The Treasure of Hidden Valley

“In point of fact,” continued Buell Hampton, “I’ll be up in the same region myself. But I’m travelling light and will have the start of you. Moreover, we can very easily lose each other in that rugged country of rocks and timber. But don’t mistake me for a buck, Roderick, if you catch sight of my old sombrero among the brushwood;” saying which he reached for the broad-brimmed slouch hat hanging against the wall.

“I’ll take mighty good care,” replied Roderick. “But I hope we’ll run up against you, Major, all the same.”

“No, you won’t find me,” answered Buell Hampton, with a quiet smile. “I’ll be hidden from all the world. Follow the deer, young men, and the best of luck to you.”

The two comrades started away in high feather, anticipating great results from the tip given them by the veteran hunter. Going straight to the livery bam, they rigged out three burros, and sent with them one of the stablemen who, besides being a fairly good cook, happened to be familiar with the trail to Spirit River Falls, and also knew the location of the “hunter’s hut” as they found the old log structure indicated by Buell Hampton was locally named.

These arrangements concluded, Roderick and Grant started for the hills. Some half a mile from Encampment they separated – Jones going along the east bank of the South Fork of the Encampment River and Roderick following the North Fork until he came to Conchshell canyon. The day was an ideal one for a deer hunt. There was not a breath of wind. The sky was overcast in a threatening manner as if it were full of snow that was liable to flutter down at the slightest provocation.

As Roderick reached the plateau that constituted the Conchshell ranch he concluded to bear to the left and as he said to himself “Keep away from temptation.” He was out hunting wild deer that day and he must not permit himself to make calls on a sweet-throated songster like Gail. On through the open fields and over the fences and into a thick growth of pines and firs, where he plodded his way through snow that crunched and cried loudly under his feet Indeed the stillness of everything excepting his own walking began to grate on his nerves and he said to himself that surely a whitetailed deer with ordinary alertness could hear him walking even if it were half a mile away.

As he trudged along mile after mile he was very watchful for game or tracks, but nothing stirred, no trace of deer was discernible in any direction. He was following the rim of a hill surmounting some boxlike canyons that led away abruptly to the left, while a smooth field or park reached far to the right where the hills were well covered with timber. Here and there an opening of several acres in extent occurred without bush or shrub.

It was perhaps one o’clock in the afternoon and he was becoming a bit leg-weary. Brushing the snow away from a huge boulder he seated himself for a short rest. Scarcely had he done so than he noticed that occasional flakes of snow were falling. “More snow,” he muttered to himself, “and I am a good ways from a cup of coffee if I am any judge.”

After he was rested he got up and again moved on. Just then, as he looked down into a box canyon, he saw three deer – a doe and two half-grown fawns. Quickly bringing his gun to his shoulder his first impulse was to fire. But he realized that it would be foolish for the animals were at least five hundred yards away and far below the elevation where he was standing.

“No,” he said to himself, “I will leave the rim of this mountain and get down into the canyon.”

He hastily retreated, and took a circuitous route intending to head off the deer. In due time he approached the brow of the precipitous bluff and after walking back and forth finally found a place where he believed he could work his way down into the canyon. It was a dangerous undertaking – far more so than Roderick knew – and might have proved his undoing.

He was perhaps half way down the side of the cliff, working his way back and forth, when suddenly some loose stones slipped from under his feet and away he went, sliding in a sitting position down the side of the mountain. He had sufficient presence of mind to hold his gun well away from him to prevent any possible accident from an accidental discharge. The cushioning of the snow under him somewhat slowed his descent, yet he could not stop. Down and down he went, meeting with no obstruction that might have given him a momentary foothold. Presently he saw, to his great relief of mind, that he was headed for a small fir tree that had rooted itself on a ledge near the bottom of the canyon. A moment later his feet came thump against its branches, and while the jar and shock of suddenly arrested motion were very considerable yet they were not enough to be attended with any serious consequences.

Somewhat dazed, he remained seated for a few moments. But soon he found his footing, and pulling himself together, brushed away the snow from his apparel and made sure that his gun was all right. After a glance around he picked his way down some distance farther into the canyon, and then turning to the right along a little ledge started in the direction where he expected to sight the deer higher up the hill.

