Every once in a while he would stop and turn his face in the opposite direction, remaining in this position for a few moments and then quickly turning round again to satisfy himself that he was under no illusion. But the luminous disc was really growing larger – it appeared now to be as big as a saucer. His heart throbbed with hope and his judgment approved that the advance should be continued.
Yes, the light was increasing, and looking down he fancied he could almost see the butt of his gun which was being used as a walking stick. Presently his feet could indistinctly be seen, and then the rocky pavement over which he was so cautiously shuffling his way.
Ten minutes later the mouth of a tunnel was reached, and he was safe once more, bathed in God’s own sunshine, his eyes still dazzled after the Cimmerian blackness from which he had emerged. He had traversed the entire length of the subterranean cave or river channel, and had reached the opposite side of a high mountain. Perhaps the distance through was only about three and a half miles. Trees and underbrush grew in profusion about the mouth of the tunnel into which the hidden river flowed. There was less snow than on the other side of the barrier. Deer sign were everywhere, and he followed a zig-zag deer path out into an open narrow valley.
The Major’s heart now leaped with the exultation of accomplishment. Brushing the light covering of snow away, he seated himself on the bank of the stream which could not, now that he looked upon it in the open day, be dignified by calling it a river. Along the edges of the watercourse were fringes of ice but in the center the rapid flow was unobstructed.
It was only a big mountain brook, but one perhaps that had never been seen before by the eyes of man. The exploration and the excitement together had greatly fatigued Buell Hampton, and he was beginning to be conscious of physical exhaustion and the need of food notwithstanding the sustaining stimulus of being a discoverer in one of Nature’s jealously guarded wonderlands.
After resting a short time he started to walk farther into the valley and forage along the stream. The hunter was on the lookout for grouse but succeeded in shooting only a young sage hen. This was quickly dressed and broiled, the forked stick that served as a spit being skilfully turned in the blaze of a fire of twigs and brushwood. The repast was a modest one, but the wayfarer felt greatly refreshed, and now stepped briskly on, following the water channel toward its fountain head.
It was indeed a beautiful valley – an ideal one – very little snow and the deer so plentiful that at a distance they might be mistaken for flocks of grazing sheep. The valley appeared to be exceedingly fertile in season. It was a veritable park, and so far as the explorer could at present determine was completely surrounded by high snow-capped mountains which were steep enough to be called precipices. He soon came to a dyke that ran across the valley at right angles to the stream. It was of porphyry formation, rising to a height of from three to four feet, and reaching right across the narrow valley from foothill to foothill. When Major Hampton climbed upon this dyke he noticed that the swiftly flowing brook had cut an opening through it as evenly almost as if the work had been chiseled by man. He was anxious to know whether the valley would lead to an opening from among the mountains, and after a brief halt pushed hurriedly on.
But an hour later he had retraced his steps and was again seated on the bench-like dyke of porphyry. He had made a complete circuit of this strange “nest” or gash in the vastness of the Rocky Mountain Range and was convinced there was no opening. The brook had its rise in a number of mammoth springs high up on the mountain foothills at the upper end of the valley, where it was also fed by several waterfalls that dropped from the dizzy cliffs far above.
The valley was perhaps three miles long east and west and not over one-half mile wide north and south. The contour of the mountain sides to the south conformed to the contour on the north, justifying the reasonable conjecture that an earthquake or violent volcanic upheaval must have tom the mountains apart in prehistoric times. It was evidently in all truth a hidden valley – not on the map of the U. S. Survey – a veritable new land.
“To think,” mused the Major, aloud, “that I have discovered a new possession. What an asylum for the weary! Surely the day has been full of startling surprises.”
He was seated on the dyke almost at the very edge of the brock where the waters were singing their song of peaceful content. He let his glance again sweep the valley with the satisfied look of one conscious of some unanalyzed good fortune.
There was no snow on the porphyry dyke where he rested. It was moss-covered in many places with the coating of countless centuries. Most likely no human foot but his had ever pressed the sod of this sequestered nook among the mighty mountains. The very thought was uplifting – inspiring. Pulling his hunter’s hatchet from its sheath he said aloud: “I christen thee ‘Hidden Valley,’”and struck the porphyry rock a vigorous blow, so vigorous indeed that it chipped off a goodly piece.
