"Thaar ain't much to tell," began Seth. "I an' Sailor Bill beat up the bush alongside that ther stream, arter partin' with you, and then, when we seed nothin' thaar, made tracks for this yere paraira, as I diskivered, when I got to the top o' that risin' ground yonder, some elk a feedin' down hyar. There was a herd of seven of 'em or more, an' soon as I gets near enuf I lets drive at 'em; and just then, hullabaloo! I heart a screech like somethin' awful, an' a Injun starts up, just like a deer a walkin' on his hind legs."

"That's an artful dodge they have of putting on the skin of some animal, and approaching unsuspiciously within shooting range without alarming their game."

"Waal, this hyar Injun," continued Seth, without noticing Mr Rawlings' explanatory interruption, "rushed on to me like a mad bull in fly time, and seein' as how he meant bizness; I drawed the trigger again, but missed him, and he flung his tommyhawk, which cotched my fut, and brought me to the ground as slick as greased lightnin', you bet!"

"And gave you a bad wound, too," said Mr Rawlings, who by this time had managed to take off Seth's boot and disclose the extent of the injury, a pretty deep cut right across the instep, which would probably lame the ex-mate for life, as far as he could judge.

"Waal, it do hurt some," said Seth, when Mr Rawlings proceeded to bandage up the foot in the same way as he had done the poor fellow's side previously. "But I dersay I'll git over it soon, gineral. Ef I seed Sailor Bill agin I wouldn't care a cent about it, I guess!"

"How was it that they carried him off, and you escaped alive? I can't think how they let you off when you were once down and at their mercy?"

"Oh, I made a pretty good fit of it, I reckon, with the butt-end of my rifle, and giv' both them red devils somethin' to remember Seth Allport by!—For there was two on 'em at me, as soon as Sailor Bill rushed in atween me an' the fust Injun."

"Did the boy really help you?" said Mr Rawlings in some surprise; for, as has been previously related, Sailor Bill had never exhibited any trace of emotional feeling from the time of his being picked up at sea, save on that memorable occasion immediately afterwards, when, it may be remembered, he rushed out of the cabin when the ship was taken aback.

"He did so," answered Seth, "an' the curiosest part of it wer he looked jest the same frightened like as when he saved me aboard the Susan Jane, with his har all on end—jes so."

"It's very extraordinary," said Mr Rawlings; "and then they carried him off?"

"Waal, I was making a good fit of it as I told you, an' when Sailor Bill rushes to help me a second Injun started up and collars him; and then I heard that air blessed dawg bark, and I knowed what it wer, an' so did the Injuns too; for as I shouted out to let yer know whar we wer, they made tracks with pore Bill, lugging him off atween them over thaar," said Seth, pointing eastwards, where, however, nothing could now be seen. "And that's all you know about it?" said Mr Rawlings.

"Jes so," replied Seth.

At the same moment the negro Jasper, who had been gazing fixedly in the direction in which Ernest Wilton had gone for aid, uttered an exclamation of frenzied delight, and began to caper about.

"Golly, Massa Rawlings," cried he, "dere dey is! dere dey is!"

The negro was right. As he spoke Mr Rawlings and Seth could see a body of men advancing over the crest of the plateau, accompanied by a waggon drawn by a pair of mules. The young engineer had accomplished his mission well. Instead of publishing his news aloud, and thereby creating a commotion amongst the miners who would have all wished to rush off en masse to the assistance of Mr Rawlings and Seth Allport, both much liked by all, and the rescue of Sailor Bill, whom the men had got also attached to in the same way as the crew of the Susan Jane, Ernest drew Noah Webster on one side, and briefly told him what had occurred and what Mr Rawlings had ordered to be done.

Noah was equally prompt and discreet.

Mustering one of the gangs, who had completed their shift in sinking the new shaft and had had a rest, he told them to get their rifles quietly and accompany him to the prairie, when he mentioned casually, in a way they appeared to understand, the boss and manager had come across some "red game" and wanted their help.

At the same time the backwoodsman ordered Josh, who was nothing loth to have the chance of abandoning his caboose duties for a while, to have a couple of mules hitched to the waggon; while he beckoned Moose, the half-breed, who apparently suspected something was in the wind, to come towards him, when the two conferred, while the miners and Josh were getting ready.

The whole thing, indeed, was so well managed, that within ten minutes of Ernest Wilton's arrival in camp, the rescuing party had started for the spot where Mr Rawlings and Seth and the terror-stricken Jasper were awaiting their approach: a band of strong, well-armed, resolute men, consisting, besides the young engineer himself and Noah Webster, of Moose the half-breed, Black Harry—one of the former crew of the Susan Jane, a muscular giant who would have been a match for three Indians in himself—and five of the miners, old "Californian stagers," used to frontier life and rough and tumble fighting—in addition to Josh, of course, who drove the mule waggon.

As soon as the scene of the fray was reached, Seth was lifted carefully into the waggon and sent back to Minturne Creek, under the care of Jasper—who took the place of Josh as teamster, that darkey displaying considerably more pluck than the former, and evincing as much eagerness to encounter the Indians as Jasper did to avoid them—while the rescuing party followed on the trail of Sailor Bill's abductors.



STORY ONE, CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

RISING CLOUD.

"Silenza!" said the half-breed warningly, hearing Black Harry talking rather loudly and threatening what he would do in case a hair of the poor boy was injured,—"Silenza! Senors must go soft, or Sioux hear mens speak!"

This happened just as they started, and from that moment not a word was further spoken amongst the party, the men preserving a solemn silence and marching one after the other in single file, Moose and Noah Webster leading the way, and tracking the course of the Indians like sleuth-hounds, seeing traces of the passage of those of whom they were in pursuit in places where, as in the rocky bottom of a dry ravine they presently came across, no footprints were perceptible like as they were when the trail led through the prairie-grass, in a manner most unaccountable both to Mr Rawlings and the young engineer.

On and on, mile after mile, went the gallant little band, at one time treading downward towards some bottom or valley, at another their route lying upwards along some ascending plateau, until the afternoon grew dusky and night approached, when they had travelled over a considerable distance of ground from their starting-point.

The prairie still stretched before them, the fringe of trees on the horizon which Ernest Wilton had perceived some hours before still far off, but much nearer than they were then, although, as he saw now, they certainly could not indicate the banks of the Missouri, as he had then thought; while between this distant bank of timber, that stood out here under the shades of evening more strongly against the sky line, were sundry little timbered islands as it were amidst the vast ocean of spreading plain on which they were.

As it got darker, the half-breed, who was unacquainted with Wolf's sagacity, that equalled his own in following a trail, made them understand that they must give up the pursuit until the morning light, or moon, should it not be obscured, enabled the trail to be deciphered; but Wolf's master showing him what to do, and a sort of leash being attached to the dog so that he should not go too fast on the scent and be lost sight of in the gathering gloom, the expedition started on again, after a brief halt, as untiringly as ever.

"Ugh!" ejaculated Moose, when they had continued their quest through the darkness with Wolf's aid for about an hour, more or less—"Hist! Light yonder! Stay here, I go see!" and he disappeared from amongst them, while the others halted on the spot, from whence they could faintly perceive the glimmer of firelight shining amidst trees in front of them: so they were evidently near one of those little wooded islands they had observed in the distance.

After an absence which seemed unconscionably long to those who remained behind, the half-breed returned, and from what he said Mr Rawlings divided the band into two portions, one of which he ordered to follow Moose, whose object was to take the Indians in the rear, while the main body attacked them in front, thus causing them to surrender probably at the display of their overwhelming numbers, the two parties acting together by a concerted signal, without any recourse to their weapons, which would most likely endanger the life of poor Sailor Bill whom they had come to save.

All proceeded satisfactorily up to a certain point.

The half of the band that accompanied Moose stole forward, skirting round the trees so as to get the Indians in a line between themselves and Mr Rawlings' party; and presently the solitary note of the melancholy whip-poor-will was heard from amidst the trees, to warn the others that Moose and his companions were in position, and they were to close in nearer to the Indian camp before the half-breed should give the second intimation that it was time for the final rush.

Black Harry's indiscretion, however, at this juncture spoilt Moose's plan of surprising the Indians and effecting their object without bloodshed. As they approached nearer the light that glimmered from amid the trees, they could see that three Indians were seated round it, while close adjoining them was poor Sailor Bill lashed tightly to a tree, like a poor lamb that was to be slaughtered in some butcher's shop.

The sight was too much for the unthinking but gallant seaman, so, despite Mr Rawlings' strict injunctions to the contrary, he levelled his rifle and fired point-blank into the group of Indians huddled over the fire.

The savages started up with a yell of alarm; and, seizing their arms hurriedly, one of them darted towards the motionless figure of Sailor Bill with an uplifted hatchet in his hand.

At that moment Mr Rawlings, seeing the imminent jeopardy of the boy, fired, and the Indian's arm fell as if broken by the bullet, the hatchet dropping from his hand; in another second, however, the savage picked up the weapon again and would have brained Sailor Bill, being in the act of hurling it at him with a malignant aim, when Wolf, who had stolen forward at the first outburst, dashed at the Indian's throat with a low growl of vengeance, and brought him to the ground.

