"Cap," said the man called Bill, "of course them two fellers lit onto this mine. They couldn't ha' helped it. But they haven't done a stroke of work on it. Reckon we kin1 set up marks of our own."
"'Twont pay."
"We can't leave a claim like this."
Every man of the party was of the same opinion, and Captain Skinner said,
"Go ahead, boys. Only I can tell you one thing. We're going to move out of this, through that western gap, before daylight to-morrow morning. We're too near those red-skins down there to suit me. There's no telling how many there may be of them."
The men sprung to their work with a will. The first thing they did was to set up a "discovery monument" right in the middle of the ledge, at the head of the chasm3.
Large flat stones were laid down, others carefully set upon them, and so up and up, till a pretty well shaped, four-sided pyramid had been made, six feet square and as many high.
Then two more, nearly as large, were set up at the ends of the ledge, where the gold vein4 disappeared in the high cliffs.
Seven strong men can do a great deal in a short time when they are in a hurry and all understand exactly what to do.
"Now we'll go for supper, and send out the rest."
"Must have a shaft5 begun and a blast fired."
The miners have a law of their own among themselves that a man who finds a mine must do some work on it and set up "marks," or else his claim to it is of no value.
These miners only paid no attention to another "law," that a man like Steve Harrison, for instance, is entitled to all the time required to do his work and set up his monuments. One part of the law is just as good as another.
The return to camp was quickly made, and there was news to tell all around, for the hunters not only brought in game but also the information that they "reckoned an army train could be hauled down that gap to the westward6. It's almost as good as a road."
"We'll try it to-morrow," said the Captain.
He went out with all the men he could spare from camp as soon as supper was eaten, and they carried with them pickaxes, crow-bars, mining drills, and shovels7. All the tools were pretty well worn, but they would answer for the work in hand.
It was getting dark when they reached the ledge; but that was of less consequence after two huge bonfires had been built near the central monument, and heaped with fragments of fallen pine-trees. Then the work began.
"Gangs of three," said Captain Skinner—"one on each side. We'll have two shafts8 started. Bill, drill your blast right there."
The shafts would not have been needed for a long time in actually working out ore from a ledge like that, but two such holes would make a very deep mark that could not be wiped out, and the "blast" would make another.
It was hard work, but as fast as the men who were prying9 and picking loosened a piece of quartz10, it was lifted away by their comrades, and it was a wonder how those two shafts did go down.
All the while Bill was tapping away with his hammer and drill on the spot pointed11 out to him, and was making a hole in the rock about the size of a gun-barrel.
"Two feet, Cap," he shouted at last. "That's as far as I can go with this drill, and it's the longest there is in camp."
"That'll do. Charge it. Our job's 'most done."
The night was cool, but the miners had kept themselves warm enough. They were not sorry to quit when their hard-faced little Captain ordered them out of the two holes; but it was odd to see such great, brawny12 fellows obeying in that way a man who looked almost like a dwarf13 beside them.
"Got her charged, Bill?"
"All right, Cap."
"Stand back, boys. Touch yer fuse, Bill."
That was a slow-match that stuck out of the hole he had drilled in the rock, and it led down to the charge of powder he had skilfully14 rammed15 in at the bottom.
"We can hardly afford to waste so much powder," the Captain had muttered, "but it won't do for me to cross 'em too much on such a thing."
Back they went for a hundred yards, while the fuse burnt its slow, sputtering16 way down through the "tamping17" Bill had rammed around it.
They had not long to wait. The blazing fires lit up the whole ledge and the bordering cliffs, and the miners could see distinctly everything that happened on it. Suddenly there came a puff18 of smoke from the drill-hole. Then the rock outside of it, toward the chasm, rose a little, and a great fragment of it tumbled over down the ledge, while a dull, thunderous burst of sound startled the silence of the night, and awaked all the echoes of the cliffs and the cañon.
No such sound had ever before been heard there, by night or by day, since the world was made; but Captain Skinner and his miners were not thinking of things like that.
"That'll do, boys," he said. "There'll be powder-marks on that rock for twenty years. Our claim's good now, if any of us ever come back to make it."
The men thought of how rich a mine it was, and each one promised himself that he would come back, whether the rest did or not.
It is not easy to tire out fellows as tough as they were, but Captain Skinner was a "fair boss," as they all knew, and the men who stood sentinel around his camp that night were not the men who toiled19 so hard on the mine.
"He doesn't seem to need any sleep himself," remarked one of them to Bill, as they were routed out of their blankets an hour before daylight the next morning.
"You'll have to eat your breakfast on horseback, you three," he said to them. "Strike right for the gap, and if you come across anything that doesn't look right, you can send one of you back to let me know. Sharp, now! We won't be long in following."
Their horses were quickly saddled, and away they rode, each man doing his best, as he went, with a huge piece of cold roast venison. The Captain had remarked to them, "That'll do ye. Your coffee'll be just as hot as ours."
That meant that the cold water of one mountain stream was just about as pleasant to drink as that of another.
Bill and his two comrades were not the men to grumble20 over a piece of necessary duty like that, and they knew it was "their turn."