Major Buell Hampton paused, astonished. He looked and then he looked again. He picked up the chipped off piece of rock and gazed long and earnestly at it, then rubbed his eyes in amazement. It was literally gleaming with pure gold.
Immediately the hatchet again came into play. Piece after piece was broken open and all proved to be alike – rich specimens fit for the cabinet of a collector. The drab moss-covered dyke really contained the wealth of a King Solomon’s mine. It was true – true, though almost unbelievable. Yet in this moment of overwhelming triumph Buell Hampton saw not with the eyes of avarice and greed for personal gain, but rather with the vision of the humanitarian. Unlimited wealth had always been for him a ravishing dream, but he had longed for it, passionately, yearningly, not as a means to supply pleasures for himself but to assuage the miseries of a suffering world.
He was not skilled in judging rock carrying values of precious metals, but in this instance the merest novice could hardly be mistaken. Hastily breaking as much of the golden ore as he could carry in his huge coat pockets and taking one last sweeping survey over the valley, the Major started on his return trip to Spirit River Falls. Arriving at the point where the waters of the brook disappeared in the natural tunnel of the “Hidden River,” the name he mentally gave to the romantic stream, he gathered some torch material and then started on the return trip. Two hours later he emerged from behind the turbulent waters at Spirit River Falls. In the waning afternoon he regained his camp. After watering his patient horse, giving it another feed of oats and apologizing with many a gentle caressing pat for his long absence and seeming neglect, the Major set out for home, the dressed deer strapped on behind his saddle, with the deer skin rolled around the venison as a protection.
Early the following morning Buell Hampton visited an assay office, carrying with him an ore sack containing nine pounds and a half of ore. The Major felt certain it was ore – gold ore, almost pure gold – but was almost afraid of his own convictions. The discovery was really too good to be true.
The assayer tossed the sack of gold onto a table where other samples were awaiting his skill and said: “All right, Major, come in sometime tomorrow.”
“It’s important,” replied the Major, “that you assay it at once. It is high grade; I wish to sell.”
“Oh, ho!” replied the assayer with elevated eyebrows. Possibly he was like many another who encouraged the “high-graders” in their nefarious thefts from their employers when they were trusted to work on a rich property.
“Why, Major Hampton, I didn’t know you were one of ‘em – one of us,” and he finished with a leer and a laugh. “Bet I can tell what mine it came from,” he went on as he leisurely untied the ore sacks.
“I will remain right here,” replied Major Hampton firmly, without yielding to the assayer’s offensive hilarity, “until you have my samples assayed and make me an offer.”
By this time the sack of rock had been emptied into an ore pan and the astonishment depicted on the assayer’s countenance would have beggared description. The sight of the ore staggered him into silence. Other work was pushed hurriedly aside and before very long the fire test was in process of being made. When finally finished the “button” weighed at the rate of $114.67 per pound, and the assayer, still half bewildered, handed over a check for almost eleven hundred dollars.
“I say,” he almost shouted, “I say, Major Hampton, where in hell did that ore come from? Surely not from any of the producing mines about here?”
“It seems to be a producer, all right,” replied the Major, as he folded the check and placed it in his pocketbook.
CHAPTER X – THE FAIR RIDER OF THE RANGE
WHEN Buell Hampton left the assayer’s office he felt a chilliness in the air that caused him to cast his eyes upwards. There had been bright sunshine early that morning, but now the whole sky was overcast with a dull monotonous gray pall. Not a breath of wind was stirring; there was just a cold stillness in the air that told its own tale to those experienced in the weather signs of the mountains.
“Snow,” muttered the Major, emphatically. “It has been long in coming this winter, but we’ll have a big fall by night.”
The season indeed had been exceptionally mild. There had been one or two flurries of snow, but each had been followed by warm days and the light fall had speedily melted, at least in the open valley. High up, the mountains had their white garb of winter, but even at these elevations there had been no violent storms.