Suddenly he stopped. There were the deer tracks right before him going down the gorge.

“By George,” he muttered aloud, “I did not get far enough down. However, I will follow the tracks.” And forthwith he started on the trail, cautiously but highly expectant.

The direction was westerly, but he had not gone far until the canyon made an elbow turn to the south and then a little farther on to the east. “I wonder,” said Roderick to himself, “what sort of a maze I am getting into. This canyon is more crooked than an old-fashioned worm fence or a Wyoming political boss.”

The box canyon continued to grow deeper and the rocky cliffs higher, zig-zagging first one way and then another until Roderick gave up all pretense of even guessing at the direction he was travelling.

“Strange I have never heard of this narrow box-canyon before,” he thought.

After walking briskly along for about an hour, keeping the tracks of the retreating deer in view, he suddenly came to an opening. A little valley was spread out before him, and to his amazement there were at least a hundred deer herded together in the park-like enclosure.

Roderick rubbed his eyes and looked up at the high and abrupt precipices that surrounded this open valley on every side. It seemed to him that the walls rose sheer and almost perpendicular several hundred feet to the rocky rim above. He followed on down, filled with wonderment, and presently was further astonished by finding several great bubbling springs. Each basin was fully a hundred feet across, and the agitated waters evidently defied freezing, for they fairly boiled in their activity, overflowing and coming together to form quite a big tumbling mountain stream.

Stealthily following on and keeping the great herd in view he mentally speculated on the surprise he would give Grant Jones when he came to display the proofs of his prowess as a hunter of the hills. Surely with his belt full of cartridges and the large number of deer in sight, although as yet too far away to risk a shot, he could add several antlered heads to Grant’s collection. The stream grew larger. There were a number of other springs feeding their surplus waters into brooks which eventually all joined the main stream, and he mentally resolved that the next time Gail and he went trout-fishing they would visit this identical spot. He laughed aloud and asked the question: “Will she be mine so that we may come together for a whole week into this beautiful dell?”

The farther he advanced the less snow he found in the strange, rock-fenced valley. The grasses had grown luxuriantly in the summer season, and the deer were browsing in seeming indifference to his presence yet moving on away from him all the time. He began wondering if all this were a mirage or a reality. He looked a second time at the slowly receding herd and again he laughed aloud. “Such foolishness,” he exclaimed. “It is an absolute reality, and right here I will make my name and fame as a hunter.”

He stopped suddenly, for just across the stream, standing among the boulders and pebbles of an old channel, were four deer, not two hundred feet away. They were looking at him in mild-eyed wonder, one of them a noble, splendidly antlered buck. Lifting the Major’s Springfield to his shoulder Roderick sighted along the barrel and fired. Three of the deer ran away. But the buck jumped high into the air, attempted to climb the opposite bank, failed and fell backward.

Hurriedly crossing over the stream and slipping in his excitement off the stones into knee-deep water, he came quickly up to the wounded deer. Instantly the animal bounded to his feet, but fell again. Roderick fired a second shot which reached a vital spot. The magnificent denizen of the hills had been vanquished in the uneven contest with man’s superior knowledge and deadly skill.

The novice in huntsman’s craft had received all sorts of book instructions and verbal explanations from Grant Jones. So he at once drew his hunting knife, thrust it into the jugular vein of the dying deer, and bled him copiously. Only the hunter knows the exultant feelings of mingled joy and excitement that possessed Roderick at that moment. His first deer! Resting the gun against a small cottonwood tree that grew on a raised bank between the old channel and the flowing waters, he walked to the stream, washed the crimson from his knife, and returned the weapon to its sheath.

Then he looked around to get his bearings. He knew he had come with the waters from what seemed to be a westerly direction. The stream was evidently flowing toward the east. As he walked along in the old channel over the sandbar he kicked the rocks and pebbles indifferently, and then stopped suddenly, gasped and looked about him.

On every side the mountains rose precipitately fully six or seven hundred feet. There was no visible outlet for the stream.