The sun was well up before they reached the head of the gap, and a glance showed them that it was all the hunters had prophesied21 of it. It was, in fact, a sort of natural highway from that table-land down to the valleys and plains of Arizona.
"This'll do first-rate," said Bill: "only I'd like to know what thar is at the lower eend of it."
"That's what we're gwine to look for. If ever we come back to work that mine, Bill, what ranches22 we can lay out on that level beyond the ruins!"
"Best kind. Raise 'most anything up thar."
No doubt of it; but now for some hours their minds and eyes were busier with the pass before them than with either mines or farming.
"Not a sign yet, Bill, and we're getting well down. See them pines?"
"Off to the left? Hullo! Put for the pines, boys! We'll nab those two! See 'em?"
"Coming right along up. All we've got to do is to 'bush our horses, and let 'em git past us."
"Only two squaws."
The three miners dashed on a minute or so till they could turn aside among the thick-growing cover of the forest.
They rode in a little distance, till they were sure they could not be seen from the pass; then they dismounted, tethered their horses, and slipped cautiously back to crouch23 among some dense24 bushes among the rocks within a few yards of the path by which any one coming up the gap must needs ride.
"We'll get 'em."
"Learn all we want to."
"Hullo, Bill, I can see 'em. That ain't all; thar's some kind of a brave not fur behind 'em."
"I see. Only one. Well, we kin take him too."
"Take him! Bah! knock him on the head. I don't exactly like to fire a gun just here."
"Old Skinner'd kill ye if ye gave that kind of warnin' to a crowd of redskins."
"Mebbe there isn't any."
"You don't know. Safe not to make too much noise, anyhow."
They might have fired every cartridge25 they had and not been heard by the Apaches in the valley; but there was no one to tell them so. At the same time they felt perfectly26 safe to talk, for they were sure there were no human ears near enough to hear them—so sure that they talked aloud and recklessly.
Perhaps it would have been as well for them to have imitated Captain Skinner, who hardly ever talked at all.
As it was, they had nothing to do but to wait, for their intended captives were evidently in no sort of hurry, and were laughing merrily as they loitered along the ravine below, picking berries here and a flower there, and making a capital frolic of their morning ride.
Laughing, talking, thoughtless of all danger, and yet they were riding on into the most terrible kind of a "trap."
How could any help reach them, if once they should go beyond those treacherous27 rocks and bushes?
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
kin
|
|
| n.家族，亲属，血缘关系；adj.亲属关系的，同类的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
ledge
|
|
| n.壁架，架状突出物；岩架，岩礁 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
chasm
|
|
| n.深坑，断层，裂口，大分岐，利害冲突 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
vein
|
|
| n.血管，静脉；叶脉，纹理；情绪；vt.使成脉络 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
shaft
|
|
| n.(工具的)柄，杆状物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
westward
|
|
| n.西方，西部；adj.西方的，向西的；adv.向西 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
shovels
|
|
| n.铲子( shovel的名词复数 )；锹；推土机、挖土机等的)铲；铲形部份v.铲子( shovel的第三人称单数 )；锹；推土机、挖土机等的)铲；铲形部份 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
shafts
|
|
| n.轴( shaft的名词复数 )；（箭、高尔夫球棒等的）杆；通风井；一阵（疼痛、害怕等） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
prying
|
|
| adj.爱打听的v.打听，刺探（他人的私事）( pry的现在分词 )；撬开 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
quartz
|
|
| n.石英 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
pointed
|
|
| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
brawny
|
|
| adj.强壮的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
dwarf
|
|
| n.矮子，侏儒，矮小的动植物；vt.使…矮小 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
skilfully
|
|
| adv. (美skillfully)熟练地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
rammed
|
|
| v.夯实（土等）( ram的过去式和过去分词 )；猛撞；猛压；反复灌输 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
sputtering
|
|
| n.反应溅射法；飞溅；阴极真空喷镀；喷射v.唾沫飞溅( sputter的现在分词 )；发劈啪声；喷出；飞溅出 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
tamping
|
|
| n.填塞物，捣紧v.捣固( tamp的现在分词 )；填充；（用炮泥）封炮眼口；夯实 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
puff
|
|
| n.一口(气)；一阵(风)；v.喷气，喘气 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
toiled
|
|
| 长时间或辛苦地工作( toil的过去式和过去分词 )； 艰难缓慢地移动，跋涉 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
grumble
|
|
| vi.抱怨；咕哝；n.抱怨，牢骚；咕哝，隆隆声 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
prophesied
|
|
| v.预告，预言( prophesy的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
ranches
|
|
| 大农场， （兼种果树，养鸡等的）大牧场( ranch的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
crouch
|
|
| v.蹲伏，蜷缩，低头弯腰；n.蹲伏 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
dense
|
|
| a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
cartridge
|
|
| n.弹壳，弹药筒；(装磁带等的)盒子 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
perfectly
|
|
| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
treacherous
|
|
| adj.不可靠的，有暗藏的危险的；adj.背叛的，背信弃义的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |