Chapter XVI: At the Deserted Mining Camp

"Look at the buzzards sitting on that ridge of a two-story building, will you?" exclaimed Lanky, pointing as he spoke.

"There! They're off, flying," said Paul, "each starting with a queer little jump that sends the big bird up several feet before its wings begin to carry it. Always liked to watch turkey-buzzards roosting on a dead tree or dropping down to feed. Make me think of the clowns at a circus, they're so comical."

"I'd call this Camp Desolation, if you asked me," observed Frank, in an aside to his chums.

"Never did set eyes on its equal in all my life," Lanky admitted. "I reckon nobody's been around here for years, to look at the way those shacks and stores and huts have decayed."

"That's where you're away off your trolley then," chuckled Frank.

"Seen something, or you wouldn't talk that way," ventured the other, a bit annoyed because Frank had again beaten him at woodcraft, in which Lanky fancied himself a master.

"Lots of times, when we were climbing the canyon bed to top the rise," Frank told him, with a nod; "especially during the last half hour. Signs of horses coming and going--lately, too--little stones displaced, even the plain print of hoofs when there chanced to be a layer of earth to make them show. I'm a whole lot surprised that _you_ missed them, Lanky."

"Huh! even the best scouts trip up once in a long time," grunted Lanky. "I must have been watching Jerry so closely and squinting up at the rock walls above, thinkin' about what a nice place it'd be for an old grizzly to make a den."

"There, you can see the tracks as plain as print right now," Frank at that juncture told his chums, pointing toward the ground just ahead.

Apparently fifty years back many animals and treasure-hunting prospectors must have made a well-beaten trail, coming up by way of the canyon and arriving at the open place marking the plateau.

"Easy enough," acknowledged Lanky, one of whose best qualities was frankness when owning up to being surprised in anything. "But there! Jerry's started to lead the way into the ghostly camp. Let's go!"

No one joked or laughed as thus solemnly they walked their winded ponies among those amazing wrecks of old-time life and bustle; it was too much like passing through a cemetery long since abandoned and fallen upon evil times.

"Most of them seem to have been roughly built shacks, made out of pinon trees cut on the side of the mountain, though I can see some cedar among them--yes, and oak, besides. It's the story of the 'Deserted Village' all over again, only no pestilence brought about this desolation."

"The whole bunch was wild to pick up gold nuggets," said Lanky. "Anyway, that's what Jerry told us; and when the bubble burst they cleared out bag and baggage."

"What do you suppose that largest building was for?" asked Paul.

"The only two-story one in the whole caboodle, you mean?" Lanky replied. "I'd judge it might have been used as a hotel, or tavern, where the fresh arrivals could put up and be fleeced till they found time to throw a shack together."

"There's an old faded sign over the door," Frank put in. "As near as I can make out it reads: 'El Dorado Hotel, Accommodations for Man and Beast.'"

"Lots of good eats served in that place, I'd say," ventured Lanky, who himself was hungry.

"Here's a place that looks as if it used to be one of those dance halls, where the miners gathered at night to have a lively time, what with gambling, carousing, and the like."

Frank felt certain he had struck close to the truth when he made that assertion; for surely the large room could not have been used for any other purpose.

So they quietly rode through the whole village, stopping at the farther end, while Mr. Wallace conferred with the other two men.

"Now I wonder," Paul said as he stared around, sometimes having to repress an involuntary shudder, everything was so dreadful, "what all those queer little mounds can mean--they are side by side, too, as if meant for stepping stones to some temple the miners meant to build, after they'd all gotten to be millionaires."

Lanky made an odd grimace.

"Hobble your horse, Paul, and take another look. You'll guess then what they stand for. Every mining camp started a cemetery the first thing; because, you know, the mortality ran high in those lawless days, when each man carried a big six-shooter on his hip and the one who could draw the quickest lived to see another sun rise."

Paul could not hold back the shiver that ran over him.

"Why, there must be all of a hundred graves, if there's one," he said, and then added weakly, suspicion having awakened in his mind, knowing Lanky's inveterate liking for playing jokes on innocents: "If you're not stringing me, I mean."

"Give him the air, Frank! After I vowed not even to _grin_ while in this haunted camp. Those are what I said, and yet Jerry told us the camp didn't hold out more than one year. Life was held cheap in such crazy times, Paul, and they planted somebody every other day, I reckon."

Mr. Wallace just then turned to the three boys; the other men were dismounting, as though not meaning to use the ponies any more that day.

"I'm going off with Jerry and Zander," said the gentleman, "to scour the neighborhood for what has always been known as 'Lost Mountain,' though it's hard to understand how such a vast elevation could escape notice. Plenty of eyes have doubtless fallen on it, but without knowing that it was anything out of the ordinary. But we believe it contains the mine Kinney worked."

"And the five-fingered cave to boot," added Lanky.

"What do you want us to be doing while you're away, Mr. Wallace?" queried Frank.

"Simply amuse yourselves," replied Mr. Wallace. "But keep a bright lookout for those scamps we suspect are somewhere around this region, ready to spy on us, in the hope of snatching the prize away in case we find it. Yes, and you might take the entire bunch of ponies along that rocky trail to the right."

"Where does it lead, Dad?" asked Lanky.

"Jerry told me," replied his father, "that there is a queer little walled-in strip of land about a quarter of a mile further on, where, strangely enough, the finest of green forage could always be found, winter and summer. They used to turn their animals in there to feed and drink at the spring."

"Shall we stake them out?" asked Frank.

"No need of that," he was informed smilingly. "Nature took charge, and left only one narrow exit and entrance to this highly favored pasture. There are, it seems, several rocks that can be easily moved, and which when placed in position form an excellent barrier that the smartest cow-pony would be unable to jump."

"This sure is the land of marvels," grinned Lanky.

"We'll take all the ponies out there, and shut the gate of the corral on them," promised Frank.

"You might unload the pack-pony, boys, and put the stuff for our rations in one of these shacks, covering it all over, so that no possible curious eyes would suspect its presence."

With these words Mr. Wallace handed over the bridle of his mount, and in company with the other men made ready to go forth in a first attempt, under Jerry's reawakened memory of his surroundings, to locate the Lost Mountain of Gold Fork.

Left to themselves, the boys deposited the stores in one of the huts that seemed to have a better roof than any of the rest. This had been proved in the recent cloudburst, for some of the ruined buildings were soaked, while the earthen floor of their choice seemed quite dry. Then they set off with the bunch of weary animals.

Sure enough, after leading their four-footed charges along the still well defined if ancient trail, they presently arrived at the pasture.

"Worth coming a long way to see such a curiosity," announced Lanky, as they took saddles and bridles off the ponies and turned them into the rock-surrounded enclosure one by one, to feed and rest. "Beats any man-made corral I ever set eyes on, and so simple, too."

"All we have to do now," Frank observed, after the last cayuse had kicked up his heels and galloped off to join its mates, already eagerly nibbling at the sweet green grass, "is to work these rocks into place so they'll close the gap, and the bunch is safe from any stampede."

"That wash over there, with the low bank," ventured Lanky, "must be where some sort of stream passes through. The water would be cold as ice, for it comes down from the mountain tops, where there's always heaps of snow, summer and winter."

A short time later the boys again found themselves in the decayed mining camp, with its numerous wrecks of buildings, in which no man had laid his head for more than a score of years, perhaps twice that.

Filled with curiosity, the three boys started making the rounds.

"Might as well see everything there is while we have the chance," Lanky told his mates. "'Tisn't every day you can run across such a thrilling sight as this. See the bats whirr out of that old shack, will you? Must have picked it for a place to hang their tired old bodies, after swinging around the circle all night long."

When the lads peeped cautiously in through the opening which a rotten door, hanging by its last rusty hinge, faded to shut entirely, it was indeed a sight worth impressing on their minds.

"Gee whiz!" barked Lanky, his eyes opening unusually wide. "See the ugly things dangling there from every rafter, will you?"

"Is _that_ the way bats sleep, hanging by their toes with their heads downward?" exclaimed Paul, intensely interested. "What strange things you often see when you haven't got a gun. I'll know now what they mean when they say a fellow has 'bats in his belfry'!"

"Let's have a peep-in at that old hotel," Lanky Wallace suggested. "That may have sheltered more millionaires--in their mind's eye--than ever any up-to-the-latest in New York City could claim."

"Second the motion," quickly added Paul.

"Lead me to it," Frank laughed, "for I was just going to put it up to both of you."

"Come on then," cried Lanky.

Led by the tall boy, the three of them were speedily inside the abandoned building, possibly once the pride of Gold Fork; but with now not a shadow of its former grandeur remaining in its skeleton walls, and the shaky stairs leading to unseen upper regions.

"Huh! a peach of a place this would be for us to camp out in," Lanky remarked, as they started to look things over.

"Wow! I hope you don't try it," Paul cried out. "I'm dead certain it's just swarming with rats!"

"Say," demanded Lanky disdainfully, "what could the sillies find to live on all these years since any meal was served in this dining room?"

"Ask me something easy, Lanky," urged Paul. "But I'm sure there are rats in plenty around, for I saw one--a monster, too, if as thin as a rail--when I said what I did."

"All I hope then," continued Lanky, with a shrug, "is that the varmints don't swarm around our grub and clean us out. We'd have to live off the country then, and eat all sorts of queer dishes--grizzly bear steaks, coyote chops, prairie-dog stews, and such delicacies."

"Let up, Lanky," urged Frank. "You know Paul's a bit squeamish about his stomach, and you'll get him off his feed. Listen! What was that?"

"Sounded like a horse neighing," said Lanky, looking startled.

"I hear hoofs beating the rocks!" Frank ejaculated. "And I'd judge it was a right big bunch of nags, to boot! We can't pass out of that door because they're coming from that direction and heading right this way!"

Paul turned his eyes on Frank, who, he realized, must solve the problem.