"Don't kill them!" shouted Mr Rawlings, in a voice that made itself heard above the melee; and after a brief struggle, the two remaining Indians were secured and firmly bound, although it took all Black Harry's strength to overcome the one he grappled, who turned out to be the chief of the party, while the one Wolf had brought down suffered terribly from the grip of the dog on his throat.

After all had cooled down from the contest, which had lasted some little time, Mr Rawlings directed Moose to ask the Indian chief—who, the half-breed said, was a leading warrior of the Sioux tribe, rejoicing in the sounding title of "Rising Cloud,"—why he had attacked an innocent settler and miner like Seth Allport, and stolen away the boy that was with him?

The Indian, however, did not seem to require the services of an interpreter, for he answered Mr Rawlings as if he thoroughly comprehended the gist of the question Moose was deputed to ask him.

"Paleface lie!" he said angrily, in broken English, which he mastered much better indeed than the half-breed did in his half-Spanish patter. "Rising Cloud was hunting on the lands of his tribe when tall paleface hunter shoot him as if he were a beast of the forest. The red man isn't a dog to be trodden on, so he gave the paleface a lesson, to remind him Rising Cloud could have killed him if he had willed it."

"But why steal the boy?" asked Mr Rawlings, thinking that perhaps the Indian had some right on his side in assailing Seth after he had fired at him first.

"Boy jump at Rising Cloud like grizzly bear. Boy grow up fine warrior. Rising Cloud take him to his wigwam to make him big Sioux chief by-and-by and fight the paleface dogs."

"That's a very pleasant way of appropriation," said Ernest Wilton, under his voice, to Mr Rawlings. "But what's that he says, about fighting the palefaces?"

"I thought there was peace between the red man and the children of the Great Father at Washington?" said Mr Rawlings, alluding to the current legend in frontier life that all the settlers out west are the progeny of the President of the United States for the time being.

"No peace long," said the Sioux chief defiantly, a savage smile lighting up his expressive features. "Hatchet dug up already. War soon—in 'nother moon."

"Well, that's a pleasant prospect to look forward to!" said Ernest, in a half-serious, half-comic way, as he usually regarded most things. "But what's to be done with these fellows now? Sailor Bill is none the worse for his temporary captivity, and I suppose Seth will be all right in a few days, after his wounds get better. I suppose we shall have to let them go?"

"Yes," said Mr Rawlings; "but I must consult Noah Webster first."

After consultation with that worthy, it was determined that the whole party should take advantage of the Indians' bivouac and remain there till the morning, when they would have had a good rest; but the Indians must be kept bound, and one taken with them on the back track next day until they had accomplished half their return journey home, when he would be released, and sent back free to unloose his comrades. This, Noah Webster said, was the only course they could adopt in order to avoid any treachery with the redskins, Noah saying that he would not trust them farther than he could see them, and laughing at Mr Rawlings' idea of releasing them at once on parole.

"Why, if yer did so," said he, "none of us would ever git back to Minturne Creek to tell the tale!"

Accordingly, Noah's plan was adopted. The little band that had accomplished Sailor Bill's rescue so satisfactorily, rested after their labours till the morning, when, leaving two of the Indians bound to trees in a similar way as they had discovered poor Seth's protege, they started back for the camp, taking with them the chief, Rising Cloud, whom they did not release until they reached the spot where the original row had occurred, where the chief had his arms unpinioned and was told he might go and free his companions.

The Indian did not take a very affectionate farewell of his escort. As Mr Rawlings and Ernest untied his hands and told him he might go, he pointed first towards the sky, then towards the east from whence they had just come, and then in the direction where Minturne Creek lay.

"Yes, white man master now! Rising Cloud go home to his tribe; but by-and-by he come back again with a thousand warriors at his back, and wipe out the white men, robbers of the red man's land. Yes, by the Manitou of the palefaces Rising Cloud swears it!"

And the Indian spat on the ground with a savage gesture as he spoke.



STORY ONE, CHAPTER NINETEEN.

GOLD AT LAST—EUREKA!

When Jasper and the mule waggon appeared at Minturne Creek, some time after the departure of Noah Webster and the rescue party, the miners who had been left at work under the charge of Tom Cannon, as Noah's deputy, greeted the arrival with a cheer, as they had been kept in ignorance of what had really happened, and imagined that the waggon had been sent for, as well as a few additional good shots from their party, in order to bring in an unexpected supply of game which the hunters had come across.

Jasper's conveyance certainly did carry something in the game line, the negro having mentioned to Seth about the wapiti deer that Ernest Wilton had shot, and being directed by him to stop and cart it home with them, as it lay in their road to the camp; but the main cargo of the waggon, their wounded manager, whom Jasper hailed them to come and help him lift out, was a double surprise to the men, and a grief as well, as may be readily understood when it is considered how much Seth was liked by the hands under him.

They vowed vengeance against the Indians; and it required all the exercise of Seth's authority to prevent another party from sallying off to aid the first in the rescue of Sailor Bill. But, after a time, the excitement calmed down, and they waited with as much patience as they possessed the return of the others; although nothing that Seth could say would persuade them to turn in all that weary night, during which time they were in a state of suspense as to the fate of their comrades; and they were equally disinclined to resume work in the mine.

They seemed capable of doing nothing, until they should learn how the matter was settled, one way or other; and—heedless even of the welcome addition of fresh meat to their scanty fare, in the fine wapiti that they possessed through the precision of the young engineer's rifle, which at another time would have roused equally their enthusiasm and their appetites—remained grouped round impromptu log-fires that they had lit to hail the absentees when they came back, looking to their arms and ammunition so as to be ready for anything that might happen, and considering amongst themselves as to what was best to be done in the event of the non-arrival of the rescue party within a reasonable limit; Seth fretting and worrying himself the while as much as any, although he tried to preserve a quiet demeanour in order to reassure the rest, and exclaiming against the "paltry wounds," as he called them—which gave him much pain in spite of Jasper continually soaking the bandages around them with cold water in pursuance of his directions—that prevented him from taking an active part in his protege's recovery, instead of waiting idly there while others went bravely to the fore, as he should have done.

Be the night however weary, and watching long, the morning comes at last:—thus it was now with the miners of Minturne Creek.

Daylight is a wonderful panacea for those gloomy thoughts and anxieties which are nourished and magnified during the dark hours of the night; so, when the sun arose next morning, after the weary watch of Seth and the others, in the expectation that they might receive every moment the news of some disaster to their comrades who had been gone so long, instead of their fears being increased by the knowledge that the rescue party had not yet returned, they felt inclined to take a much more sanguine view of the situation—a view that Seth not only endorsed but was the prime agent in promulgating, possibly through the pain of his wounds having considerably lessened and caused him to look on things in a more hopeful way.

"Tha'are all right b'ys, I reckon," said he. "No noos is good noos; fur ef anythin' had kinder happen'd to 'em, we should have heert afore."

"So thinks I," said Tom Cannon; "and let's set to work agin, mates, at the shaft, to let the boss see, when he comes back, that we ha'n't been idle in his absence; p'raps, too, we'll have something to show him in the gold line, as I don't think as how we're far off the lode now."

"That's yer sort," echoed Seth, from amidst the pile of buffalo rugs alongside one of the fires in the open space before the hut, where he would persist in staying, to be the first to receive the rescue party on their return, and where he said he could nurse his injuries far better than going to bed in the anxious frame of mind he was in. "That's yer sort, b'ys! Tackle to the job with a will, my hearties; it'll be a durned sight better nor restin' on your oars and doin' nothin', as I'm forced to do, like the battered old hulk I am!"

These cheery words from Tom Cannon and Seth had the desired effect of restoring a little more activity to the scene around the creek; and the small band of the remaining miners, dividing their attenuated forces into two gangs and taking short shifts turn about at intervals, worked with such praiseworthy diligence, that when Mr Rawlings and the other adventurers arrived in safety near mid-day, escorting the recovered Sailor Bill scatheless in triumph back to the camp, they had got through a surprising amount of work. The tubbing had been put into position two days before, and had been found to act admirably; the water had been pumped out, and the men at work were driving to the left, as Ernest Wilton thought that they were at present only on the wall of the lode, which was a very strong one, and that it would be found much richer upon the other wall.

As soon as mutual congratulations had been interchanged amongst the leaders, and the joy of the whole party at being once more reunited had somewhat subsided, Tom Cannon, and one of the leading miners who had been last down the new shaft, approached the spot where Mr Rawlings, Ernest Wilton, and Noah Webster were grouped, chatting together, with Seth—behind whom Sailor Bill had taken up his usual place, on his return to camp, with his customary apathetic air, the boy not exhibiting the slightest increase of animation, despite all the excitement and unwonted scenes through which he had recently passed, or any return to that sudden change of demeanour, almost amounting to a fit of frenzy, which he had again displayed for an instant, as Seth asserted, when he interposed to save his life from the onslaught of the savage, on the prairie, as he had done when he came forward in a similar way to rescue him on board the Susan Jane on the ship's being taken aback the previous year.

"I guess thaar's sunthin' up now," said Noah Webster, as the two men came towards him and the others, noticing a slight assumption of mystery on the part of Tom Cannon and his companion, a man who was familiarly styled "Left Bower" amongst the miners, from the fact not only of his surname being Bower, but on account of the singular dexterity he exhibited in the great American card game of euchre.