Buell Hampton, however, realized that the lingering autumn was now gone, and that soon the whole region would be in the rigorous grip of the Snow King. Henceforth for some months to come would be chill winds, protracted and frequently recurring downfalls of snow, great high-banked snowdrifts in the canyons, and later on the mighty snowslides that sheared timber-clad mountain slopes as if with a giant’s knife and occasionally brought death and destruction to some remote mining camp. For the present the Major’s hunting expeditions were at an end. But as he glanced at the heavy canopy of snow-laden cloud he also knew that days must elapse, weeks perhaps, before he could revisit the hidden valley high up in the mountains. For yet another winter tide Nature would hold her treasure safe from despoiling hands.
Buell Hampton faced the situation with characteristic philosophy. All through the afternoon he mused on his good fortune. He was glad to have brought down even only a thousand dollars from the golden storehouse, for this money would ensure comfort during the inclement season for a good few humble homes. Meanwhile, like a banker with reserves of bullion safely locked up in his vault, he could plan out the future and see how the treasure was to be placed to best advantage. In Buell Hampton’s case the field of investment was among the poor and struggling, and the only dividends he cared for were increased percentages of human happiness. The coming of winter only delayed the good work he had in mind, but even now the consciousness of power to perform brought great joy to his heart. Alone in his home he paced the big room, only pausing at times to throw another log on the fire or gaze awhile into the glowing embers, day-dreaming, unspeakably happy in his day-dreams.
Meanwhile, in anticipation of the coming snowstorm, young Warfield was riding the range and gathering cattle and yearlings that had strayed away from the herd. As he was surmounting a rather steep foothill across the valleys to the westward between the two Encampment rivers, he was startled at hearing the patter of a horse’s hoofs. Quickly looking up he saw a young woman on horseback dashing swiftly along and swinging a lariat. She wore a divided brown skirt, wide sombrero, fringed gauntlets, and sat her horse with graceful ease and confidence. She was coming down the mountainside at right angles to his course.
Bringing his pony quickly to a standstill Roderick watched the spirited horse-woman as she let go her lariat at an escaping yearling that evidently had broken out of some corral The lariat went straight to its mark, and almost at the same moment he heard her voice as she spoke to her steed, quickly but in soft melodious tones: “That will do, Fleetfoot. Whoa!” Instantly the well-trained horse threw himself well back on his haunches and veered to the left. The fleeing yearling was caught around one of its front feet and thrown as neatly as the most expert cowboy on the range could have done it.
“By George,” said Roderick to himself, “what a fine piece of work.” He watched with admiring eyes as the young lady sat her horse in an attitude of waiting. Presently a cowboy rode up, and relieving her of the catch started the yearling back, evidently toward the corral. Turning about, the horsewoman started her horse at a canter directly toward him, and Roderick fell to wondering what sort of a discovery he had made.
A moment later she brought her horse to a standstill and acknowledged his salutation as he lifted his sombrero. He saw the red blood glowing under the soft tan of her cheeks, and as their eyes met he was fairly dazzled by her beauty. He recognized at a glance the western type of girl, frank and fearless, accustomed to the full and health-giving freedom of life in the open, yet accomplished and domesticated, equally at home in the most tastefully adorned drawing room as here on horseback among the mountains.
“I beg pardon,” he said in a stammering way, “but can I be of any service?”
At his words she pulled her pony to a standstill and said: “In what way, pray?” – and there was a mischievous smile at Roderick’s obvious embarrassment.
“Why, I saw you lariating a yearling.”
“Oh,” she said, throwing back her head and laughing softly, “that was a long time ago. It is doubtless in the corral by now.”
As she spoke, Roderick dismounted. He was capable now of assimilating details, and noted the silken dark Egyptian locks that fell in fluffy waves over her temples in a most bewitching manner, and the eyes that shone with the deep dark blue of the sapphire. His gaze must have betrayed his admiration, for, courteously waving her hand, she touched with her spurs the flanks of her mount and bounded away across the hills. Roderick was left standing in wonderment.
“Who the dickens can she be?” he soliloquized. “I’ve been riding the range for a good many weeks, but this is the first time I’ve spotted this mountain beauty.”