“Is it possible,” he exclaimed with bated breath, “that I am in the lost canyon? And this,” he said, stooping down and picking up a nugget of almost pure gold – “is this the sandbar on which my father and Uncle Allen Miller found their treasure yeans and years ago? Marvelous! Marvelous! Marvelous!”

For the moment the slain deer was forgotten. His achievement as a hunter of big game no longer thrilled him. He was overwhelmed by a mightier surge of emotion.

“Yes,” he said finally in a low voice of conviction, “this at last is the lost find!”

And he sank down on the gold-strewn pebbly sandbar, limp and helpless, completely overcome.

A minute later he had recovered his composure. He stood erect He gazed down the valley. The startled herd of deer had vanished into the brushwood and low timber.

But there, slowly ascending along the river bed, was the figure of Buell Hampton. Roderick stood stockstill, lost in amazement, waiting.

CHAPTER XXXII – STAKING THE CLAIMS

SO IT is you who have found my Hidden Valley,” said Buell Hampton as he drew near. His voice had a regretful ring, but as he grasped Roderick’s hand he added cordially: “I thank God it is you, Roderick. When I heard the rifle shots I was afraid it might be Bud Bledsoe or some of his gang.”

“Your hidden valley, Major?” murmured Roderick, interrogatively and with emphasis on the first word.

“Yes, my son – the valley from which I took the carload of rich ore we sold in Denver.”

“Great guns, Major. I too have discovered gold – placer gold.”

“Where?”

“At your feet. Look.” And Roderick stooped and picked up a fine smooth-worn nugget as big as a pigeon’s egg. “Look, look, look,” continued Roderick. “It is all around us on this sandbar.”

“I did not happen on this spot,” said Buell Hampton. “The fact is I hardly explored the valley at all. I had all the gold I wanted or could ever want in my own find.”

“Then where is that find?”

“Lower down the stream – a dyke of porphyry and white quartz. But you already know the kind of ore Jim Rankin, Tom Sun, and Boney Earnest helped me to get out of the valley. It is quite different from your gold.”

The Major stooped, and collected a handful of good-sized nuggets.

“How did you come to find this place, Roderick?” he asked, gazing up at the sheer cliffs around them.

“I have been searching for it,” he replied, “since ever I came to Wyoming. Oh, Major, it is a strange story. I hardly know where to begin. But wait. Sit down on that boulder. I have my father’s letter with me. You can read it and will then understand.”

From an inner pocket Roderick produced the map and letter which had never left his possession, night or day, since his Uncle Allen had handed him the sealed packet in the bank manager’s room at Keokuk. Without a word Buell Hampton took the seat indicated, and after a preliminary glance at the map proceeded to read the long epistle left by the old miner, John Warfield, as a dying legacy to his son. Roderick sitting on his heels watched in silence while the other read.

“Your father was a sensible man,” remarked Buell Hampton, as at last he refolded the paper. “I like the spirit in which he wrote – the fervent expression of his hope that this wealth will prove a blessing to you instead of a disquieting evil. Yes, you have undoubtedly found your father’s lost mine. But, Roderick, why did you not tell me of this before? I would have gladly helped you to a quicker discovery. This map here I would have recognized at a glance as the map of my happy retreat, my Hidden Valley.”

“Well, Major, I may seem to have been a bit reticent – or independent, may I call it? But you will remember that it was early in our intimacy when you showed me and the others those rich ore specimens in your home. And you yourself were reticent – bound us to secrecy, yet gave us no-single clue as to the whereabouts of your wonderful discovery.”

“Because I wanted to protect this place from intrusion – I indulged in the dream that the treasure of the valley might be made to fall only into worthy hands, which dream could never be realized unless I guarded my secret from one and all.”

“Your sentiment I quite understand. But don’t you see, Major, it was this very reticence on your part that made me reticent – that virtually sealed my lips? I have often thought of showing you my father’s letter, of telling the full reasons that brought me to Wyoming. But to have done so after you had shown us that ore would have been simply to press you for further information – to have asked you to divulge the location of your mine which you had resolved to keep secret so that I might possibly be assisted in the quest for my father’s lost claim. I couldn’t do that I am sure you will now understand my feelings.”