"Guess so," said Seth, sotto voce. "They've been downright busy since you've been gone, workin' like hosses, that they have! Waal, b'ys," he added aloud for the benefit of the coming deputation, "what's the rumpus neow? Panned out anythin' tall?"

"See!" said Tom Cannon, opening his closed fist and displaying a little tiny heap of gold dust lying in the palm of his hand. "All that came out o' one lump o' quartz taken out of the gravel in the heading we've begun. We can see it everywhere in the rock, and it was getting richer every inch we got in."

"Ay," put in Left Bower, "heaps, I reckon, boss," addressing himself to Mr Rawlings, who turned as pale at the receipt of the news as if he were going to faint. "We've struck the lode at last, mister, and run slick inter a bonanza if ever they were one; may I never see Frisco again, if we haven't!"

"Hooray!" shouted Seth, attempting to rise and wave his hat as he was wont to do in moments of triumph, but quickly quieting down again as the pain of his foot reminded him of having been wounded. "Didn't I say so—ask any a one in camp if I didn't—that we'd find the gold at last? Hooray!" he repeated aloud at the pitch of his voice, his cheer being taken up instantly by the main body of the miners, who were gossiping in front of Josh's caboose, with a heartiness that resounded through the valley and even made the hills echo again; while Jasper, who had been under a sort of cloud ever since his cowardly conduct on the prairie, joined Josh in an exciting pas a deux before the latter's culinary sanctum, and repeating ever and anon his jubilant song, "Golly, massa, um told yer so!"

"And you are not through the vein yet?" asked Ernest Wilton when he was able to speak calmly, he and Mr Rawlings hurrying towards the head of the new workings in company with Noah Webster and the first discoverers of the ore; the rest of the miners following after at a distance; eager to set to work again at once as soon as their leaders should give orders to that effect. Seth, seeing himself thus deserted, and not wishing to be "left out in the cold," therefore requisitioned the aid of the two darkeys, and made them carry him in the rear of the procession, which put a summary stop to their dancing, but delighted them equally as well, for they were thus enabled to learn all that was going on without the annoyance of having their ears perchance boxed for listening without permission: consequently there was a general move all round.

"No sign of the other wall," said Tom Cannon as spokesman, "we're nigh four feet in from the bottom of the shaft. The richest is that near the river."

"That is just what we expected from the statement of Mr Rawlings' original discoverer. He found it rich in the little shaft he sank there, and that is at the point where the two lodes run into each other. I expect we shall find it richer every foot we go in that direction. If so, it will be one of the richest finds we know of."

So saying, Ernest, full of eagerness and expectation, was lowered away into the mine by the men. He did not stop very long below the surface; and on his return his face seemed to glow with the goods news he brought.

"It's all right," he gasped out, almost before he got out of the shaft; "you've hit on the richest lode I ever saw in my experience. We ought to get tons of gold out of that quartz. We have just struck the centre of a pocket, I think, which must extend to the old workings of your cousin Ned. Mr Rawlings, I congratulate you; your luck has changed at last, and if all turns out as I expect, you'll be the wealthiest man in Dakota!"

"Hooray, b'ys!" shouted out Seth, almost choking poor Josh and Jasper by gripping their necks with his muscular arms in his excitement, the darkeys supporting him, as if in a chair with their hands clasped beneath him, on which he sat with his arms resting on their shoulders, although he now shifted his hold unwittingly to their necks. "Hooray! I sed the Britisher were the b'y for us; an' so he air!"



STORY ONE, CHAPTER TWENTY.

INDIAN ALARMS.

The men now worked with unflagging vigour. The cross-cut was first pushed across the vein, which was found to extend thirteen feet beyond the side of the shaft. It was not unbroken quartz, as here and there the rock came in, but seemed to consist of four separate veins, which sometimes joined together, sometimes were separated by partitions of rock. The richest portion of the vein was two feet from the farthest wall, and here the gold was everywhere thickly scattered through the quartz. Now, they drove right and left along the course of the lode, and found that in both directions the walls were coming closer together.

"It is only a pocket," Ernest Wilton said. "You will see that in about five fathoms either way the quartz will finish in to its usual width, and become poor. However, we must not mind that; if it holds for a few fathoms in depth there will be half a million pounds' worth at least. Twenty tons of quartz like this we see would suffice to make us all rich men, and we know that there is double that at least."

As the young engineer predicted, the lode fell away to its original width, and soon ceased to carry visible gold.

Then they began to sink deeper. Twenty feet lower the walls of the lode again began to approach each other, and there was now a possibility of calculating the amount of quartz in the "pocket."

"I am of opinion," Ernest Wilton said, "that there will be fifty tons of the richest stuff, and nearly two hundred of what I may call second class, but which is still exceedingly rich. But it is time now that we should carry out our plans. We must get up a small mill with five stamps, with a wheel to be worked by water from the mountain stream. It is likely enough that such a set could be got in one of the mining-camps, and I must make a short journey to Bismark and perhaps further west in search of gear. While I am away, the men will have to cut a leet to bring the water along the side of the hill from the torrent, and get all the quartz out of the mine."

All this time, however, even with the confident expectation of untold wealth being now almost within his grasp, not one of the party had forgotten the parting threat of Rising Cloud, and his warning that, ere many months were over, the camp at Minturne Creek would be assailed by the Sioux tribe in full force.

Indeed, if Mr Rawlings or Seth, or Noah especially, who had had such a long experience of the dangers of backwoods life away from the settlements, and thoroughly appreciated the old adage that "he who is forewarned is forearmed," were at all inclined to laugh at the Indian's declaration as an empty boast, many circumstances would have constrained them to alter their opinion, and make them be prepared for anything that might happen.

In the first place, a stage used to run from Bismark to the Black Hills at stray intervals, when they first camped at Minturne Creek—although it did not come within some miles of their own valley—and continued running until the winter set in; but when the spring developed, and the roads got in working order again, no stage was to be met with; and rumour had it that it had been "frightened off the track by the Injuns."

In the early months of summer this rumour received additional confirmation by the arrival of some scouts from the settlements, with the news that the Sioux had declared war against the United States authorities, and that all the outlying settlers had been warned to withdraw into the townships, where they could join together and resist any attack made on them.

And, later still, a special messenger from one of the military stations on the Missouri, where "Uncle Sam's" troops were quartered, brought them word that intelligence had been received that Rising Cloud had published his intention of attacking the Minturne Creek miners especially, and that his band of warriors had already started on the war-path—although the commander of the detachment at Fort Warren assured them that he was following up the Indians, and would revenge them should they happen to get "wiped out" before he came up with the redskins!

This, naturally, was no very cheering intelligence; but the miners were not discouraged, although they took every wise precaution so that their wary foe should not catch them napping; and so, whether they were working in the mine or went hunting—as they did more frequently when the buffalo came northwards later on, led from the southern plains, which form their more common habitat throughout the year, by the rich blue grass, and other prairie delicacies which these bovine beasts loved, that flourished among the valleys of the Black Hills; or whether they were digging in the kitchen garden that Josh and Jasper had improvised at the back of the little hut where they all lived—every man went armed or had his arms handy. In addition to this, sentinels were posted through the day at the entrance of the Creek, to warn them of the approach of any suspicious strangers to the camp; while Seth caused as rigid a watch to be kept at night, taking the first and fourth turns himself, as if he were still a first mate with the responsibilities of a ship on his hands and walking the deck of the Susan Jane.



STORY ONE, CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

THE WAR-WHOOP.

Having levelled the line for the watercourse, Ernest Wilton prepared for his journey.

The news of the Indian raids made travelling very dangerous, and Mr Rawlins's urged Ernest to let him go in his stead. But to this Ernest strongly objected, advancing all sorts of reasons but the right one against Mr Rawlings starting for Bismark, stating amongst other arguments that if the worthy leader of the party went, the miners might think he was running away from the Creek for fear of the Indians attacking them.

"No, no, my boy!" laughed Mr Rawlings; "you cannot wheedle me by using such an argument as that, Wilton! It is too absurd, for the miners know me too well for that, and so do you; besides, it is far more perilous to venture out into the open, as you are about to do, than to remain here, where, united together as we are in a phalanx of stout, able-bodied men, in an almost impregnable position, we could resist any formidable attack in force. No, no, my boy; you may tell that to the marines. But do inform me, Wilton, what is your real motive in wishing to go yourself? I consent certainly to your going, as you press the matter; but I should like to know your ulterior object, if only to satisfy my curiosity."

"Well," said Ernest, laughing too, "I didn't like to tell you at first for fear of wounding your sensibilities. To tell you the truth, I think I am more competent to get what I want than you are, as, if I do not see any of the things I require exactly, I may be able to pick up makeshifts that will answer my purpose as well, while you would be trying to procure impossibilities, perhaps, just because I mentioned them in the list of my requirements, and would be satisfied with nothing else."

"Very good, have your way," said Mr Rawlings, satisfied with the reason advanced, and handing the young engineer at the same time a roll of greenbacks that represented all his available capital. "But you must be economical in your purchases, my boy. This is all the money I can spare you for your expenses and everything. I think you had better take a few rich specimens with you, and should your funds run short they may give you credit if you tell them you have fifty tons of it ready for the mill."