Throwing himself onto his horse, he started down toward the south fork of the Encampment river and on to the westward the Shields ranch, wondering as he rode along who this strange girl of the hills could be. Once or twice he thought of Stella Rain and he manfully endeavored to keep his mind concentrated on the one to whom he was betrothed, running over in memory her last letter, reckoning the time that must elapse before the next one would arrive, recalling the tender incidents of their parting now two months ago. But his efforts were in vain. Always there kept recurring the vision of loveliness he had encountered on the range, and the mystery that surrounded the fair rider’s identity. Once again since Major Buell Hampton’s long diatribe on love and matrimony, he was vaguely conscious that his impetuous love-making on that memorable evening at Galesburg might have been a mistake, and that the little “college widow” in her unselfishness had spoken words of wisdom when she had counselled him to wait awhile – until he really did know his own mind – until he had really tried out his own heart, yes, until – Great heavens, he found himself recalling her very words, spoken with tears in her soft pretty eyes: “That’s just the trouble, Roderick. You do not know – you cannot make a comparison, nor you won’t know until the other girl comes along.”
Had the other girl at last come? But at the disloyal thought he spurred his horse to a gallop, and as he did so the first snowflakes of the coming storm fluttered cold and damp against his flushed cheeks. At last he thought of other things; he was wondering now, as he glanced around into the thickening atmosphere, whether all the stray mavericks were at last safe in the winter pastures and corrals.
CHAPTER XI – WINTER PASSES
THAT night the big snow storm did indeed come, and when Roderick woke up next morning it was to find mountain and valley covered with a vast bedspread of immaculate white and the soft snowflakes still descending like a feathery down. The storm did not catch Mr. Shields unprepared; his vast herds were safe and snug in their winter quarters.
The break in the weather marked the end of Roderick’s range riding for the season. He was now a stock feeder and engaged in patching up the corrals and otherwise playing his part of a ranch hand. And with this stay-at-home life he found himself thinking more and more of the real mission that had brought him into this land of mountains. Nearly every night when his work was finished, he studied a certain map of the hills – the inheritance left him by his father. On this map were noted “Sheep Mountain,” “Bennet Peak,” “Hahn’s Peak” and several other prominent landmarks. From his own acquaintance with the country Roderick now knew that the lost valley was quite a distance to the south and west from the Shields ranch.
Thus the wintry days wore on, and with their passing Roderick became more and more firm in his determination to be ready, when the snow was gone in the spring, to take up his father’s unfinished task of finding again the sandbar abounding with nuggets of gold. Indeed in his life of isolation it gradually came about that he thought of little else by day and dreamed of nothing else at night. Sometimes in the solitude of his room he smiled at his loneliness. What a change from the old college days – from the stir and excitement of New York. During the winter he had been invited to a score of gatherings, dances, and parties, but somehow he had become taciturn and had declined all invitations.
Then, with stern self-control he had succeeded in putting out of mind the mysterious beauty of the range. Love at first sight! – he had laughed down such silliness, and rooted out of his heart the base treason that had even for a fleeting moment permitted such a thought. Yes, there was nothing but firmest loyalty in his mind for Stella Rain, who was waiting for him so faithfully and patiently, and whose letters cheered him and filled him with greater determination than ever to find the lost mine.
His labors on the ranch were arduous but his health was excellent. At college he had been an athlete – now he was a rugged, bronzed-faced son of the hills. His only recreations were laying plans for the future and writing letters to Stella.
Not infrequently his mind wandered back to Keokuk, the old river town, and his heart grew regretful that he had quarreled with his Unde Allen Miller, and his thoughts were tender of his Aunt Lois. Once he wrote a letter to Whitley Adams, then tore it up in a dissatisfied way, returning to the determination to make his fortune before communicating with his old friends.
And so the winter passed, and spring had come again.
It was one morning in early May, just after he had finished his chores, when to his surprise Grant Jones shouted to him through the corral fence: “Hello, old man, how is ranching agreeing with you, anyway?”
“Fine,” responded Roderick, “fine and dandy.” He let himself through the gate of the corral and shook hands with Grant. “Come up to the bunk house; seems mighty good to see you.”
“Thanks,” responded Grant, as they walked along. “Do you know, Warfield, I have been shut up over on the other side of the range ever since that first big snow-storm? I paddled out on snowshoes only once during the winter, and then walked over the tops of trees. Plenty of places up on the Sierra Madre,” continued Grant, nodding his head to the westward, “where the snow is still twenty to thirty feet deep. If a fellow had ever broken through, why, of course, he would have been lost until the spring.”
“Terrible to think about,” said Roderick.
