The Peril Finders Part 6

"Yes, he related everything to me, clearly," replied the doctor gravely.

"Hah!" cried Wilton. "Poor fellow, he must have gone through a great deal. How did it all come to pa.s.s?"

"Give me time," said the doctor thoughtfully. "I should like to lie down and sleep for a few hours, for I have gone through a good deal since you left us, Bourne. To-night we must lay him to rest.

Afterwards I have a great deal that is very startling to tell you both-- to tell you all, I should say, for the boys may hear."

CHAPTER FIVE.

A PIECE OF SKIN.

It was late that same evening when the occupants of the shanty sat about the rough board table. The stranger had been laid in his last resting-place, Mr Bourne had read the service over him, and the American neighbour, who had been present, had stayed to partake of the evening meal.

This latter had pa.s.sed over almost in silence, all waiting then for the communication the doctor was to make; but he sat still, thoughtful and silent, till Griggs, after fidgeting a little in his chair, said--

"I can't help feeling a bit sorry, doctor, for bringing the poor fellow over to you. I never meant him to stay."

"You need no excuses, Griggs," said the doctor, rousing himself from his musing fit. "It was an act of Christian charity, and I am glad that we were able to share it with you."

"That's right, and nicely spoken of you, doctor," said the American; "but I wish we had been able to help the poor fellow sooner. Here, I'm burning to know how he got into such a state. I s'pose he told you?"

"He told me a great deal," replied the doctor, "but the time was short, his words hurried, and what he said has set me considering as to how much is simple fact and how much the imagination of a diseased brain."

"Hah!" exclaimed the American. "Then the best way will be for you to tell us too, and then maybe we shall be able to help you sort it out, and untangle the real thread from the touzly yarn."

"Exactly," said the doctor. "Well, it seems that he was one of a dozen adventurous prospectors whose brains had been excited by one of the old legends respecting the discovery of gold by the old mission fathers in one of the deserts between here and Arizona. They banked their funds together, purchased necessaries and provisions, and started with a mule team and a large water-barrel furnished with pole and axles so that it should act as its own wheels, revolving and bearing its own weight--a contrivance, the poor fellow said, that answered capitally in the sandy plains, but only proved a hindrance in the rocky ground."

"Not a bad idea," said Griggs, "if it had been all plain, for, as I understand, it's want of water that has upset every expedition out that way."

"When all was ready they started, well armed, as I understood him, making for the south and west. They had certain plans which they had obtained from explorers, and went out in full hope of discovering not only a new land of gold, but a city said to exist in the middle of one of the deserts, a ruin now, but containing fabulous wealth ama.s.sed by the emperor, cacique, or whatever he was called, and fostered by the old mission fathers, who had made the city their home."

"Hah!" cried Griggs. "This makes one's mouth water. Go on, doctor."

The latter looked at him seriously, and then continued--

"All this sounded very clear and reasonable, but after a time there was so much of the marvellous in the poor fellow's descriptions that I could not help feeling that we were getting into the dreamland of an enthusiast."

"Let us hear, Lee," said Wilton.

"To be sure," cried Griggs.

"I say that," said the doctor, "because, as I seemed to gather, the adventurers had not been above a month upon their expedition before misfortunes began to a.s.sail them, and he talked for long enough about getting amongst Indians who seemed to be always on the watch to hinder their advance."

"Yes," said Mr Bourne thoughtfully, "I have read that the Indian tribes have had handed down to them by tradition the existence of great sacred treasures which they are bound to protect, and which would have been discovered long enough ago but for their watchfulness."

"Never mind the Injuns," said Griggs. "You're sure to meet them if you go south, and, treasure or no treasure, they are always on the kill and rob system."

"I wish they wouldn't talk so much, but let father go on," whispered Chris.

"They had fights desperate and many with these people," continued the doctor, "but they pushed on, to find as they plunged further into the desert that there were worse enemies to encounter."

"Oh, that's nonsense," cried Griggs; "he must have been off his head a bit there. It's the regular old c.o.c.k-and-bull story about dragons guarding the treasure. I know those sort of things--magic and gammon."