“Fine feelings, Roderick,” exclaimed the Major, extending his hand. “Feelings after my own heart I understand them, and can only compliment you on your sturdy independence. But how did you get here?” And again he glanced up the precipitous mountains.

“Well, I think I might almost say I tumbled down into the canyon,” laughed Roderick. “I slipped and tobogganed down a steep slope. Then I followed the tracks of four deer I was after, and found myself here. By the way, have you looked at my splendid buck?”

Buell Hampton rose, and as if by force of habit drew his hunting knife and proceeded to dress and gambrel the deer. Roderick watched the skilled hands at work. Before many minutes the carcass was hanging on the peg of a broken limb.

“Certainly, a fine buck,” remarked the Major, stepping back admiringly. “Your first, I believe?”

“My very first.”

“Not often that a man kills his first deer and discovers a gold mine on the same day, eh?” laughed Buell Hampton. “But where is Grant Jones?”

“I haven’t seen him since morning. We followed your directions, and took opposite sides of the river.”

“Then he will meet you tonight at the old log hut?”

“That’s our arrangement. But how are we to get out of this box-canyon?”

“I can show you an easier way out than the toboggan slide by which you came in,” replied the Major, smiling. “At the same time I think I should prefer to follow your tracks, so that in the future I may know this second means of access. I am afraid the secret of this little sequestered valley can be no longer kept from the world. I presume you are going to stake out a claim and record it.”

“You bet,” laughed Roderick. “There’s no sentiment about sequestered valleys or happy retreats in my make-up. Great Scott, there’s a cool million dollars of gold lying around right here. I’m going to take no chances of the next man finding the spot. Isn’t that common sense, Major?”

“No doubt,” replied Buell Hampton, “it is common sense in your case. And you are obviously following your father’s bidding in making the fullest and the best use of the wealth he tried so long in vain to rediscover. Are you familiar with the regulations as to staking out a claim?”

“Oh, yes, I’ve posted myself on all that.”

“Well, choose your ground, and I’ll whittle your stakes.” He rose and again unsheathed his hunting knife.

“Major,” cried Roderick, “along this old channel there’s at least three men’s ground. We’ll stake for you and for me and for Grant Jones.”

“But Grant Jones must have been on his claim before he can file on it. That’s the law.”

“We’ll bring him down tomorrow morning.”

“Then, go ahead,” said the Major. “I think it is right and proper to secure all the ground we can. I believe it will be all for the best that it should be in our hands.”

Within an hour stakes had been placed at the corners of the three placer claims, and the proper location notices, written on leaves torn from Buell Hampton’s note book, affixed to a stake in the centre of each claim.

“I think that this complies with all legal requirements,” remarked the Major, as they surveyed their workmanship. “Now, Roderick, tit for tat. You will come down the valley with me, and we shall secure, as lode claims, the porphyry dyke from which I have cut out merely the rich outcrop.”

Another hour’s labor saw the second task completed.

They were back at Roderick’s sandbar, and had filled their pockets with nuggets.

“Now for the ascent,” said Buell Hampton. “Tomorrow morning we shall return, and breakfast here on your venison. Hurry up now; the evening shadows are already falling.”

The trail left by Roderick and the four deer through the canyon and along the zigzag gash in the mountains above the bubbling springs was clearly traceable in the snow. When the narrow ledge by which Roderick had descended into the gorge was reached the Major took the precaution of blazing an occasional tree trunk for future direction. Progress was easy until they reached the abrupt declivity down which the hunter had slipped. A little farther along the deer appeared to have descended the steep incline by a series of leaps. In the gathering dusk it was impossible to proceed farther; steps would have to be cut or a careful search made for some way around.

“We must go back,” said Buell Hampton. “Now I will show you my means of access to the canyon – one of the most wonderful rock galleries in the world.”

Retracing their footsteps they hastened along at the best speed possible, and soon reached the tunnel into which the river disappeared. Producing his electric torch, the Major prepared to lead the way. He lingered for just a moment to gaze back into the canyon which was now enveloped in the violet haze of eventide.