“Oh, that’s not all,” said Grant with his old exuberant laugh. “It would have been so devilish long from a fellow’s passing until his obituary came to be written. That is what gets on my nerves when I’m out on snowshoes. Of course the columns of the Doublejack are always open to write-ups on dead unfortunates, but it likes to have ‘em as near as possible to the actual date of demise. Then it’s live news.”
“Sounds rather grewsome,” said Roderick, smiling at Grant’s oddity of expression.
Arriving at the bunk house, they were soon seated around a big stove where a brisk fire was burning, for the air without was still sharp and the wind cutting and cold.
“I can offer you a pipe and some mighty fine tobacco,” said Roderick, pushing a tray toward him carrying a jar of tobacco and half-a-dozen cob pipes.
“Smells good,” commented Grant, as he accepted and began to fill one of the pipes.
“Well, tell me something about yourself, Grant. I supposed the attraction over here at the ranch was quite enough to make you brave snowstorms and snow-slides and thirty-foot snowdrifts.”
“Warfield,” said Grant, half seriously, between puffs at his pipe, “that is what I want to talk with you about. The inducement is sufficient for all you suggest. She is a wonder. Without any question, Dorothy Shields is the sweetest girl that ever lived.”
“Hold on,” smiled Roderick. “There may be others in the different parts of the world.”
“Is that so?” ejaculated Grant with a rising inflection, while his countenance suggested an interrogation point.
“No, I have no confessions to make,” rejoined Roderick, as he struck a match to light his pipe.
“Well, that’s just what is troubling me,” said Grant, still serious. “I was just wondering if anyone else had been browsing on my range over here at the Shields ranch while I have been penned up like a groundhog, getting out my weekly edition of the Dillon Doublejock, sometimes only fifty papers at an issue. Think of it!” And they both laughed at the ludicrous meagerness of such a circulation.
“But never mind,” continued Grant, reflectively, “I will run my subscriptions up to three or four hundred in sixty days when the snow is off the ground.”
“Yes, that is all very well, old man. But when will the snow be off? I am considerably interested myself, for I want to do some prospecting.”
“Hang your prospecting,” said Grant, “or when the snow will go either. You haven’t answered my question.”
“Oh, as to whether anyone has been browsing on your range?” exclaimed Roderick. “I must confess I do not know. They have had dances and parties and all that sort of thing but – I really don’t know, I have not felt in the mood and declined to attend. How do you find the little queen of your heart? Has she forgotten you?”
“No-o,” responded Grant, slowly. “But dam it all, I can’t talk very well before the whole family. I am an out-door man. You give me the hills as a background and those millions of wild flowers that color our valleys along in July like Joseph’s coat, and it makes me bubble over with poetry and I can talk to beat a phonograph monologist.” This was said in a jovial, joking tone, but beneath it all Roderick knew there was much serious truth.
“How is it, Grant? Are you pretty badly hit?”
“Right square between the eyes, old man. Why, do you know, sitting over in that rocky gorge of Dillon canyon in the little town of Dillon, writing editorials for the Double jack month after month and no one to read my paper, I have had time to think it all over, and I have made up my mind to come here to the Shields ranch and tell Dorothy it is my firm conviction that she is the greatest woman on top of the earth, and that life to me without her is simply – well, I don’t have words to describe the pitiful loneliness of it all without her.”
Roderick leaned back in his chair and laughed hilariously at his friend.
“This is no joking matter,” said Grant. “I’m a goner.”
Just then there came a knock at the door and Roderick hastily arose to bid welcome to the caller. To the surprise of both the visitor proved to be Major Buell Hampton.
Major Hampton exchanged cordial greetings and expressed his great pleasure at finding his two young friends together. Accepting the invitation to be seated, he drew his meerschaum from his pocket and proceeded to fill from a tobacco pouch made of deer skin.
“My dear Mr. Jones and’ Mr. Warfield,” he began, “where have you been all through the winter?”
“For myself, right here doing chores about twelve hours per day,” answered Roderick.
“As for me,” said Grant, “I have been way over ‘yonder’ editing the Dillon Doublejack. I have fully a score of subscribers who would have been heartbroken if I had missed a single issue. I snow-shoed in to Encampment once, but your castle was locked and nobody seemed to know where you had gone, Major.”