"All right," said Ernest cheerfully, pocketing the parcel, and making an inward resolution the while to supply any deficiency in that respect from his own funds—which, indeed, was his true motive for undertaking the commission in person, although he concealed it from Mr Rawlings; for he was aware that the latter had got near the end of his resources, and would have been indignant if he had offered to be his temporary banker in order to buy all that was now needed for the mine, which he had made up his mind to be, whether he liked it or not, without his knowing it; and he chuckled to himself as he told Mr Rawlings that the money would do amply.

"I suppose, Wilton, you'll take the waggon and a team of mules with you to bring back the things, eh?" said Mr Rawlings presently, as the young engineer began making his preparations for starting.

"Yes," said Ernest, "and shall have to hire four or five others; but I need only have them with me as far as Fort Bennett on the Missouri, where, as I pointed out to you just now, I can get a passage in one of the river steamers right up to Bismark, and the same way back with all my purchases. Why, Mr Rawlings, you must have come here by almost as roundabout a route as I did from Oregon! You told me that you took a month getting to Minturne Creek with your mining plant and other goods, dragging them, I suppose, the whole distance from the railway depot across the plains, instead of taking advantage of the waterway as I am going to do now."

"That is very true," answered the other. "But Moose said it was the best way, and I allowed him to shape his own course."

"He'll have to shape mine now!" said Ernest dryly; and the same day he and the half-breed, with the valiant Josh in charge of the waggon and a ten-mule team, started for Fort Bennett, a distance of some hundred and forty miles from the camp, which they accomplished within three days, not meeting with any obstruction in the shape of Indians on the road.

At this station Ernest left Moose with the waggon and mules, while he took passage for himself and Josh in one of the steam-boats which ply along the rolling waters of the Missouri to the large town on its banks above, that may now be called the capital of Dakota.

At Bismark he was fortunate enough to hear of some machinery which would exactly suit him; it had been sent west for a mine, which before it arrived had proved so poor that it was abandoned, and the wheel and stamps were now for sale. He also laid in some stores, besides a quantity of gunpowder, and lead for bullets, which he thought would come in handy for the Indians should they lay siege to Minturne Creek.

When he knew the weight of the goods, he sent word down the river to Moose at Fort Bennett, and the latter hired five additional waggons and teams, which were all in readiness when he arrived by steamer with the machinery. Everything was soon packed up, and the little party tracked back to the camp, having been but twenty days away altogether.

"You air smart!" said Seth, who was the first to welcome Ernest on his arrival, the ex-mate having now quite recovered from his wounds, and "hopping about on his pins," as he expressed it, "as merrily as ever," himself again in every particular. "You air smart, mister! I guess you're the slickest coon I ever seed for makin' tracks—Jerusalem, you air!"

"You would have made haste too, friend Seth," said Ernest, laughing— there never was such a fellow to laugh as he was—"if you had heard what I have about those blessed Indians, and our old acquaintance, Rising Cloud."

"What is that?" asked Mr Rawlings anxiously, who had just come up in time to catch the last observation of the young engineer—"what have you heard about Rising Cloud?"

"Only," said Ernest, and he spoke gravely enough now—"that he is spreading murder and havoc all along the banks of the Missouri, and may be soon here upon us with the miscreant gang he leads. I heard terrible tales of him in the steamer I came down the river in. The captain of the little craft told me that the Indians had burnt every outlying settlement in Southern Dakota, massacring all the white inhabitants, and were making their way northwards, so we'd better look out. Why, he said they'd even attacked his boat when it was at one of the landings; and if he hadn't put on steam he and his vessel would have been settled, with all on board."

"Ah," said Mr Rawlings, "that corroborates the warning we got from the commander of the United States troops at Fort Warren when you were away. We certainly must keep a careful look now, for it would not do to repeat all of my poor Cousin Ned's experiences, and have the result of our toil snatched from our grasp by those relentless fiends of the prairie when it was just within our reach, as it was in his, poor fellow!"

Mr Rawlings then went on to tell Ernest what they had heard, and give an account of what had transpired during his absence at the settlements; after which the whole party proceeded to examine their defences in detail, the young engineer suggesting that they should entrench the camp in a systematic way, and also the machinery which would be erected on the river's bank.

There were but two directions from which they could be attacked; for the precipitous range of the Black Hills, standing behind Minturne Creek with its semicircular rampart, protected their rear and sides, so that they had only their front face to guard, along the course of the stream, following the gulch.

The same safeguards which they had adopted before were redoubled in the face of the second warning they received by the account Ernest Wilton brought back with him of the Indian savages in their neighbourhood, their day and night watch being maintained with the strictest regularity.

The teams were soon unloaded and started on their return journey, and with the exception of the men engaged in clearing out the quartz from the mine, all hands set to to erect the water-wheel and stamps, which operation, as all the pieces of timber were fitted and numbered, was an easy and rapid one.

In three weeks afterwards all was ready for a start. Five hundredweight of quartz was then weighed out and carried down to the stamps, the gear which connected the machinery with the great wheel which was revolving in the river was connected, and the stamps began to rise and fall with a heavy regular rhythm.

The quartz was thrown in beneath the stamps shovelful by shovelful, and in an hour and a half the last fragment was used up. For another half hour the stamps rose and fell, then the water running through them was no longer milk-white, and the stamps were stopped. Then the blankets spread upon the ways by which the mud-charged gold had flowed were taken up and washed, the quicksilver was taken out of the concentrators and passed through wash-leather bags, in which great rolls of amalgam remained. These were placed in large crucibles to drive off the quicksilver, and then removed from the furnace and the gold placed in the scale. To this was added the fine gold from the blankets. Ernest Wilton added the weights, and around him stood Mr Rawlings and all the miners off duty.

"Just a hundred ounces," he said, "five hundred ounces to the ton; speaking roughly, 1800 pounds a ton."

"Hurrah!" shouted Seth Allport, his ringing voice making itself heard above the sound of the rushing water and the echoing chorus of the men's cheers; but, an instant after, his exclamation of delight was changed to one of dismay, as a flight of arrows and the ping of rifle bullets whistled around the party, while the dread war-whoop of their Indian assailants burst forth in all its shrill discordancy.

"Who—ah—ah—ah—ah—oop!"



STORY ONE, CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.

A FIGHT FOR LIFE!

In the excitement of starting the stamps, the usual precautions which had been previously practised, of posting sentinels and keeping their arms ready, were for the moment forgotten; but after the first startle of surprise at being so unexpectedly attacked passed over, there was a general rush to cover of all the members of the party, behind the breastwork of earth that the young engineer had caused to be thrown up round the spot facing the river all along its right bank, the men catching up their rifles and cartridge-pouches—which lay here and there about as they had dropped them in their expectancy while waiting the result of the weighing—as they ran to shelter themselves and prepared to return the fire of their foes.

All the miners rushed to the breastwork save one, and that was Seth.

At the instant he turned, like his comrades, to seek the protection of the rampart, towards which the others hastened, an arrow struck Sailor Bill slanting-wise across his forehead, and, tossing up his hands, the poor boy, who was standing on the timber which led to the wheel, tumbled over into the foaming water below that was seething like a whirlpool.

Uttering a frenzied ejaculation of anguish and grief, Seth plunged into the flood, and an instant after dragged forth Sailor Bill's body, heedless of the arrows and bullets of the Indians, the former of which darkened the air in their passage around him, while the latter whistled through his garments.

The intrepid fellow seemed to bear a charmed life, for not a shot nor a barbed head of the savages' feathered missiles reached him as he pulled the poor boy's apparently lifeless body from the water, Seth not being content until he had hauled it up beneath the breastwork; when with a shout of vengeance he seized his rifle and set to work to aid the others in dealing death on those who had, as he thought, killed his protege.

It was a terrific fight whilst it lasted.

Mingled with the war-whoop of the Sioux, which was repeated ever and anon, as if to excite them anew to the carnage, came the fierce exclamations of the miners, and the calm word of command from Mr Rawlings occasionally, to restrain the men from getting too flurried.— He certainly showed himself worthy of the post of leader then!

"Steady, boys! Don't waste your fire. Aim low; and don't shoot too quickly!"

"Ping! ping!" flew the bullets through the smoky medium with which they were surrounded, while an occasional "thud" evinced the fact that one of their assailants had fallen:—"ping, ping, ping!" it was a regular fusillade;—and the miners delivered their fire like trained soldiers from behind the breastwork that had so providentially been erected in time!

Presently there was a rush of the redskins, and the besieged party could hear the voice of Rising Cloud encouraging his warriors, and taunting those he attacked.

"Dogs of palefaces!" cried the chief, "your bones shall whiten the prairie, and your blood colour the buffalo grass, for your treatment of Rising Cloud in the morn of the melting of the snow! I said I would come before the scarlet sumach should spring again on the plains; and Rising Cloud and his warriors are here!"

Then came the fearful war-whoop again, with that terrible iteration at its end "Who—ah—ah—ah—ah—oop!" like the howl of a laughing hyaena.

The river alone interposed between the whites and their enemy, and gave them a spell of breathing time, but in spite of this protection, the odds were heavy against them; for what could even sixteen resolute men, as the party now numbered—for one had been mortally wounded by a chance shot, and although Josh the negro cook could tight bravely and did, Jasper was not of much use—do in a hand-to-hand struggle with hundreds of red-skinned human devils thirsting for their blood?

