was but one business and that one business was gold-digging.
The devastating gold-fever had swept over the Conroyal and the Randolph ranchos; and had left, of all the grown-up males, only Thure and Bud, who, not yet being of age, had been compelled to stay, much against their wills, to care for the women folks and the ranchos, while their fathers and brothers and all the able-bodied help had rushed off, like madmen, to the mines; and only their loyalty to their loved mothers and fathers had kept them from following. Now, the one great hope of their lives was to win permission to go to the mines, where men were winning fortunes in a day, and try their luck at gold-digging.
The Conroyal rancho, the Randolph and the Conroyal families had united, when the men went to the mines, and both families were now living at the Conroyal rancho, was some five miles from the scene of the robbery and attempted murder of the miner; and, for the first two miles of the homeward ride, the wounded man lay unconscious and motionless in Thure's arms. Then he began to move restlessly and to mutter unintelligible things.
"He sure isn't dead," Thure declared, as the struggles of the man nearly pitched both of them out of the saddle. "Just give me a hand, Bud; for, I reckon, we'll have to lower him to the ground until he gets his right senses back or quits this twitching and jerking. I am afraid he will start the wound to bleeding again."
Bud quickly sprang off the back of his horse; and together and as gently as possible the two boys lowered the wounded miner from the saddle and laid him down on a little mound of grass. A few rods away a small stream of water wound its way, half-hidden by tall grass and bushes and low trees, through the little valley where they had stopped.
"Get your hat full of water," Thure said, as he bent down to see if the bandage over the wound was still in its place. "Seems to me he ought to be getting his senses back by this time."
Bud at once started off on the run for the water and soon was back with his broad-brimmed felt hat full of the cooling fluid; and, kneeling down by the side of the wounded man, who now lay quiet, with eyes closed, although he was still muttering incoherently, he bathed the hot forehead and the swollen lumps on the back of his head.
Suddenly the miner's eyes opened and stared wonderingly around him and up into the faces of the two boys. For a minute he did not seem to