Chapter XXIX: The Search

The mountain of the Lost Mine, as it may be called for the purposes of identification, did not seem more than half a day's journey from the divide where the boys first saw it, but it took them two days of hard marching before they reached its vicinity, so deceitful are the distances in the high altitudes.

Now, behold them, camped in a shallow little valley, between two spurs of the Lost Mine mountain, their tent pitched on a small shelf back from a little stream that went singing along to a larger one, between its willow bushes, and over glistening boulders of polished granite. There was a growth of grass on either side of the creek, where the horses could graze. Altogether it was a restful place to camp in, after the grandeur of the great mountains that had surrounded them, and the savage gorges they had ridden through. There was a sense of rest and satisfaction that the Frontier Boys felt in having arrived at the goal of their long journey by land and sea. True, they did not know exactly the position of the Lost Mine, but they hoped to find it with the help of the diagram which they were fortunate enough to possess.

"Let's have a look at that faded heirloom of yours," said Jim to Jeems, as they sat on some rocks around the campfire, on the evening of their arrival.

"All right, Skipper," said Jeems cheerfully. Then he took his faded coat and carefully unpinned the inside pocket, and put in his hand and pulled out nothing.

"It's gone," he exclaimed, his face paling. "I've been robbed."

"I bet it was those Greasers," declared Jo, hastily, but with conviction. Jim looked at brothers Jo and Tom narrowly, then he put a heavy and accusing hand on their joint shoulders, or their shoulder joints, if you prefer it that way.

"You are the Greasers," he said severely. "Now cough up." Jo reached down guiltily into his pistol pocket and fished up the required document.

"I don't know exactly what to do with these fellows," said Jim magisterially, giving them each a shake under his big clutch.

"Leave us alone! That's what you can do," said Tom grumpily, but Jim went on without noticing Tom's remark.

"This is their third offense, and I reckon we will have to hang 'em this time if we can find a tree strong enough to stand the strain of two such rascals at once."

"I tell you a better scheme," said Jeems Howell with a twinkle in his eye. "Get a twig of the tree and touch 'em up with that."

"That's the idea," agreed Jim. "Bring me the switches, Juarez."

"Aye, aye, sir," said Juarez cheerfully, and he started on his commission. The implied indignity of a switching was too much for the two youths. They would have much preferred to be hanged, so they prepared to leave home immediately and without due notice. Father Jim's grasp relaxed for a moment, and, with a wrench, both boys tore themselves loose and sped away in the darkness, and from this outer darkness they hurled remarks and pieces of dirt and small stones at the three about the campfire, just as other small bad boys would do; but the grown-ups paid no attention to the culprits, merely pulled their sombreros down around their ears and began a diligent study of the diagram of the Lost Mine. So absorbed were they after a while that they forgot the outlanders, when they crept into camp.

"Let's see," said Juarez. "Where are we on this diagram?"

"We passed by the pine tree with the cross cut on one side," said Jeems, "the other day."

"That crooked line below there is the trail in this valley," said Jo, who was too interested to keep at a safe distance.

"If it is anything crooked, you and Tom ought to be experts," said Jim, looking keenly at the two ex-fugitives. They said nothing by way of retort, considering that silence was the better part of wit on this particular occasion.

"If that line is a path," said Juarez, "those drawings on either side represent buildings of some sort."

"But how about the figures at the bottom of the diagram?" inquired Jeems. "I can't make them out."

"Four hundred+1500-30," read Jim. "I can add it up if that will do any good."

"The best thing we can do," said Jeems, the philosopher, "is to go to bed and tackle this proposition in the morning."

This the boys did, but it was a hard thing for them to get to sleep, so busy were their brains, and they all dreamed diagram, mysterious combinations of figures and lines. When they awoke the next morning, it was with the same happy sense of anticipation that the small boy wakes up on the morning of the glorious Fourth.

As soon as it was light enough to see, the Frontier Boys started out to solve the location of the Lost Mine. Each one had a copy of the diagram with him, also a pick or a shovel, and powder for blasting. Jim and Juarez worked together, Tom and Jo also, while Jeems Howell was a lone prospector, and it seemed indeed like old times to him.

For a short ways they went all together up the shallow valley; then, after going a half mile, they took separate courses, Jim and Juarez following the line of the overgrown trail up the valley, and Jeems striking straight up the slope of the mountain. Tom and Jo wandered around eagerly and inconsequentially, expecting to see the opening to the Lost Mine at any moment.

Jeems was the first to make a discovery of importance, but bearing only indirectly on the location of the mine. After climbing up about five hundred feet he saw that there had been a tremendous landslide down the southern slope of the mountain.

"Some earthquake did that," he said, "and not very recently either. I bet that the lost mine is under the slide." Just then he heard Jim's voice in a faint halloo below him. He felt sure that they had made a discovery likewise. He strode eagerly down the slope to tell Jim and Juarez what he had found out, and to see about their discovery.

"We have found part of the cabin that's in the diagram," cried Juarez as soon as Jeems hove in sight.

"It was the landslide did that," declared Jeems, and he told them of his discovery. The boys were jubilant, and rightly so, for at last they had struck the trail.

The point of departure had been found, for a heavy storm had uncovered one end of a demolished cabin, over which a part of the landslide had swept.

"This is the further one," said Jim.

"Yes, the other one is on the upper side of the old trail and is covered deep," said Juarez.

"Now let's take those figures in feet first," said Jim.

"I'll pace in yards," said Jeems, "we may save time that way," and he started off from the side of the discovered cabin, while Jim and Juarez measured the distance in feet, 400 straight up the valley, then 1500 at right angles, and this brought them to a point well up on the side of the mountain.

"Thirty feet straight down and we will know our fate," said Jim.

They practically had all day before them and they set busily to work with pick and shovel, beginning at a point below where they had set the mark.