5. CHAPTER V.
“OPEN SESAME.”
The long wet season had drawn near its close.
Signs of spring were visible in the swelling buds
and rushing torrents. The pine forests exhaled
a fresher spicery. The azalias were already budding;
the Ceanothus getting ready its lilac livery
for spring. On the green upland which climbed
Red Mountain at its southern aspect the long
spike of the monkshood shot up from its broadleaved
stool and once more shook its dark blue
bells. Again the billow above Smith's grave
was soft and green, its crest just teased with
the foam of daisies and battercups. The little
graveyard had gathered a few new dwellers in
the past year, and the mounds were placed two
by two by the little paling until they reached
Smith's grave, and there, there was but one.
General superstition had shunned the enforced
companionship. The plot beside Smith was
vacant.
It was the custom of the driver of the great
Wingdam stage to whip up his horses at the foot
of the hill, and so enter Smith's Pocket at that
remarkable place which the woodcuts in the
hotel bar-room represented to credulous
humanity as the usual rate of speed of that conveyance.
At least, Aristides Morpher thought
so as he stood one Sunday afternoon, uneasily
conscious of his best jacket and collar, waiting
its approach. Nor could anything shake his belief
that regularly on that occasion the horses
ran away with the driver, and that that individual
from motives of deep policy pretended
not to notice it until they were stopped.
“Anybody up from below, Bill?” said the
landlord as the driver slowly descended from his
perch.
“Nobody for you,” responded Bill, shortly.
“Dusenberry kem up as usual, and got off at
the old place. You can't make a livin' off him
I reckon.”
“Have you found out what his name is yet?”
continued the landlord, implying that “Dusenberry”
was simply a playful epithet of the driver.
“He says his name is Waters,” returned Bill.
“Jake said he saw him at the North Fork in '50
—called himself Moore then. Guess he ain't
no good, nohow. What's he doin' round here?”
“Says he's prospectin',” replied the landlord.
“He has a claim somwhar in the woods. Gambles
a little too, I reckon. He don't travel on
his beauty anyhow.”
“If you had seen him makin' up to a piece of
calico inside, last trip, and she a makin' up to
him quite confidential like, I guess you'd think
he was a lady-killer. My eye, but wasn't she a
stunner! Clytie Morpher wasn't nowhere to begin
with her.”
“Who was she Bill?” asked half a dozen
masculine voices.
“Don't know. We picked her up this side of
`Coyote.' Fancy—I tell you—pretty little hat
and pink ribbings—eyes that 'ud bore you
through at a hundred yards—white teeth—brown
gaiters and such a ankle! She didn't want to
show it, O, no!” added the sarcastic Bill, with
deep significance.
“Where did you leave her, Bill?” asked a gentle
village swain, who had been fired by the
glowing picture of the fair unknown.
“That's what's the matter. You see after we
picked her up, she said she was goin' through
to Wingdam. Of course there wasn't anything
in the stage or on the road too good to offer her.
Old Major Spaffler wanted to treat her to lemonade
at every station. Judge Plunkett kep' a
pullin' down the blinds and a histin' of them up
to keep out the sun and let in the air. Blest if
old McSnagley didn't want to carry her travelin'
bag. There wasn't any attention, boys, she
didn't get—but it wasn't no use—bless you!
She never so much as passed the time of day
with them.”
“But where did she go?” inquired another
anxious auditor.
“Keep your foot off the drag, and I'll tell you.
Arter we left the Ring Tail Canyon, Dusenberry,
as usual, got on. Presently one of the outsiders
turns round to me, and says he. `D—d if Ugly
Mug ain't got the inside track of all of you
this time!' I looked down, and dern my skin
if there wasn't Dusenberry a sittin' up along
side of the lady, quite comfortable, as if they
had been children together. At the next station
Dusenberry gets off. So does the lady. `Aren't
you goin' on to Wingdam, marm?' says I. `No,'
says she. `Mayn't we have the pleasure of your
company further?' says the judge, taking off his
hat. `No, I've changed my mind,' says she, and
off she walked arm in arm with him as cool as
you please.”
“Wonder if that warn't the party that passed
through here last July?” asked the blacksmith,
joining the loungers in front of the stage office
“Waters brought up a buggy to get the axle
bolted. There was a woman setting in the buggy,
but the hood was down and I didn't get to see
her face.”
During this conversation, Aristides, after a
long, lingering look at the stage, had at last torn
himself away from its fascinations, and was
now lounging down the long, straggling street
in a peculiarly dissipated manner, with his hat
pushed on the back part of his head, his right
hand and a greater portion of his right arm
buried in his trowsers' pocket. This might have
been partly owing to the shortness of his legs
and the comparative amplitude of his trowsers,
which to the casual observer seemed to obviate
the necessity of any other garment. But when
he reached the bottom of the street, and further
enlivened his progress by whistling shrilly between
his fingers, and finally drew a fragment of
cigar from his pocket and placed it between his
teeth, it was evident that there was a moral as
well as physical laxity in his conduct. The near
fact was that Aristides had that afternoon
evaded the Sabbath School, and was open to
any kind of infant iniquity.