Jones had again laughed good-naturedly over the limited circulation of his paper. Major Hampton smiled, while Roderick observed that there was nothing like living in a literary atmosphere.
“If your circulation is small your persistence is certainly commendable,” observed the Major, looking benignly at Jones but not offering to explain his absence from Encampment when Jones had called. “I have just paid my respects,” he went on, “to Mr. and Mrs. Shields and their lovely daughters, and learned that you were also visiting these hospitable people. My errand contemplated calling upon Mr. Warfield as well. I almost feel I have been neglected. The latchstring hangs on the outside of my door for Mr. War-field as well as for you, Mr. Jones.”
“Many thanks,” observed Roderick.
“Your compliment is not unappreciated,” said Grant. “When do you return to Encampment?”
“Immediately after luncheon,” replied the Major.
“Very well, I will go along with you,” said Grant. “I came over on my skis.”
“It will be a pleasure for me to extend the hospitality of the comfortable riding sled that brought me over,” responded the Major with Chesterfieldian politeness. “Jim Rankin is one of the safest drivers in the country and he has a fine spirited team, while the sledding is simply magnificent.”
“Although the jingle of sleigh-bells always makes me homesick,” remarked Roderick, “I’d feel mighty pleased to return with you.”
“It will be your own fault, Mr. Warfield, if you do not accompany us. I have just been talking to Mr. Shields, and he says you are the most remarkable individual he has ever had on his ranch – a regular hermit They never see you up at the house, and you have not been away from the ranch for months, while the young ladies, Miss Barbara and Miss Dorothy, think it perfectly horrid – to use their own expression – that you never leave your quarters here or spend an evening with the family.”
“Roderick,” observed Grant, “I never thought you were a stuck-up prig before, but now I know you for what you are. But there must be an end to such exclusiveness. Let someone else do the chores. Get ready and come on back to Encampment with us, and we’ll have a royal evening together at the Major’s home.”
“Excellent idea,” responded the Major. “I have some great secrets to impart – but I am not sure I will tell you one of them,” he added with a good-natured smile. The others laughed at his excess of caution.
“Very well,” said Roderick, “if Mr. Shields can spare me for a few days I’ll accept your invitation.”
At this moment the door was opened unceremoniously and in walked the two Miss Shields. The men hastily arose and laid aside their pipes.
“We are here as messengers,” said Miss Dorothy, smiling. “You, Mr. Warfield, are to come up to the house and have dinner with us as well as the Major and Grant.”
“Glorious,” said Grant, smiling broadly. “Roderick, did you hear that? She calls you Mr. Warfield and she calls me Grant. Splendid, splendid!”
“I know somebody that will have their ears cuffed in a moment,” observed Miss Dorothy.
“Again I ejaculate splendid!” said Grant in great hilarity, as if daring her.
“It is a mystery to me,” observed the Major, “how two such charming young ladies can remain so unappreciated.”
“Why, Major,” protested Barbara, “we are not unappreciated. Everybody thinks we are just fine.”
“Major,” observed Grant with great solemnity, “this is an opportunity I have long wanted.” He cleared his throat, winked at Roderick, made a sweeping glance at the young ladies and observed: “I wanted to express my admiration, yes, I might say my affection for – ”
Dorothy’s face was growing pink. She divined Grant’s ardent feelings although he had spoken not one word of love to her. Lightly springing to his side, she playfully but firmly placed her hands over his mouth and turned whatever else he had to say into incoherency.
This ended Grant’s declaration. Even Major Buell Hampton smiled and Roderick inquired: “Grant, what are you mumbling about?”
Dorothy dropped her hand.
“Oh, just trying to tell her to keep me muzzled forever,” Grant smiled, and Dorothy’s cheeks were red with blushes.
With this final sally all started for the big ranch house where they found that a sumptuous meal had been prepared.
During the repast Barbara learned of the proposed reunion of the three friends at Encampment, and insisted that her father should give a few days’ vacation to Mr. Warfield. The favor was quickly granted, and an hour later Jim Rankin brought up his bob-sled and prancing team, and to the merry sound of the sleigh-bells Major Buell Hampton and the two young men sped away for Encampment.
It was arranged that Roderick and Grant should have an hour or two to themselves and then call later in the evening on the Major.