CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The Story of Mormon Crossing

“Ever hear of Sun Mountain?” It was evening, after dinner. They were all sitting in front of the big stone fireplace, dead-tired, but determined to hear Joe’s story at last.

“Don’t think I have,” Hank rumbled. Nobody else answered.

“Sun Mountain,” Joe went on, “is a fancy name for one of the ugliest hunks of rock in the West.”

“Where is it?”

“In western Nevada, right near the California border.” Joe paused and looked over at Hank. “You don’t have a map by any chance, do you?”

“I think so.” Hank got up and plucked a dog-eared atlas down from a nearby shelf. “This do?”

“Sure.” Joe leafed through the pages until he came to a map of the northwest United States. “Here,” he said as the others crowded around, “is the place I’m talking about. Back in the days of the gold rush, Sun Mountain was important for only one reason. Wagon trains coming west used it as a guide. Right behind the mountain, you see, was a pass that took them over the Sierras into California.”

“It was the last jumping-off point before the gold fields,” Sandy remarked.

“Right,” Joe said. “But aside from that, nobody was interested in it. It was a lonely, miserable place. Sweltering hot in the summer and bitter cold in the winter. It didn’t have much in the way of trees or any kind of growth because all the water around there was next door to being poisonous.”

“How come?” Mike demanded.

“A mineral deposit inside the mountain seeped arsenic into the water. Anyway,” Joe continued, “wagon-train parties would rest up there before trying the pass. Sometimes they’d have to wait for days before they could move ahead.”

“What kept them back?” Sandy asked.

“Snow up in the high peaks. The pass would be blocked.” Joe closed the atlas and went back to his chair. “Some of the parties used to do a little mining up around Sun Mountain while they waited—nothing much, you understand—just enough to make the time go by till they got to the big bonanzas in California.” Joe laughed and fished for a cigarette. “If they’d only known,” he said. “The biggest bonanza of all was right under their noses.”

“Was there gold on Sun Mountain?” Sandy asked.

Joe shook his head. “No, not gold. Silver. That whole mountain was practically made of silver. You’ve heard of Virginia City?”

“Sure!” Sandy cried. “The Comstock Lode!”

“It was right on top of Sun Mountain. It was discovered in 1859. A vein of pure silver nearly sixty feet wide. Before it was worked out, it was worth nearly three quarters of a billion dollars.”

Mike whistled softly. “Did you say _billion_?”

“I did.”

“And they passed it right by?”

“Back in the 1850s they weren’t interested in silver. Everybody was thinking about gold.”

Mr. Cook leaned over and maneuvered another log onto the fire. “I’m beginning to see the connection,” he said. “The silver you found in the cave originally came from Sun Mountain.”

“That’s right,” Joe said. “Somewhere in the 1850s a party of Mormons....”

“I knew it!” Sandy interrupted. “The same party that was massacred!”

Joe smiled. “Yes,” he admitted. “You were right all the time. I didn’t know that anybody knew about that incident. That’s why I was so startled when you told the story the day we first met. It happened just the way you described. They stopped over at Sun Mountain, found a rich vein of silver, and then moved on. Maybe they wanted to found a new community of their own. Anyway, they decided to head north. My people—the Blackfeet—massacred them here in the mountains.”

“How do you know that?” Hank asked.

“The story of the massacre was handed down by my tribe. As a matter of fact, it was my great-great-great-grandfather who led the raid.”

“Score one for Mike,” Mr. Cook said. “That’s exactly the way he said it happened.”

Joe turned, to Mike and laughed. “You people seem to have figured out everything.”

“But how did you know about the silver?” Sandy insisted.

“Before they were wiped out,” Joe explained, “the Mormons hid the silver in the cave that you two found earlier today. Each man in the party was given a map, just in case there were any survivors.”

“But there weren’t?”

Joe shook his head slowly. “No,” he said. “Every last one of them was wiped out. My great-great-and-so-forth-grandfather found a copy of the map. He kept it as a souvenir of the victory. In the years that went by, it was lost. I happened to find it in among my father’s possessions about six months ago. I knew about the story of the massacre and I’d heard about the map. When I actually saw it, I got pretty excited.”

“I can imagine,” Mr. Cook said.

“I’m afraid I talked about it too much. Other people heard about it.”

“Including our friends, the Crows,” Hank said.

Joe nodded. “To make a long story short, they stole my copy of the map. Luckily, I had it memorized. I knew I had to get out here before they did, and when you offered me a job to come to Mormon Crossing, I thought everything was going to be all right.”

“But you hadn’t counted on their moving so fast,” Mr. Cook put in.

“Even then,” Joe said grimly, “I didn’t think they’d actually try to kill me.” He paused and stared into the fire. “I knew better after my ‘accident’ on Mr. Henderson’s dock in Salmon.”

“Did they do that?” Sandy asked.

“Yes,” Joe said. “They did. Apparently they were desperate enough to do anything to keep me away from Mormon Crossing.”

Mr. Cook leaned forward in his chair. “But, Joe,” he said, “why didn’t you tell us?”

Joe shook his head and shrugged. “I guess I should have,” he said. “But I didn’t want you to get involved. I thought that once we got away, the danger would be over.”

“But then you saw the smoke,” Mike said.

“And I knew they were on my trail. I didn’t know what to do,” Joe said. “I knew I was putting you in danger and I didn’t want that, so I decided to disappear and try to find the silver before they did.”

“What good would that have done?” Mr. Cook pointed out. “They would just have come after you later.”

“You’re right,” Joe admitted. “I guess I was too worried to think things through clearly. At any rate, I was up in the mountains when you came looking for me. I saw Sandy and Mike get captured by the Crows. I followed them up to the Crow campsite and waited for the Crows to leave. You know the rest. They were going to use the boys as hostages to force me into giving up the search.”

“One thing still puzzles me,” Mr. Cook said.

“What is it?”

“First of all, if you and the Crows both knew where the silver was located, why didn’t you pick it up right away?”

“Because we couldn’t,” Joe explained. “We all went looking for the cave, but it was too well hidden. If it hadn’t been for Sandy and Mike falling into it, we’d still be running around up there in the mountains.”

“Then why were the Crows up at the cave when we arrived with the dogs?”

“They knew approximately where the cave should be. The map told them that. They were hunting around, the same as I was. What were you doing there?”

“We were searching for you—or the boys. The dogs led us up to the cave just in time to see the action.”

“Lucky for us,” Sandy said.

“I’ll say!” Mike grinned. “By the way, what’s going to happen to our friends?”

“The Crows?”

“Yes.”

“All taken care of,” Hank assured him.

Mike looked surprised. “How?” he asked.

“I’ve got a short-wave radio up here,” Hank explained. “I’ve called the police and they’re sending a helicopter.”

“Now there’s an unexpected touch,” said Mr. Cook, laughing. “In the middle of all this wilderness a helicopter!”

“A very handy device, Arthur,” Hank said. “Most of the Western states today have an emergency helicopter service for backwoods communities and isolated hunting parties. It’s saved a lot of lives.”

“I imagine it has.”

“When will it arrive?”

“First thing in the morning. It’ll take the Crows to Boise. I’ve locked them in the barn for the night. They’ll have to stand charges for assault with intent to kill as well as a little matter of kidnaping.”

Mike frowned. “Does that mean we’ll have to go, too?”

“I’m afraid so. But don’t worry. It won’t be for long. We’ll be back here in three or four days at the most.”

“Joe too?” They all turned and looked at the Indian.

He grinned and nodded his head. “Sure, I’ll be back,” he said. “I signed on for a month, didn’t I?”

“I thought maybe now that you’re a millionaire, you wouldn’t want to keep on being a guide.”

Joe laughed. “I’m not that rich. Three or four thousand dollars at the most. Wouldn’t you say, Hank?”

Hank nodded. “I figure it’s worth about that.”

“Split five ways, that makes....”

“Hey, hold on a minute!” Sandy cried. “We’re not going to take any of it.”

“Yes, you are,” Joe insisted. “I thought we decided that.”

“No,” Mr. Cook said firmly. “It’s your money. You told us once about that place in Montana you wanted. Well, now you can buy it.”

Joe tried to protest, but he was overruled. “All right,” he said finally. “But there are two things you can’t stop me from doing.”

“What’s that?” Sandy asked.

“Neither of the boys has a game rifle of his own. They’ll have one when we get back here. The second thing is this. As soon as I get my place in Montana, you people have a standing invitation to come up any time for the best hunting and fishing in the Rockies.”

“We’ll take you up on that, Joe,” Mr. Cook said.

“You bet!” Sandy cried enthusiastically.

Mike held up one hand. “There’s just one thing I want to know.”

“What’s that?”

“In Montana—does everything start at dawn? Or do you think maybe I could get some sleep?”

“Mike,” Joe replied, “when you come to visit me, I’ll arrange it so the fish don’t start to bite before noon, and as far as I’m concerned, you can do your hunting from a hammock.”

“That,” said Mike, “is something I’m looking forward to.”

“Right now,” Sandy said as he rose wearily to his feet, “the only thing I’m looking forward to is a good night’s sleep. When did you say that helicopter was going to get here?”

Hank reached over and snuffed out the kerosene lamp on the mantel. “At dawn,” he said. “Right on the stroke of five-thirty.”

The general laughter drowned out Mike’s anguished groan of protest.

Transcriber’s Notes

--Copyright notice provided as in the original—this e-text is public domain in the country of publication.

--Silently corrected palpable typos; left non-standard spellings and dialect unchanged.

--In the text versions, delimited italics text in _underscores_ (the HTML version reproduces the font form of the printed book.)

End of Project Gutenberg's Danger at Mormon Crossing, by Roger Barlow