The main street of Smith's Pocket gradually
lost its civilized character, and after one or two
futile attempts at improvement at its power extremity,
terminated impotently in a chaos of
ditches, races, and tailings. Out of this again
a narrow trail started along the mountain side,
and communicated with that vast amphitheatre
which still exhibited the pioneer efforts of the
early settlers. It was this trail that Aristides
took that Sunday afternoon, and which he followed
until he reached the hillside a few rods
below the yawning fissure of Smith's Pocket.
After a careful examination of the vicinity he
cleared away the underbrush beside a fallen
pine that lay near, and sat down in the attitude
of patient and deliberate expectancy.
Five minutes passed. Ten, twenty, and
finally a half hour was gone. Aristides threw
away his cigar, which he had lacked determination
to light and peeled small slips from the
inner bark of the pine ree and munched them
gravely. Another five, ten, and twenty minutes
passed, and the sun began to drop below the
opposite hillside. Another ten minutes, and the
whole of the amphitheatre above was in heavy
shadow. Ten minutes more and the distant
windows in the settlement flamed redly. Five
minutes and the spire of the Methodist church
caught the glow—and then the underbrush
crackled.
Aristides, looking up, saw the trunk of the
prostrate pine slowly lifting itself before him.
A second glance showed the fearless and self-possessed
boy that the apparent phenomenon
was simple and easily explained. The tree had
fallen midway and at right angles across the
trunk of another prostrate monarch. So accurately
and evenly was it balanced that the child
was satisfied, from a liberal experience of the
application of these principles to the game of
“see-saw,” that a very slight impulse to either
end was sufficient to destroy the equilibrium.
That impulse proceeded from his end of the tree,
as he saw when the uplifted trunk disclosed an
opening in the ground beneath it, and the head
and shoulders of a man emerging therefrom.
Aristides threw himself noiselessly on his
stomach. The thick clump of an azalia hid him
from view, though it did not obstruct his survey
of the stranger, whom he at once recognized
as his former enemy—the man with the red
handkerchief—the hopeful prospector of Red
Mountain, and the hypothetical “Dusenberry”
of the stage-driver.
The stranger looked cautiously round, and
Aristides shrank close behind the friendly azalia.
Satisfied that he was unobserved, the subterranean
proprietor returned to the opening and
descended, reappearing with a worn, black
enameled traveling-bag, which he carried with
difficulty. This he again enveloped in a blanket
and strapped tightly on his back, and a long
handled shovel, brought up from the same mysterious
storehouse, completed his outfit. As he
stood for a moment leaning on the shovel, it was
the figure of the hopeful prospector that had appeared
to Mliss and her protector in the heart of
the forest. A very slight effort was sufficient to
replace the fallen tree in its former position.
Raising the shovel to his shoulder, he moved
away, brushing against the azalia bush which
hid the breathless Aristides. The sound of his
footsteps retreating through the crackling brush
presently died out, and a drowsy Sabbath stillness
succeeded.
Aristides rose. There was a wonderful brightness
in his gray eyes, and a flush on his sun sunburned
cheek. Seizing a root of the fallen pine, he
essayed to move it. But it defied his endeavors.
Aristides looked round.
“There's some trick about it, but I'll find it
yet,” said that astute child.
Breaking off the limb of a buckeye, he extemporized
a lever. The first attempt failed. The
second succeeded, and the long roots of the tree
again ascended. But as it required prolonged
effort to keep the tree up, before the impetus
was lost Aristides seized the opportunity to jump
into the opening. At the same moment the tree
slowly returned to its former position.
In the sudden change from the waning light
to complete darkness, Aristides was for a moment
confounded. Recovering himself he drew
a match from his capacious pocket, and striking
it against the sole of his boot, by the upspringing
flash perceived a candle stuck in the crevices
of the rock beside him. Lighting it, he
glanced curiously around him. He was at the
entrance of a long gallery at the further extremity
of which he could faintly see the glimmering
of the outer daylight. Following the
gallery cautiously he presently came to an ante-chamber,
and by the glimmering of the light
above him at once saw that it was the name he
had seen in his wonderful dream.
The ante-chamber was about fourteen feet
square, with walls of decomposed quartz,
mingled with flaky mica that reflected here and
there the gleam of Aristioes's candle with a singular
brilliancy. It old not need much observation
on his part to determine the reason of the
stranger's lonely labors. On a rough rocker beside
him were two fragments of ore taken from
the adjacent wall, the smallest of which the two
arms of Aristides could hardly clasp. To his
dazzled eyes they seemed to be almost entirely
of pure gold. The great strike of '56 at Ring
Tail Canyon had brought to the wonderful vision
of Smith's Pocket no such monstrous nuggets as
were here.
Aristides turned to the wall again which had
been apparently the last scene of the stranger's
labor, and from which the two masses of ore
were taken. Even to his inexperienced eye it
represented a wealth almost incalculable
Through the loose red soil everywhere glittering
star points of the precious metal threw back the
rays of his candle. Aristides turned pale and
trembled.
Here was the realization of his most extravagant
fancy. Ever since his strange dream and
encounter with the stranger, he had felt an irresistible
desire to follow up his adventure, and
discover the secrets of the second cavern. But
when he had returned to Smith's Pocket, a few
days after, the wreck of the fallen roof had
blocked up that part of the opening from which
he had caught sight of the hidden workman below.
During this visit he had picked up from
among the rubbish the memorandum-book which
had supplied Mliss with letter paper. Still
haunting that locality after school hours, he had
noticed that regularly at sunset the man with a
red handkerchief appeared in some mysterious
way from the hillside below Smith's Pocket, and
went away in the direction of the settlement.
By careful watching, Aristides had fixed the
location of his mysterious appearance to a point
a few rods below the opening of Smith's Pocket.
Flushed by this discovery, he had been betrayed
from his usual discretion, so far as to intimate a
hinting of the suspicion that possessed him, in
the few mysterious words he had whispered to
Mliss at school. The accident we have described
above determined the complete discovery of the
secret.
Up to that moment, curiosity, love of adventure,
and a revengeful instinct toward the
stranger were the only motives that impelled
Aristides in his actions. Now a more seriou-feeling
began to grow upon him with the awful
responsibility of his secret.
Who was the stranger, and why did he keep
the fact of this immense wealth hidden from
the world? Suppose he, Aristides, were to tell?
Wouldn't the school-boys look up at him with
interest as the hero and discoverer of this wonderful
cavern, and wouldn't the stage-driver feel
proud of his acquaintance and offer him rides
for nothing? Why hadn't Smith discovered at
—who was poor and wanted money, whom Aristides
had liked, who was the father of Mliss for
whom Aristides confessed a secret passion, who
belonged to the settlement and helped build it
up—instead of the stranger. Had Smith never
a suspicion that gold was so near him, and if so,
why had he killed himself? But did Smith kill
himself? And at this thought and its correlevant
fancy, again the cheek of Aristides blanched
and the candle shook in his nervous fingers.
Apart and distant from these passing conjectures
one idea remained firm and dominant in
his mind. The man with the red handkerchief
had no right to this treasure! The mysterious
instinct which directed this judicial ruling of
Aristides had settled this fact as indubitably as
though proven by the weight of the strongest
testimony. For an instant a wild thought
sprang up in his heart, and he seized the nearest
mass of ore with the half-formed intention
of bearing it directly to the feet of Mliss as her
just and cue inheritance. But Aristides could
not lift it, and the idea passed out of his mind
with the frustrated action.
At the further end of the gallery a few blankets
were lying, and, with some mining implements,
a kettle of water, a few worn flannel
shirts, were the only articles which this subterranean
habitation possessed. In turning over
one of the blankets, Aristides picked up a woman's
comb. It was a tortoise shell, and bright
with some fanciful ornamentation. Without a
moment's hesitation Aristides pocketed it as the
natural property of Mliss. A pocket book containing
a few old letters, in the breast pocket of
one of the blue shirts, was transferred to that of
Aristides with the same coolness and sentiment
of instinctive justice.
Aristides wise y reflected that these unimportant
articles would excite no suspicion if
found in his ossession. A fragment of the
rock which, if he had taken as he felt impelled,
would have precipitated the discovery that
Aristides had decided to put off until he had
perfected a certain plan
The light from the opening above had gradually
faded, and Aristides knew that night had
fallen. To prevent suspicion he must return
home. He re-entered the gallery and reached
the opening of the egress. One of the roots of
the tree projected into the opening.
He seized it and endeavored to lift it, but in
vain. Panting with exertions, he again and
again exerted the fullest power of his active
sinews, but the tree remained immovable—the
opening remained sealed as firmly as with Solomons
signet. Raising his candle toward it.
Aristides saw the reason of its resistance. In
his hurried ingress he had allowed the tree to
revolve sufficiently to permit one of its roots to
project into the opening, which held it firmly
down. In the shock of the discovery the excitement
which had sustained him gave way, and
with a hopeless cry the just Aristides fell senseless
on the floor of the gallery.