The river, however, was a great help, especially now that it had been converted into a mill-race, and flooded beyond its usual proportions; for, when the Indians rushed into the water to wade across and assault the camp at close quarters, as the shallowness of the stream at that season of the year would previously have easily enabled them to have done, they found, to their astonishment, first that the current, which they did not expect to be more than a foot deep, rose above their waist-belts, then above their armpits, and finally above their heads, as, pushed onwards by their companions behind, they were submerged in the flood; while the miners, still sheltered by Ernest Wilton's trenched rampart above, rained down a pitiless hail of bullets into the half-drowned mob, whose very strength now proved their principal weakness.

"Give it 'em, b'ys: remember poor Sailor Bill!" shouted Seth, his blood up to fever heat with passion, and the murderous spirit of revenge strong in his heart. "Give 'em goss, an' let nary a one go back to tell the story!"

"Steady, men, and fire low!" repeated Mr Rawlings.

And the miners mowed the redskins down by the score with regular volleys from their repeating rifles, although twenty fresh Indians seemed to spring up in the place of every one killed.

The fight was too severe to last long, and soon a diversion came.

As Rising Cloud, raising his tomahawk on high, and, leading the van of his warriors, was bringing them on for a decisive charge, several sharp discharges, as if from platoon firing, were heard in the rear of the Indians.

Just then, a bullet from Ernest Wilton's rifle penetrated the chief's brain, and he fell dead right across the earth rampart in front of the young engineer. The platoon firing in the rear of the savages was again repeated; the United States troops had evidently arrived to the rescue; and, taken now between two fires, and disheartened by the fall of Rising Cloud, the Sioux broke, and fled in a tumultuous mass towards the gorge by which they had entered the valley of Minturne Creek.

The struggle over, the miners had time to count casualties, and see who amongst their number had fallen in the fray.

Thanks to Ernest Wilton's breastwork, their losses had not been very heavy.

Noah Webster was slightly wounded, and Black Harry badly; while the only one killed outright was Tom Cannon, the whilom keen-sighted topman of the Susan Jane, who would never sight wreck or sail more, for Sailor Bill was only wounded, and not dead, after all.

Jasper, who had been hiding beneath the embankment beside the boy's supposed lifeless body, had perceived signs of returning animation in it, to which he immediately called the attention of Seth and also Mr Rawlings, and the three were bending over the figure in a moment. Just almost a year before they were bending over Sailor Bill in precisely the same way in the cabin of the Susan Jane. The Indian's arrow had ploughed under the skin of the boy's forehead nearly at the same place that bore the scar of his former wound when he had been picked up at sea, and could not have inflicted any dangerous injury; it was evidently the shock of falling into the foaming torrent from the tunnel, as it rushed into the river, that had rendered Sailor Bill senseless for the time being.

He was now coming back to himself, for his limbs twitched convulsively, and there was a faint tremor about the eyelids.

Just then Ernest Wilton came up and stood by the side of Mr Rawlings, while Seth was rubbing the boy's bared chest vigorously with his brawny hand to hasten the restoration of the circulation; and at that moment Sailor Bill opened his eyes—eyes that were expressionless no longer, but with the light of reason in their hidden intelligence—and fixed his gaze on the young engineer as if he recognised him at once.

"Ernest!" the boy exclaimed wonderingly, "what brings you here? Why, where am I?"

And he looked from one to the other of the group around him in a half-puzzled way, "Jerusalem!" ejaculated Seth, jumping to his feet and turning to the young engineer. "He knows you, mister. Ken you rec'lect him?"

"By Jove!" said Ernest, "I do believe it's my cousin, Frank Lester, now I hear his voice. Frank!"

"Yes, Ernest," answered the boy, heaving a sigh of relief. "Then it is you after all. I thought I was dreaming."

And he sank back into a calm sleep as if he were in bed.



STORY ONE, CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.

AFTER THE BATTLE.

"Now didn't I say so, Rawlings?" said Seth triumphantly, turning to that gentleman. "I leave it to any one if I didn't diagnose the boy's symptoms correctly! I said ef he can meet with a similar shock to that which cost him his reason, he'd get it back again. I told you that from the first on board the Susan Jane."

"You certainly did," replied Mr Rawlings. "It's the most curious case I ever heard or read of! Do you think, Seth, when he wakes up he'll be still all right here?" tapping his forehead expressively.

"Sartain as thaar's snakes in Virginny!" said the ex-mate, returning for a moment to his vernacular mode of speech; although, his medical instincts asserting themselves again presently, he spoke more formally and in professional style in continuation of his reply to Mr Rawlings. "He is still in a semi-comatose condition, as that somnolent fit assures us; but he will sleep it off, and rouse up by and by in the proper possession of his faculties, a glimpse of which we observed just now."

"I'm right glad to hear it," said Mr Rawlings. "What a difference that look of intelligence in his eyes made in him! I declare I would hardly have known him to be the same boy!"

"You're right there," said Seth. "I've read in some book of the eyes bein' called 'the windows of the soul;' an' I believe it's pretty near the mark."

"Golly, massa Rawlings," put in Jasper at this juncture—the darkey had been dying to speak for a long time—"p'raps him turn out to be gran' fine genelmun, for sure, 'sides bein' massa Willerton's cuzzing, hey?"

"P'raps I'll souse you in the river if you don't make tracks and bring down somethin' as we can take poor Sailor Bill up to the hut in," said Seth, speaking again in his customary way and in a manner that Jasper plainly understood, for he disappeared at once, returning shortly in company with Josh, the two bearing a mattress between them, on which the boy was placed, still asleep, and carried up to the house, where he was softly put down on Mr Rawlings' bed and left, with Seth watching by his side until he should wake up, as the latter expected, in his proper senses.

The camp was in a state of tremendous excitement, as may be supposed, for no less than three thrilling episodes of interest had occurred all in one day, any one of which would have been sensational enough in itself to have afforded matter for gossip for a month.

The starting of the stamps—the attack and repulse of the long-dreaded Indian band—the fact of Sailor Bill recovering his lost senses—all happening at once, all coming together!

It was too much for even the most apathetic of the miners to contemplate calmly. And when, after the final departure of the American soldiery— whose commander returned, after pursuing the Sioux for some distance amongst the Black Hills, to report that no further attack need be feared from the band, which was now thoroughly dispersed and incapable of assailing the camp a second time, that year at least—Minturne Creek resumed its normal quietude, and seemed duller than ever after such stirring events as had recently been witnessed, the excited gold-diggers gathered together in twos and threes, thinking over and talking about what had happened.

Beyond the stirring events that had happened they had also to mourn the loss of two of their number, as gallant comrades as men ever had—for, ere long, Black Harry had followed the smart foretopman to the silent land, succumbing to the dangerous wound he had received towards the end of the struggle from an Indian tomahawk wielded by a powerful arm, which had almost cleft the poor fellow's skull in twain; and, after so many months of close companionship, the death of the two sailors was keenly felt.

The best way to banish painful thoughts, however, as Mr Rawlings knew from sad experience, was to engage in active employment; so he did not allow the men to remain idle, although he gave them ample time for a rest after the fight was over.

Summoning to his aid Noah Webster, who, like some of the others who had received trivial wounds, made light of the bullet hole through his arm, he mustered the hands late in the afternoon of the eventful day, and delivered a short practical address to them before resuming operations— a speech which, being to the point, had the desired effect of making the men go back to their work with a will.

"Now, lads," said he, "we must be up and going. Sitting there talking will not bring back the poor fellows that have gone. I mourn our comrades just as much as you do, for they worked steadfastly, like the honest, true-hearted men they were, through the hard time of toil and trouble we had till recently, and at the last fought and died bravely in the defence of the camp. But, crying over them won't help them now; all we can do is to bury them where they so nobly fell, and then turn our hands to carry on our work to the end that is now so near in view, just as they would have insisted on doing if they had been alive still and with us!"

There was no more lethargy after Mr Rawlings' exhortation: as Solomon says,—"A word in season, how good it is!"

The men sprang up with alacrity to set about what he had suggested rather than ordered; and, as soon as graves had been dug in the shelter trench of the rampart that Tom Cannon and Black Harry had held so courageously against the Indians, and their bodies interred with all proper solemnity, Mr Rawlings himself reading the burial service over their remains, the miners grasped their picks and shovels with one hand as they wiped away a tear with the other, and went back to the mine, some of them possibly with the reflection that, all things considered, their slain mates were perhaps after all now better off than themselves!



STORY ONE, CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

SAILOR BILL'S STORY.

After the sad ceremony which he had just performed, Mr Rawlings did not feel much inclined for gold-seeking or any worldly affairs, although he went towards the mine as a matter of duty; and when he reached the stamps he found Ernest Wilton already standing there, but looking pale and perturbed, as if anxious about something.

"What is the matter?" said Mr Rawlings. "You seem out of sorts, beyond what the loss of these poor fellows would have affected you?"

"Yes, I am," replied the other. "I can't help thinking of that cousin of mine, and why I did not recognise him when I first saw him; but then he was quite a little boy at school, and who would have dreamt of your picking him up at sea?"

"Strange things do happen sometimes," said Mr Rawlings. "When was it that you last saw him in England?"

