Chapter 5

It is not an uncommon occurrence for a rascal to overreach himself. It is the thing Arthur Hoyt did when he refrained from shooting Harry and resorted to the more cruel but longer device of starving him to death.

If he had gone away from the cave within ten minutes of reaching it, he would not have been seen by a lurking witness among the rocks.

This person had been hurrying along the trail, more than ten minutes behind Hoyt, and came upon him as he was toiling with the ponderous boulders.

At the instant of seeing him, the stranger darted behind a rock and watched him with a deep interest.

He kept himself hidden until Hoyt had gone, and then seemed for a moment undecided whether to follow him or to investigate the reason of the piling up of the stones in the cave.

"I can follow him after I've taken a look," he muttered.

With this determination he ran over to the cave and looked in and tried to make out the meaning of the heap of stones.

"Now, what in the world did he do that for?" he asked himself. "Well, whatever he did it, for, it'll be worth my while to learn it, for I know he'd never 'a taken all that trouble for nothing. He isn't the sort to work like that for fun."

So the newcomer went over to the pile and studied it; but making nothing of it, owing to the care with which Harry had been covered up, he doggedly set to work to remove and undo all that Hoyt had done.

He had not gone far with his labors before he caught sight of something that looked like a garment. He turned pale and hastened to satisfy his fears.

"He's murdered somebody and hid him here," he said. "I wonder--" he stopped and leaned up against the pile; "but no, it couldn't be."

Whatever it was that he felt could not be, evidently kept recurring to him, as he worked with feverish haste, until he had uncovered so much of the body as enabled him to feel it and to discover that it was still warm.

"Only just killed him, too!" he ejaculated.

The horror of it stopped him for an instant, and then he returned to his task with redoubled energy; so that he was undoing in seconds what Hoyt had taken minutes to accomplish, being assisted to that end by a strength that Hoyt had lacked.

"Alive! Harry Wainwright!"

It seemed as if the two discoveries had come together, and as if the fact that it was Harry Wainwright had more interest for the toiler than the fact that the discovered person was merely alive.

And how the remaining stones and brush flew after the discovery! And as soon as it was possible to do it, Harry was lifted to an upright position, the gag taken out of his mouth and his bonds cut.

"Bill Green!" was Harry's first exclamation. "How did you happen here?"

"Oh, it's a long story! but anyhow, I'm glad I did come here."

"It looks as if you had my existence in your charge," said Harry, his half-jesting manner belied by the earnest way he caught the two hands of the boy who had thus, for a second time, rescued him from a horrible death.

"Well, anyhow," replied Bill, "that fellow Hoyt don't seem to have any chance against me. Now, isn't it wonderful? But let's get out of here."

"Stop a minute," said Harry. "Let's put these things back just as they were. I don't know but I'd better try to keep dead again."

"All right," answered Bill, who was in a state of radiant happiness. "Anything you say. Oh, but I'm glad to see you again, Harry! And I had no more idea of finding you here than of finding a bag of diamonds."

They put the stones and brush back as they had been placed by Hoyt, and then Harry led the way to a secluded spot where they would not be seen, even in the unlikely chance of anybody coming that way.

"I'll make it as short as I can now," said Bill, "and you can ask questions at any time when you happen to think of 'em, or I can tell you the little details afterward, as they come to mind. Doesn't it seem wonderful that I should happen to be here just at this particular moment?"

"Wonderful is no name for it," declared Harry; "and I haven't tried to thank you. It's no use trying, Bill."

"Of course it's no use trying, and you're not going to hurt my feelings by doing it," rejoined Bill. "Well, it wasn't a bit wonderful, my being here, when you come to know all about it. After you were gone that night of the fire, I ran right to Mr. Dewey and told him all about it. My! wasn't he mad?"

"I know how he'd be likely to go on," said Harry, with a smile.

"At first he was all for taking it out of Hoyt by giving him a sound thumping; but, after awhile, he cooled down and began to think it all over, and the end was, not to go into particulars now, that he set me to watching Hoyt, so that if anything should turn up we might get some evidence against him."

"But your work?" queried Harry.

"Mr. Dewey said he'd rather pay twice the wages I'd lose than miss a chance of tripping up Arthur Hoyt. So I gave up everything and played what they call shadow. I was mighty awkward about it at first, but after awhile I got so I could follow him and he never suspect. Well, among other things, I followed him to Mr. Mortimer's and listened to their talk under the library window. I couldn't catch it all, but I caught enough to make out that Mr. Mortimer had no idea that Hoyt was going to make an end of you, and that he was terribly broken up about it. But somehow it seemed that Hoyt had mixed him up in it so that it could be made to look as if Mortimer had really killed you."

"Oh, the villain!" exclaimed Harry.

"Isn't he, though? He made Mortimer give him four hundred thousand dollars of the money that had been stolen from your father--"

"Did you find out how it had been stolen?" interrupted Harry, eagerly.

"Not a word about that. Then, at the last, Hoyt made him give him some shares in a mine, and said he was going to investigate the mine. I expected that would end the shadowing, but Mr. Dewey said I was to keep after him if it took all the money he had in the bank, and I guess it did just that. The long and short of it being that Mr. Dewey gave me two hundred dollars, and I was to follow Hoyt as far as the money would take me, and Mr. Dewey was to look after mother and Beth."

"What a friend he is!" cried Harry. "And you, too, Bill. I don't see why I make such friends."

"Don't you?" asked Bill. "Ah, well, I do! I followed Hoyt, and there wouldn't have been any trouble at all if it hadn't been that he stopped all along the way to have a good time spending his stolen money. I lost my ticket by that time. You know you can't stop off on ordinary tickets, and it cost me two tickets before I learned how to be ready for him. But, anyhow, he stopped so often and led me such a chase that by the time he had been a week in San Francisco I was teetotally broke."

"And all that for me!" said Harry, gratefully.

"Get out!" cried Bill. "I was having no end of a lark. Why, I was seeing the world, Harry, and doing some good at the same time. But I was stumped when he left San Francisco one day for Virginia City. Then I was fixed and no mistake. I puzzled my brains over it until I just had to steal rides on freight trains. I only minded one thing, and that was that when I reached Virginia City I would possibly find him gone so I couldn't trace him."

"You had no money, so took your chances on the freight trains and reached Virginia City at last?" said Harry, who was listening with both interest and admiration.

"Yes; and he was gone."

"Oh, dear!" was Harry's fervent comment. "But you have pluck, Bill."

"Bulldog kind," laughed Bill. "I know how to stick to a thing when I get hold. I did to him. If he'd been the right sort, though, I'd never have found him again. He's an awful gambler. Oh, he gambled everywhere he stopped! He seemed to know just where to find the places. I'll bet anything that he's lost a big pile of money. Anyhow, he'd gambled in Virginia City till everybody in that line knew him, and it was from some of them that I found out where he'd gone."

"Then," said Harry, "the trouble was to get here yourself."

"You bet! But I got here last night. The very first places I went to were the gambling-houses, and mighty surprised I was to find he hadn't been to any of them. I couldn't understand that."

"Afraid I'd see him," suggested Harry.

"Of course that was it. I couldn't find him last night, and I was afraid he hadn't come here, after all; for there wasn't a sign of him having been here. The next thing that occurred to me was the mine; but, to save me, I couldn't remember the name, having only half heard it through the window. All I could think of was that it was some kind of a gold mine, and I groaned at that, for I'd been out here long enough to know that they don't find much but silver here generally. However, I asked a man if there were any gold mines around here, and he said no, and never was and never would be."

"That is true, I know, for my partner, Missoo--"

"Your partner, Missoo!" cried Bill, his eyes starting in amazement.

"Yes, my partner, Missoo," repeated Harry, wondering what was the matter.

"They don't happen to call you Gent out here, do they?"

"That's my name."

"Harry," said Bill, actually winking away a tear. "I'm the proudest chap that ever walked to think that I know you. Will you shake hands?"

Harry blushed as he gave him his hand, knowing that Bill must have heard the story of the burning mine.

Bill shook his hand as if he had never had such a treat before.

"And you," said he, his eyes shining, "are Gent, that went down that shaft. Harry, I don't believe there is another boy in the whole United States would have done a thing like that. Won't Beth be glad you saved her when I tell her that!"

"Please don't say any more about that," pleaded Harry. "Tell me about the gold mine."

"Shake hands once more first," said Bill. "Think of having that to tell Mr. Dewey! Oh, well, I won't say any more! About the gold mine. Oh, yes! The man, after he had said there were no gold mines, told how some Easterners had been let in for a salted mine, and how it was called Tiny Hill Gold Mine even now, when it was as certain as fate that it had nothing but silver in it. Well, I didn't need to be told that name twice. I knew it was my mine, and I got the direction and went straight for it; and there I found my man smoking a cigar in front of the cabin, with a tough-looking specimen sitting on the door-sill."

"Little Dick," observed Harry.

"Little! Well, I wouldn't want him to get hold of me."

"He did get hold of me," said Harry; and he related his recent adventure with him.

"Ah!" cried Bill; "now I understand! I followed them after a while, and I was puzzled to know why Hoyt kept back all the time and let the other man take the lead. It looked so much like some sort of mischief then that I was wondering all the while what on earth it could be. But I never suspected you had anything to do with it. If I'd only known you and Gent were the same person! I wouldn't have had the courage even to have thought of that thing, Harry; but if I could, I'd--"

"You said you wouldn't speak of it again, Bill."

"Well, where was I? Oh, yes! I kept well behind Hoyt, and when he sat down and let the other man go on ahead, there was nothing for me to do but to sit down, too. So I did, and we waited that way for a good while. Then Little Dick, as you call him, came back and took Hoyt away with him, and I could see that he was half-mad about something. I began to have a hard time after that, for we left the trees and got among the rocks, and, in fact, I lost them and lost my way, and I don't suppose I should ever have found it again if I had not seen Little Dick going down the mountain. I watched where he went, and then took the up road after Hoyt; and that brought me here, and that's all. But if I never do it again, Harry, I want to shake hands with you."

Harry shook hands laughingly, for there was something whimsical in Bill that put him in a laughing mood. He had never supposed Bill had so much fun in him; and, perhaps, in the old days Bill had not known it, either. But an honest life, and since then the thought that he was doing good for the boy who had saved Beth's life, had had a very developing effect on him.

They talked a great deal more after that, each giving more details about himself, but Bill insisting on hearing most about Harry, and what he had done and where he had been, and his interest in Missoo was simply intense.

"You shall see him, to-night," promised Harry. "We will go down now, keeping out of sight as much as we can, and I will take you right to his room. He'll be wondering where I am. He said he'd like to see you."

"See me!" cried Bill, pleasure and surprise about equally divided. "What does he know about me?"

"Why, I told him how you saved my life, of course."

They walked down, and Harry led Bill to the house where Missoo was lying in bed. He was much better, but was not able to go about, though he chafed at the notion of Big Missouri being laid up with "a burnt spot on his back."

"I was gettin' lonesome, Gent," he said. "Who's yer friend?" and he eyed Bill over carefully.

"Did you ever hear me speak of Bill Green?" asked Harry.

Missoo lifted himself up on his elbow and looked at Bill.

"Not Bill Green, thet got ye outen thet burnin' mill?" he questioned, to Bill's extravagant delight to think that the great, the famous Missoo had actually kept his name in his memory.

"The very same Bill Green," assured Harry.

"Bill, shake!" said Missoo, briefly. And when he had shaken the hand of the delighted Bill, he held it for a moment, and said to him, "Bill, when ye saved the life o' thet thar Gent, ye saved my life, too, which is wuthless, an' ye saved the lives o' twenty men, some o' them with babbies, 'n some o' them with mothers. Shet up, Gent; I'm talkin'! Ye saved the life, Bill, of a feller what's sand--emery sand, which is the best kind--what's sand down to his toes. Bill, I'm proud to take ye by the hand; 'n I bet ye've got sand yerself."

"So he has, Missoo, as you'll understand, when I tell you his story some day," replied Harry.

"Why not now?" asked Missoo.

Harry made a sign to Bill, and answered:

"Because I want to talk about other things with him. You won't mind if we talk before you, will you, Missoo?"

"Mind ye a-talkin'! Thet's music to me, thet is, Gent," said the admiring giant.