The Cave of Gold | Page 9

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
be able to comprehend what had happened. Then the blank wondering
look suddenly left his eyes.
"Did they get the gold?" and his hand went quickly to his waist. There
was no belt there. "Gone! A good twenty pounds of as fine gold as was
ever dug from the earth, gone!--Gods, if they had but given me any
kind of a show, they would not have got it so easily!" and his eyes
flamed and he attempted to sit up, but fell back with a groan and a
whitening face.

For a minute or two he lay with eyes closed, breathing heavily.
Evidently he was trying to collect his thoughts, to realize his situation.
When he opened his eyes again there was a solemn, an awed look in
them that had not been there before, and the anger had gone.
"I have been stabbed," he said slowly, "and I am dying."
"No, no. The knife did not go near your heart. It struck too low. You
will soon be all right again. Wait until we get you home and mother
will soon make a whole man of you. Mother is about the best nurse in
all California," and Thure gripped one of the hard toil-worn hands and
smiled encouragingly.
"No." As the man spoke his eyes never once left Thure's face. "No, I
am dying. I know. I was once a surgeon, an army surgeon." For a
moment his eyes darkened, as if with bitter recollections. "But, what
matters the past now? Let it bury its dead," and he smiled grimly. "This
is death. I know. I have seen many die just this way. Internal
hemorrhage, we doctors called it. The blood from the wound is flowing
into my body. I can feel it. I have half an hour, possibly an hour to live;
and then--" The awed look in the eyes deepened, and, for a couple of
minutes, he did not speak, but lay staring straight up into the blue skies.
Suddenly his white lips tightened and he turned to Thure.
"How far is it to your home and to your mother?" he asked abruptly.
"About three miles; but I can carry you so easily that I am sure--"
"Too far," the wounded man broke in impatiently. "I might die before I
got there. No, this shall be my deathbed--the soft green grass, canopied
by the blue skies--a fitting end, a fitting end," he added gloomily.
"Come, come," and Thure tried to make his voice sound cheery and full
of hope. "Never say die, until you are dead. Just wait until we get home
and mother will put new life into you. Now, I'll get on my horse, and
Bud will lift you up into my arms, and we'll be home before you know
it," and Thure jumped to his feet and started toward his horse.

"No, come back," and the miner impatiently lifted himself up on one
elbow. "Come back. I have no time to waste riding three miles for a
deathbed. I--" Again the keen eyes searched the faces of the two boys.
"I have much to say and little time in which to say it. Get that bearskin
off your horse and make me as comfortable as possible on it. And be
quick about it; for I am going fast, and, before I go, I want to make you
two boys my heirs for saving me from those two villains. The cowardly
curs! They hit me from behind!" and again the eyes flamed with anger.
"They got the gold I had with me and they got me; but they did not get
the secret of Crooked Arm Gulch, nor learn how to find its Golden
Elbow. Curse them! If I could but live, I'd--But, what's the use?" and he
sank back white-lipped on the grass. "That knife stab in the breast has
done for me. And just when the golden key that unlocks all the doors of
pleasure and power was tight-gripped in my very fingers!