"Four years ago last Christmas, if I recollect aright. He was then a little schoolboy not half his present size. How on earth did he manage to get to sea? my aunt had a perfect horror of a sailor's life, and would never have let him go willingly. But, there, it only serves me right for my selfish neglect! As you told me before, I ought to have kept up my communication with my family, and then I should have known all about it. I can't help now fancying all sorts of queer things that may have occurred. My poor aunt, who used to be so fond of me, may be dead; and my uncle, who was of a roving nature kindred to mine, may—"

"Nonsense!" said Mr Rawlings, good-naturedly, interrupting him. "If you go on like that, you'll imagine you're the man in the moon, or something else! Sailor Bill, or rather your cousin Frank, as we must now call him, will wake up presently and enlighten us as to how he came to be in his present position—or rather in the Bay of Biscay, where we picked him up; for we all know his subsequent history; and then you'll learn what you are now puzzling your brains about, without any bother. I confess I am curious in the matter too, for I wish to know the secret of that mysterious packet round his neck; but we must both wait with patience, and dismiss the subject for the present from our minds. Come along with me now, my boy," he added, as the body of the miners hastened up after paying their last tribute of respect at their comrades' graves. "I'm just going to have a look at your sluices, and see whether the stuff is coming out as rich as before."

This invitation at once caused the young engineer to brighten up, as the idea of action had aroused the miners from dwelling on what had happened.

The yield upon being examined proved fully as rich as before the first experiment.

"You see, Mr Rawlings," said Ernest, cordially holding out his hand for a friendly grip, "the lead has turned out just as I fancied it would do, and my efforts to open it out proved successful. You are now, as I told you would be the case, the richest man in this State, or in Montana either, for that matter, with all their talk of Bonanza Kings there."

"You bet," chimed in Noah Webster, who felt equally proud and delighted with the young engineer at the result of their joint operations; but Mr Rawlings could say little.

The Indian attack had hitherto prevented his realising this sudden change of fortune, and now that he was fully conscious of it, all he could do was to silently shake Ernest Wilton's hand first, and then Noah Webster's; and after that each of those of the miners who pressed near him for the purpose, full of sympathy with "the good luck of the boss," and forgetting already the fate of their lost comrades in the sight of the glittering metal before them—their natural good spirits being perfectly restored a little later on, when Mr Rawlings assured them, on his recovering his speech, that he fully intended now keeping to the promise he had given when the venture was first undertaken, and would divide half the proceeds of the mine, share and share alike, among the men, in addition to paying them the wages he had engaged to do.

The ringing hurrahs with which the jubilant miners gave vent to their gladness on the reiteration of Mr Rawlings' promise, were so loud that they reached the ears of Seth, who was watching by the sleeping boy, and the latter woke up immediately with a frightened air, as if suffering from the keenest terror.

"It's all right, my b'y, all right," said Seth soothingly; and at the same time Wolf, who had entered the house and crept up by the side of the bed, leapt up on the boy and licked his face.

"Where am I, Sam?" he said to Seth, the dog's greeting having apparently calmed him down as well as the ex-mate's kindly manner; "are they after me still, Sam?"

"You are here with us," saith Seth, puzzled at the boy's addressing him so familiarly; "but my name arn't Sam, leastways, not as I knows on."

The boy looked in his face, and seemed disappointed.

"No, you are not Sam, though you are like him. Oh, now I recollect all?" and he hid his face in his hands and burst into a passionate fit of crying, as if his heart would break.

"There, there," said Seth, patting him on the back, "it's all right, I tell you, my b'y; an' when Seth says so I guess he means it!"

But the boy would not stop weeping; and Seth, thinking that some harm might result to his newly-awakened reason if he went on like that, strode to the door and summoned help, with a stentorian hail that rang through the valley as loudly as the cheer of the miners had done one instant before.

"Ahoy there, all hands on deck!" he shouted, hardly knowing what he was saying, adding a moment afterwards, "Wilton, you're wanted! Look sharp."

"Here I am," cried Wilton, hurrying up, with Mr Rawlings after him. "What is the matter now, Seth?"

"I can't make him do nothing" said that worthy hopelessly. "He takes me to be some coon or other called Sam, an' then when I speaks he turns on the water-power and goes on dreadful, that I'm afeard he'll do himself harm. Can't you quiet him, Wilton; he kinder knowed you jest now?"

"I'll try," said Ernest; and kneeling by the boy's side, he drew his hands away from his face and gently spoke to him.

"Frank! look at me: don't you know me?"

"Ye-e-es," sobbed he, "you—you are Ernest. But how did you come here? you weren't on board the ship. Oh, father! where are you, and all the rest?"

And the boy burst out crying again, in an agony of grief which was quite painful to witness.

Presently, however, he grew more composed; and, in a broken way, Ernest managed to get his story from him—a terrible tale of mutiny, and robbery, and murder on the high seas.

This was his story, as far as could be gathered from his disconnected details.

Frank Lester, much against his mother's wishes, had persuaded his father to take him with him in the early part of the previous year to the diamond fields in South Africa, whither Mr Lester was going for the purpose of purchasing some of the best stones he could get for a large firm who intrusted him with the commission. The object of the journey had been safely accomplished, and Mr Lester and Frank reached Cape Town, where they took their return passage to England in a vessel called the Dragon King.

Seth nudged Mr Rawlings at this point.

"Didn't I say that was the name of the desarted ship?" he asked in a whisper.

And Mr Rawlings nodded his assent.

The Dragon King—to continue Frank's, or Sailor Bill's story—was commanded by a rough sort of captain, who was continually swearing at the men and ill-treating them; and, in the middle of the voyage a mutiny broke out on board, started originally by some of the hands who wished merely to deprive the captain of his authority, and put the first mate, who was much liked by the men, in his place; but the outbreak was taken advantage of by a parcel of desperadoes and ne'er-do-weels, who were returning home empty handed from the diamond diggings, and were glad of the opportunity of plundering the ship and passengers—whence the mutiny, from being first of an almost peaceful character, degenerated into a scene of bloodshed and violence which it made Frank shudder to speak about.

His father, fearing what was about to happen, and that, as he was known as having been up the country and in the possession of jewels of great value, the desperadoes would attempt to rob him first, placed round Frank's neck, in the original parchment-covered parcel in which he had received them from the bank at the diamond fields, the precious stones he had bought, with all his own available capital as well as his employers' money, thinking that that would be the last place where the thieves would search for them.

"And now they are lost," added the boy with another stifled sob, "and poor mother will be penniless."

"Nary a bit," said Seth; and pulling out the little packet by the silken string attached round his neck—which the poor boy had not thought of feeling for even, he was so confident of his loss—he disclosed it to his gaze. "Is that the consarn, my b'y?" he asked.

"Oh!" exclaimed Frank in delighted surprise. "It is, with the bank seal still unbroken, I declare!"

And opening the parchment cover he showed Ernest and the rest some diamonds of the first water, that must have been worth several thousand pounds.

After his father had given the parcel into his care, Frank went on to say, events transpired exactly as he had anticipated. Most of the passengers were robbed, and those that objected to being despoiled tranquilly, murdered. Amongst these were his father, whom the ruffians killed more out of spite from not finding the valuables they expected on him. He, Frank, escaped through the kindness of one of the sailors, who took a fancy to him, and hid him up aloft in the ship's foretop when the men who had possession of the ship would have killed him.

"This sailor," said Frank, "was just like that gentleman there," pointing to Seth.

"Waal neow, that's curious," said Seth. "Was his name Sam?"

"It was," said the boy.

"This is curious," said Seth, looking round at the rest; "it is really. I wouldn't be at all surprised as how that's my brother Sam I haven't heerd on for this many a year, or seed, although he's a seafarin' man like myself, an' I oughter to 'ave run across his jib afore now. Depend on it, Rawlings, that the reason the boy stuck to me so when he hadn't got his wits, and came for to rescue me aboard the Susan Jane, and arterwards, was on account of my likeness to Sam."

And as nobody could say him nay, it may be mentioned here that that was Seth's fervent belief ever after.

The last recollection that Frank had of the ship and the mutineers was of an orgie on board the Dragon King in the height of a storm, and of one of the murderous villains finding out his retreat in the foretop, where the sailor who protected him lashed him to the rigging, so that he could not tumble on deck if he should fall asleep. He remembered a man with gleaming eyes and great white teeth swearing at him, and making a cut at him with a drawn sword. After that, all was a complete blank to him till he had just now opened his eyes and recognised Ernest.

"An' yer don't recollect being picked up at sea an' taken aboard the Susan Jane, and brought here, nor nuthin'?" inquired Seth.

"Nothing whatever," said Frank, who showed himself to be a remarkably intelligent boy now that he had recovered his senses. "I don't remember anything that happened in the interval."

"Waal, that is curious," observed Seth.

That was all the story that Frank Lester could tell of the mutiny on board the Dragon King, and his wonderful preservation.

All the mutineers, and some of their victims too most probably, met their final doom shortly afterwards in the storm that had dismasted the ship, leaving it to float derelict over the surface of the ocean; all but the three whose corpses the visiting party from the Susan Jane had noticed on the submerged deck. These must have survived the tempest only to perish finally from each other's murderous passions, after having lingered on in a state of semi-starvation possibly—although Frank said that the desperadoes from the diamond fields, who were the ringleaders on board, were originally the most attenuated, starved-looking mortals he had ever seen in his life.



STORY ONE, CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

HOMEWARD-BOUND.

The work at the mine went on steadily. The "pocket" was cleared of the quartz it contained, and the whole, amounting to two hundred and fifty tons, passed through the stamp.