"No," said the doctor, smiling; "the enemies he meant were drought, heat, and fever, all of which helped to slay his brother adventurers.

Some perished at the hands of the Indians, but more from exhaustion and disease, so that at last, after going through the most terrible privations, he found himself the sole survivor."

"That's bad," said Griggs, "and bad at that. But, I say, how long did this take?"

"I don't know, and he could not explain. Time seemed to be quite out of his calculations. It must have taken years, for he said that he was a young and vigorous man when he started."

"But look here," said Griggs, "Murrica's a big place, and I s'pose he joined Mexico on to it in his travels; but you could get over a deal of ground in years. How far away was it from here?"

"Distances seemed with him to be alike," continued the doctor. "Much of what he said in this respect seems to me to be all imagination, for he talked of the vast unknown land that he and his companions had penetrated, and in which they pa.s.sed away, leaving him alone."

"Poor chap, to find out that the gold story was all a hatch-up, and that he had given up the best years of his life in a great hunt after a yellow nothing. Well, go on, doctor."

"There is not much more to tell you," was the reply.

"Then I'm right," said Griggs; "he went through all that to find nothing."

The doctor was silent for a short s.p.a.ce, before he continued.

"No," he said; "you are wrong, according to the poor old adventurer's account, and here comes the strange part of his story. He said that he believed he went raving mad after being forced to cover the remains of his last companion with pieces of rock, and for a long time he could think of nothing but getting back to civilisation; but the more he tried the more he seemed to be led deeper and deeper into the great hot, sandy, stony wilderness. It was as if something from which he could not escape kept on driving him to continue the search upon which he had started, till one day he came upon a wider and more level plain of salt and sand, while in the distance, far down upon the horizon, he could see a clump of mountains, towards which he made his way, toiling on day after day, week after week, as it seemed to him, and the range seemed to be always receding with tantalising regularity, while he was parching with thirst and the tops were covered with snow.

"At last, though, when he had been compelled to lie down and rest every few steps from exhaustion, and after months of toil, he reached the foot of the mountains."

"Poor fellow!" said Griggs. "They must have been a long way off, and no mistake. In dreamland, I'm afraid."

"And I too," said the doctor. "This part of his narrative is very suggestive of a fever dream; but he spoke calmly, and as if he believed every word to be true. There was a simple earnestness, too, in the way in which he told me of how, dried-up as he was, he revelled in the ice-cold water that trickled down from the mountain-peaks in stream after stream which only meandered for a few hundred yards before every drop was soaked up in the burning sand."

"That's the worst of the salt plains southward," said Griggs quietly.

"I suppose so," said the doctor, "and this sounded very simple and truthful, but it seemed to me that here fiction was a good deal mingled with fact. He went on to say that these were the mountains of which he and his friends had been in search, for he was not long in discovering now that those hills were composed of the richest gold ore, while in a central tableland some two thousand feet up stood the remains of the city of which he had been in search.

"This proved to be completely ruined, one ma.s.s of crumbling stone wall; but every here and there he discovered proofs that the old inhabitants had utilised the rich metal contained in the hills by which they were surrounded. The place had evidently been destroyed in some catastrophe, in all probability by the attack of an enemy, for not a trace save charred beams remained of the woodwork that must have been plentifully used, and in many parts he found the scattered and gnawed bones of the slain."

"I should like to explore that place, doctor and neighbours all," said Griggs, "but I'm afraid that the nation of people who built that city belonged to the imagination."

"That was my own idea," said the doctor gravely, "especially when the poor fellow told me that he made his home there for years, taking possession of a little temple-like place, covering the roof in with cedar-boughs to keep off the sun, and living upon what he could secure by means of his gun."

"And always getting a fresh supply of powder and shot from Noo York by mail, eh, neighbours?"

"The narrative is most improbable," continued the doctor, "but it does contain elements open to belief."

"But if he had discovered such treasure as that," said Wilton, "why didn't he get back to civilisation, so as to profit by it?"

"To be sure," said Bourne. "But what about the Indians who ought to have been there to watch over the gold?"