第43章

When he at last reached the summit, the mysterious hush was still in the air, as if in breathless sympathy with his expedition.In the west, the plain was faintly illuminated, but disclosed no moving figures.He turned towards the rising moon, and moved slowly to the eastern edge.Suddenly he stopped.Another step would have been his last! He stood upon the crumbling edge of a precipice.A landslip had taken place on the eastern flank, leaving the gaunt ribs and fleshless bones of Lone Star mountain bare in the moonlight.He understood now the strange rumble and reverberation he had heard; he understood now the strange hush of bird and beast in brake and thicket!

Although a single rapid glance convinced him that the slide had taken place in an unfrequented part of the mountain, above an inaccessible canyon, and reflection assured him his companions could not have reached that distance when it took place, a feverish impulse led him to descend a few rods in the track of the avalanche.The frequent recurrence of outcrop and angle made this comparatively easy.Here he called aloud; the feeble echo of his own voice seemed only a dull impertinence to the significant silence.He turned to reascend; the furrowed flank of the mountain before him lay full in the moonlight.To his excited fancy, a dozen luminous star-like points in the rocky crevices started into life as he faced them.Throwing his arm over the ledge above him, he supported himself for a moment by what appeared to be a projection of the solid rock.It trembled slightly.As he raised himself to its level, his heart stopped beating.It was simply a fragment detached from the outcrop, lying loosely on the ledge but upholding him by ITS OWN WEIGHT ONLY.He examined it with trembling fingers; the encumbering soil fell from its sides and left its smoothed and worn protuberances glistening in the moonlight.It was virgin gold!

Looking back upon that moment afterwards, he remembered that he was not dazed, dazzled, or startled.It did not come to him as a discovery or an accident, a stroke of chance or a caprice of fortune.He saw it all in that supreme moment; Nature had worked out their poor deduction.What their feeble engines had essayed spasmodically and helplessly against the curtain of soil that hid the treasure, the elements had achieved with mightier but more patient forces.The slow sapping of the winter rains had loosened the soil from the auriferous rock, even while the swollen stream was carrying their impotent and shattered engines to the sea.

What mattered that his single arm could not lift the treasure he had found! What mattered that to unfix those glittering stars would still tax both skill and patience! The work was done, the goal was reached! even his boyish impatience was content with that.

He rose slowly to his feet, unstrapped his long-handled shovel from his back, secured it in the crevice, and quietly regained the summit.

It was all his own! His own by right of discovery under the law of the land, and without accepting a favor from THEM.He recalled even the fact that it was HIS prospecting on the mountain that first suggested the existence of gold in the outcrop and the use of the hydraulic.HE had never abandoned that belief, whatever the others had done.He dwelt somewhat indignantly to himself on this circumstance, and half unconsciously faced defiantly towards the plain below.But it was sleeping peacefully in the full sight of the moon, without life or motion.He looked at the stars; it was still far from midnight.His companions had no doubt long since returned to the cabin to prepare for their midnight journey.They were discussing him, perhaps laughing at him, or worse, pitying him and his bargain.Yet here was his bargain! A slight laugh he gave vent to here startled him a little, it sounded so hard and so unmirthful, and so unlike, as he oddly fancied, what he really THOUGHT.But WHAT did he think?