The soldiers, on their return from their victory over the Sioux, had spread the news of the wonderful find of gold at Minturne Creek, and miners had flocked up in hundreds. When the pocket was emptied, a debate arose whether a heading should be driven along the course of the lode to the spot where Mr Rawlings' cousin had struck gold, and where it was probable that another pocket existed. It was, however, decided to accept the offer of a body of wealthy speculators, who offered 100,000 pounds for the set. This was indeed far less than they would have gleaned from it had the second pocket turned out as rich as the first, for the gold, when all the quartz was crushed, amounted in value to 350,000 pounds. Half of the total amount was divided by Mr Rawlings, according to his promise, among the miners. Seth receiving three shares, Noah Webster two, and the men one each. To Ernest Wilton he gave one-fourth of his own share of the proceeds.

Then, starting from the spot where they had toiled so hard, the little band set out for the haunts of civilisation once more, leaving behind, where they had found a solitary valley, a place dotted with huts and alive with busy men.

At Bismark the men separated, some to proceed back to their beloved California, to star it among their fellows with their newly acquired wealth, others to dissipate it in riotous living in the nearest frontier towns, while others again, struck with the greed of gold, thought that they had not yet got enough, and proceeded rapidly to gamble away what they had.

Mr Rawlings went eastwards towards Boston, intending to take steamer thence to England, which he resolved never to leave again in the pursuit of adventure now that fortune had so generously befriended him; and with him came Ernest Wilton, taking charge of his recovered cousin; and Seth, who could not bear to lose sight of his former protege.

Josh and Jasper had been left behind, the two darkeys sinking their mutual jealousy, and determining to start a coloured hotel on the Missouri, for the benefit of travelling gentlemen of their own persuasion; so too had Noah Webster, who said he liked hunting better than civilisation, and intended to pass the remainder of his days out west in the company of Moose, who was as eager after game as he was himself and as fearless of the Indians, should they again trouble them, after their Minturne Creek experiences.

Wolf, however, was one of the homeward-bound party. He certainly could not be abandoned after all his faithful services, and the wonderful instinct he had displayed, more than his master had done, in recognising Frank, whom he had not seen since puppyhood, when Ernest Wilton's aunt, Frank's mother, gave him to the young engineer.

As luck would have it, on the arrival of Mr Rawlings and his party at Boston whom should they meet accidentally at the railway depot but Captain Blowser, of the Susan Jane, as hearty and jolly as of yore, and delighted to see them! His ship he "guessed" was just going to Europe, and he would be only too glad of their taking passage in her.

Need it be mentioned that the captain's offer was accepted; and that, long before Frank Lester—the "Sailor Bill" whom Seth loved, and the crew of the Susan Jane and the gold-miners of Minturne Creek had regarded with such affection—had arrived in England to gladden his mother's heart by his restoration, as if from the dead, when he had long been given up for lost, together with his father's property which he carried with him, he had learnt every detail, as if he had been in his right senses at the time, of how he had been "Picked up at Sea?"



STORY TWO, CHAPTER ONE.

GREEK PIRATES AND TURKISH BRIGANDS. A TALE OF ADVENTURE BY SEA AND LAND.

IN BEYROUT HARBOUR.

"It's a thundering shame our sticking here so long; and I'm sick of the beastly old place," said Tom Aldridge in a grumbling tone, as he leant over the bulwarks listlessly, crumbling bits of biscuit into the sea to attract the fish, which would not be attracted, and gazing in an idle way at the roof of the pacha's palace, that glittered under the rays of the bright Syrian sun. "I'm sick of the place, Charley!" he repeated, more venomously than before.

"So am I, Tom," said Charley Onslow, his fellow-midshipman on board the Muscadine, an English barque of some seven or eight hundred tons, that lay, along with several foreign vessels of different rig, in the bay of Beyrout—as pretty a harbour as could be picked out in a score of voyages, and about the busiest port in the whole of the Levant.

"So am I, Tom," said Charley with the utmost heartiness. "I am as tired of it as I am of the eternal dates and coffee, coffee and dates, on which these blessed Arab beggars live, and which everybody makes a point of offering to one, if a chap goes ashore for a minute; while, on board, we've nothing now to do but to check off the freight as it comes alongside before it's lowered in the hold, and look out at the unchanging picture around us, which is so familiar that I believe I could paint it with my eyes shut if I were an artist. Talk of the beauty of Beyrout, indeed! To my taste, it's the most monotonous hole I was ever in in my life, and I hate it!"

And yet, in spite of Charley Onslow's peevish criticism, the scene around him and his companion was charming enough.

The Muscadine was anchored out in the roads, close to the jutting promontory on which the lazaretto buildings were lately erected, that stretched out like an arm into the harbour; and the view from her deck presented a beautiful panorama of the semi-European, semi-Oriental town, nestling on the very edge of the blue waters of the Mediterranean, and surrounded by gently-undulating hills, that were terraced with symmetrical rows of trim olive-trees and vineyards, rising tier upon tier, the one above the other; amidst which, occasionally peeped out slily the white cupola of some suburban villa belonging to one of the wealthy merchants of the port, or the minaret of a Moslem mosque, standing out conspicuously against the shrubbery of foliage formed of different tints of green, from the palest emerald shade to the deepest indigo, that culminated finally in the cedar-crowned heights of the mountains of Lebanon in the purple distance.

It was not a quiet scene either, as might have been imagined from the idle ennui of both the young sailors, whom it seemed to have well-nigh bored to death. On the contrary, to an unprejudiced looker-on it was quite the reverse of being inactive.

In the foreground the harbour was lively enough, with boats and caravels, and other Turkish craft of all sizes and shapes, darting here and there like great white-winged dragon-flies, as they were wafted swiftly one moment by some passing whiff of air, or lying still on the surface of the sea as the wind fell and they were temporarily becalmed, until another gust came from the hills to rouse them out of their noontide sluggishness.

Amongst them, too, were ships' boats belonging to the different vessels, anchored, like the Muscadine, out in the roads, being pulled to and from the shore, anon laden with merchandise, anon returning for more; while, of course, the dingy black smoke and steady paddle-beat of the inevitable steamer, that marks the progress of Western civilisation in the East, made themselves seen and heard, to complete the picture and make the contrast the more striking.

"Tom," said Charley presently, after the two had remained silent for some time, still standing in the shade of the awning aft, that protected them from the burning heat of the sun, which was at its most potent point, it being just mid-day.

"Yes," said the other grumpily, as if disinclined even for conversation.

"It has just gone eight bells."

"Can't I hear as well as you, Charley? What's the use of bothering a fellow? Do leave me alone."

"I only wanted to say, Tom, that the skipper said we might go ashore this afternoon if we liked, as soon as the second mate came on board; and there he is coming off in the jolly-boat now."

"I don't care whether Tompkins comes off or not," replied Tom Aldridge in the same peevish tone as he had spoken at first. "What's the good of going ashore?"

"Oh, lots of good," said Charley Onslow more cheerily. "Better than stopping here cooped-up like a fowl and being grilled in the sun."

"Well, I can't see the difference between getting roasted ashore and roasted on board, for my part," retorted Tom. "It's six of one and half-a-dozen of the other."

"You lazy duffer!" said Charley laughing; "you are incorrigible. But do come along with me, Tom. We haven't landed now for two days, and I can't stand the Muscadine any longer."

"I suppose you'll have your way, as you always do," grumbled the other, turning away at last from his listless contemplation of the prospect with which he had owned himself so disgusted. "I don't know how it is, Charley, but you seem to manage me and everybody here just as you like; you can come round the skipper even, when you set your mind to it, and that is what no one else can do!"

"You forget Mr Tompkins."

"I don't count him at all," said Tom Aldridge indignantly. "He's a sneak, and gets his way by wheedling and shoe-scraping! But you, Charley, go to work in quite a different fashion. Why, I'm hanged if you don't cheek a fellow when you want to get something out of him. It's your Irish impudence that does it, my boy, I expect."

"Sure, an' it's a way we have in the ould counthry," said Charley, putting on the brogue so easily that it seemed natural to him—which indeed it was, as he was born not twenty miles from Cork, in the neighbourhood of which is situated the far-famed "Blarney stone," that is supposed to endow those who kiss it with the "gift of the gab;" and Charley must have "osculated it," as a Yankee would say, to some purpose.

"Be jabers, thin, ye spalpeen," laughed Tom—who had got out of his grumpy state quickly enough; for his disposition was almost as light-hearted as that of his friend, and it was only the heat and the confinement on board ship when in harbour that had previously oppressed his spirits—"let us look smart, and be off. Here's that fellow Tompkins just coming up the side, and I don't want any more of his company than I can help! Tell him we're going by the captain's permission, Charley. I don't want to say a word to him after that row this morning. You are still on speaking terms with him, and I'm not. And while you are settling matters with the old sneak, I'll get the dinghy ready, and fetch up the bottle of brandy I promised that jolly old Turk at the coffee-shop."

"You'd better water it a bit, Tom," said Charley, as the other was diving down the companion-stairs. "It's awfully strong; and you know Mohammedans are not accustomed to it."

"Not a drop of it, my boy," replied he, disappearing for a moment from view, and his voice receding in the distance. "I promised the old infidel that he should have the real stuff, and I'll let him see that a giaour can keep his word."

