The Cave of Gold | Page 7

spur of rocks three men had slowly ridden, and, just as they had come in sight from where the boys stood, Bud, whose eyes had happened to be turned in that direction, had seen two of the men suddenly and apparently without warning set upon the third man and, after a short struggle, knock him off his horse. It was this sight that had caused his sudden cry of alarm, followed by Thure's exclamation of horror, "They are murdering him!" and the quick jump of both boys for their horses.
It took Thure and Bud less than a minute to reach their horses and to spring up into their saddles; but, in that brief time, the unequal struggle up the valley was over, and the two men were bending over the prostrate body of their victim, apparently searching for valuables, when the two boys, with loud yells, spurred their horses at full speed toward them.
At the sound of their voices, the two men looked suddenly up, saw them coming, hastily grabbed up a few things from the ground, evidently taken from the man they were robbing, jumped to their feet, sprang on the backs of their horses, and, before either boy was near enough to shoot, both had disappeared around the spur of rocks, lashing and spurring their horses frantically.
Thure and Bud jerked up their horses by the side of the fallen man and, jumping from their saddles, bent quickly over him.
"They've murdered him!" cried Bud, the moment his horrified eyes saw the white face and the bloodstained breast of the stricken man. "They have stabbed him! The cowardly curs!"
"No, he is not dead! I can feel his heart beat. The stab was too low to reach his heart. Quick, we must do something to stop this flow of blood, or he soon will be dead," and Thure tore open the bosom of the rough flannel shirt, exposing the red mouth of a knife wound from which the blood was flowing freely.
Thure and Bud were both familiar with the rough surgery of the plains and the mountains; and soon their deft hands had swiftly untied the silk scarfs from around their necks, plugged the wound with one of them and used the other to tightly bind and hold it in place.
"There, I think that will stop the blood! Now, let's see what other hurts he has," and Thure passed his hands gently over the man's head. "Two bumps--whoppers! Either enough to knock the senses out of an ox; but, I reckon, they've done no mortal damage. It's the stab wound that I am most afraid of. What do you make out of it all anyway?" and Thure turned to Bud.
"Plain robbery and attempted murder," Bud answered gravely. "The man is evidently a miner," and his eyes rested on the long unkempt hair and beard, the weather-bronzed skin, and the rough worn clothing of the wounded man; "and was, probably, on his way from the mines to San Francisco with his gold-dust, when those two cowardly curs met him and, finding out that he was from the mines, attempted to murder him for his gold."
"Reckon you're right," agreed Thure. "Leastwise there's no use of speculating over it longer now. The thing to do is to get him home as soon as we can. Mother is powerful good doctoring hurts. Just see if you can get him up on the saddle in front of me. I reckon that'll be the safest way to carry him," and Thure mounted his horse, while Bud thrust his sturdy young arms under the body of the insensible man and, as gently as possible, lifted him to the saddle, where the strong arms of Thure held him as comfortably as possible.
"Now, I'll strike out straight for home," Thure said, as he started Buck off on a walk with his double burden; "and you can ride back and get the hide of El Feroz, and soon catch up with me."
"All right. I'll be with you again as soon as I can," and Bud sprang on the back of Gray Cloud and started off on a gallop for the scene of the contest with the grizzly.
How wonderful it is that the tenor of our whole after lives may be, nay, frequently is, completely changed by some seemingly unimportant circumstance or unexpected happening. If Thure Conroyal and Bud Randolph had not heard the death-cry of that horse and had not turned aside to see what had caused those agonizing sounds, they would not have been delayed, by their contest with the grizzly, until the coming of the three men, nor have witnessed the attack on the miner; and, if they had not seen this attack on the miner and hurried to his rescue, they never would have heard the miner's marvelous