In a second or two he came up again, the bottle, however, concealed in the pocket of his reefer of light blue serge. And hauling in the painter of the boat, which was floating astern, while Charley was still confabulating with the second officer, who had come on board in the meantime, he sat himself down in her, and waited patiently till his chum had done with the obnoxious Mr Tompkins, who seemed to have a good deal to say, and that of a not very pleasant character. "Bother the chap!" said Charley, when he was at length released, and, shinning down a rope, sat down in the stern-sheets of the dinghy, as Tom Aldridge took up the sculls and shoved off from the ship. "He's got as much to say as Noah's great-grandmother. And the gist of it all, fault-finding, of course."

"What can you expect from a pig, eh?" said Tom, philosophically, when the boat was well clear of the Muscadine, setting to work leisurely and pulling to shore, while Charley reclined at his ease on the cushions which he had taken the trouble to fix up for himself, and—did nothing, as usual.

It was the general sort of "division of labour" amongst them.

However, they were fast friends, and, as Tom didn't complain, nobody else has any right to find fault.

"A grunt, I suppose," replied Charley, in answer to Tom's conundrum. "At least, from a Welsh pig, like Tompkins. An Irish one, bedad! would have better manners."

"Bravo, Charley!" exclaimed Tom, bursting out into a laugh in which his companion as heartily joined. "You stick to your country, at all events, which is more than can be said for our leek-eating friend. He always wishes to deny that he belongs to the land of the Cymri and hails from Swansea, as he does. The sneak! I'm sure a decent Welshman would be ashamed to own him. But, don't let us worry ourselves any longer about Tompkins; it's bad enough to have him with us on board, without lugging him ashore, too; hang him!"

"Ay, ay, so say I," sang out Charley, in the best accord.

And then, after a few more vigorous strokes from the sculls, propelled by Tom's muscular arms, the bow of the dinghy stranded on the sandy shore, and the two boys landed in the highest glee, without a trace of the ill-humour and despondency in which they had been apparently plunged not an hour or so before.



STORY TWO, CHAPTER TWO.

THE COFFEE-SHOP IN BEYROUT.

Pushing past the crowds of busy and idle people, Greeks, Turks, Armenians, Maronites, Arabs, Frenchmen, and a few English, like themselves, who thronged the narrow streets, which were lined on either side with stores built in the American fashion for the disposal of European goods; narrow Eastern shops, and bazaars and caravanserais, hung with carpets, and displaying grapes and figs, and all sorts of fruit in true Oriental style; they made their way towards a Turkish coffee-house that was situated not far from the waterside, and much patronised by those who, like themselves, had to do with ships and seafaring concerns—although, they did not arrive very quickly at their destination, for the time for the noonday halt having passed by, the usual caravans from Damascus and the interior were coming in, long trains of camels, asses, and mules, laden with coffee, raw silk, rhubarb, untanned leather, figs, aromatic gums, and all the varied merchandise that comes through Arabia and Persia to the ports of the Levant; and, consequently, the main thoroughfares were so blocked with these commercial pilgrims from the desert, that it was as much as Tom and Charley could do to get along.

They did it at length, however, by dint of shoving themselves unceremoniously through the lookers-on who congregated to see the caravans pass, taking no notice of the many invocations to Allah to curse them, as "dogs of Christians," who profaned the sacred presence of the followers of Islam by breathing the same air as themselves; finally reaching the courtyard of Mohammed's khan, after much jostling and struggling and good-natured expostulation and repartee, enlivened with many a hearty laugh as some donkey driver came to grief with his load, or when a venerable Arab sheikh on a tall dromedary sputtered with rage at finding the way impassable and his dignity hurt.

The Turk who kept the khan, or coffee-house, was a middle-aged man, who had seen a good deal of all sorts of life in knocking about the world, and was so cosmopolitan in his character that he was almost denationalised. He had a round, good-humoured face, that told as plainly as face could tell that he was no ascetic, or rigid Mussulman bound to the edicts of the Koran, but one who liked good living as well as most folk.

Tom's description of him hit him off exactly; he was decidedly "a jolly old Turk"—nothing more nor less.

On seeing the boys come in, he at once made places for them beside him on the divan, where he sat on a pile of cushions smoking a long chibouque, with a coffee-cup beside him on a little tray, that also contained sweetmeats, from which he took an occasional sip in the intervals, when he removed the stem of his pipe from his lips and emitted a vast volume of tobacco-smoke in one long puff.

"Aha, my young capitan!" said he to Tom Aldridge, when they had seated themselves, cross-legged, as he was, and accepted the chibouques brought to them immediately by an Arab boy, "you ver long time coming to see me. I tinks I nevare see yous no more!"

He spoke broken English, but with his genial manner and broad smile of welcome made himself readily understood.

"I couldn't come before," said Tom. "But I didn't forget you all the same, for I've brought what I promised, the bottle of—"

"Hush-h!" interrupted old Mohammed, with a warning gesture, placing his hand before Tom's mouth. "De med-i-seen for my leg? Ah, yase, I recollects. I am ver mooch oblige. Tanks. You'll have some cafe?"

"No, thank you," replied Tom. "I and my friend here are sick of coffee; let us have some sherbet instead, although we don't want anything. We only came to have a chat with you and a smoke, that's all."

"That is all raite, my frens. I don't like mooch coffees myselfs. De med-i-seen is mooch bettaires," said Mohammed, patting his stomach and grinning again, as he winked knowingly at Tom, in a manner that would have shocked a true believer, while he shouted out an order to the Arab boy. "But, de sheerbeet is goot for de leetle boys, O yase."

"Cunning old rogue," said Charley, aside to Tom. "He wants all the brandy for himself, although he wouldn't like his fellow-religionists to know that he drank it. I suppose if we wished for some, we would have to ask for a drop of the med-i-seen."

"Oh, he's not a bad sort," replied Tom. "He has offered me wine many a time, and he's a generous old chap, I should think. Well, Mohammed," he continued, aloud, "and how's business?"

"Ver bad, ver bad inteet," said that worthy. "I nevare did no worse in my loife. I shall have to shoot up de shop soon."

"That's a good one!" exclaimed Tom. "You can tell that to the marines. I bet you've got a snug little pile of piastres stowed away somewhere."

"P'raps I haive," said the old Turk, nodding his head as he smiled complacently; "and if you young shentlemens should be vat you call 'ard oop,' I could lend you some moneys. But don't talk so loud," he added cautiously, casting a glance at a group of Greek sailors who were gabbling away near them, and scanning Tom and Charley curiously, "I don't like de look of dose fellows dere, and dey might hear us talk if dey leesten, and vill remembers."

"What of that?" asked Charley; "I don't suppose they would understand us."

"Aha, so you tink," said Mohammed warily. "But dose Grecs are ver knowing and oop to every ting. Dey are bad, ver bad, every one."

As he spoke two of the Greeks separated themselves from the group, and came over to where they were sitting, as if sent for the purpose.

"I understand," said one, who acted as spokesman, and addressed them in the most perfect English, "that your captain is in want of hands?"

The question was pertinent enough, as more than half the crew were laid up in the Beyrout hospital, or lazaretto, with a sort of malarial fever, and the Muscadine was only waiting for their recovery, or until enough hands could be shipped, to enable her to pursue her voyage to her next port, Smyrna, where she was to complete her cargo, and then sail for England.

The boys of course knew this well enough, but they did not see it was any business of the Greeks, and after Mohammed's hint as to their character they resented the inquiry as a piece of impudence.

"How do you know which is our ship?" said Charley, in Irish fashion asking another question, in lieu of answering the one addressed to him; "and if you do, whether she wants hands or not?"

He spoke rather uncivilly, but the man replied to him with studied politeness.

"I beg your pardon, sir," said he, "but the Muscadine is the only English ship in the harbour, and any one who has travelled like myself could easily tell the nationality of yourself and your friend. I am aware, also, that several of your crew are laid up in hospital."

"And supposing such is the case," said Tom Aldridge, taking up the cudgels, "what then?"

"Only, sir," replied the man, even more obsequiously than before, "I and several others here, who are in want of a ship, would be glad to sign articles with you."

"The others you mention are Greeks like yourself, I suppose?" inquired Tom, still brusquely, as if he did not care whether he offended his interlocutor or not.

"Yes, sir," said the man, "but my countrymen are generally reckoned to make good sailors, and ship in all sorts of vessels to all parts of the world."

"That may be," answered Tom, who hardly knew what to say, "but it is no concern of mine. You had better speak to Captain Harding about the matter; we can't engage you."

"No?" said the man with a half sneer, half smile on his face, and he seemed about to say something nasty; but he altered his mind before he uttered the words, and completed his sentence with another civil inquiry, at which neither Tom nor Charley could take offence. "And, where can I and my friends see the captain, sir?"

"On board, any time before ten in the morning or after sunset in the evening," said Tom curtly.

He didn't like the man, but he was at a loss how he could put him off in any other way.

"Thank you, sir, I'm deeply obliged for your condescension," said the Greek, who then regained his comrades, and the group presently walked out of the khan.

"Bismillah!" ejaculated Mohammed as soon as the Greeks had disappeared. "Can I believe my eyes? That scoundrel has got the impudence of Sheitan, and must be in league with the spirits of Eblis."