“Is it not lovely?” he murmured. “Alas, that such a place of perfect peace and beauty should come to be deserted and despoiled!”

Roderick was fingering the slugs of gold in his pocket. He followed the direction of the Major’s eyes.

“Yes, it is all very beautiful,” he replied. “But scenery is scenery, Major, and gold is gold.”

The little torch flashed like an evening star as they disappeared into the grotto.

Buell Hampton and Roderick had gazed up the canyon.

But they had failed to observe two human forms crouched among the brushwood not fifty yards away – the forms of Bud Bledsoe and Grady, who had that morning tracked the Major from his home to the falls, under the cataract, through the rock gallery, right into the hidden canyon, intent on discovering the secret whence the carload of rich ore had come, bent on revenge for Grady’s undoing with the smelting company when the proper moment should arrive.

That night Buell Hampton, Roderick Warfield, and Grant Jones supped frugally at the hunter’s hut on ham sandwiches and coffee. Down in Hidden Valley on the gold-strewn sandbar W. B. Grady and his henchman feasted royally on venison steaks cut from the fat buck Roderick’s gun had provided. They had already torn down the location notices and substituted their own. And far into the night by the light of their camp fire the claim-jumpers searched for the nuggets among the pebbles and gathered them into a little heap, stopping only from their frenzied quest to take an occasional gulp of whiskey from the big flask without which Bud Bledsoe never stirred. When daylight broke, exhausted, half-drunk, both were fast asleep beside the pile of stolen gold.

CHAPTER XXXIII – THE SNOW SLIDE

DURING the night a few flakes of snow had fallen – just the flurry of a storm that had come and tired and paused to rest awhile. The morning broke grey and sombre and intensely still; the mantle of white that covered the ground and clung to bushes and tree branches seemed to muffle every sound; the atmosphere was clear, but filled with brooding expectancy.

The three friends at the hunter’s hut were early astir. Roderick, despite the fact that fortune had at last smiled and crowned with success the prolonged quest for his father’s lost mine, was strangely oppressed. Buell Hampton, too, was grave and inclined to silence. But Grant Jones was gay and happy, singing blithely during the preparations for breakfast.

On the previous night he had received the story of the find with exultant delight. With such a rich mining claim all the ambitions of his life were about to be realized. He would buy out his financial partners in the Dillon Doublejack and publish it as a daily newspaper – hang the expense, the country would grow and with it the circulation, and he would be in possession of the field against all-comers. Then again he would acquire the Encampment Herald although keeping on the brilliant Earle Clemens as editor; also start another paper at Rawlins, and in a little time run a whole string of journals, like some of the big newspaper men whose names were known throughout the nation. Listening to these glowing plans as they drank their morning coffee around the campfire, Roderick and the Major could not but admire the boyish gaiety of this sanguine spirit.

“I’m going to propose to Dorothy tomorrow,” exclaimed Grant by way of grand finale to his program of great expectations, “and the Reverend Stephen Grannon will marry us before the week is out We’ll spend our honeymoon in Chicago so that I can buy some new printing presses and things. Then we’ll be back in time to bring out a grand mid-winter number that will make all Wyoming sit up and take notice. By gad, boys, it’s great to be a newspaper editor.”

“Better to be a newspaper proprietor,” laughed Roderick.

“Or both combined,” suggested the Major.

“There you’ve hit it,” cried Grant. “And that’s just the luck that has come my way at last – thanks to you, Roderick, old scout, and to you, Major, as well.”

“No, no,” protested Buell Hampton. “With your happy disposition and great capacity for work, success was bound to be yours, my dear fellow. The manner of its coming is a mere detail.”

“That’s the way a good friend cloaks good deeds,” replied Grant. “However, we’ll let it go at that. Pass the frying pan please; this bacon’s just fine.” Plans for the day were carefully discussed. The man in charge of the burros had not been taken into their confidence; as a member of the expedition he would be properly looked after later on, but meanwhile strict secrecy was the only wise policy until the location papers had been properly filed at the county seat, Rawlins. This filing would undoubtedly be the signal for a rush of all the miners and prospectors within a hundred miles of the little treasure valley among the hills.

“Yes, there will be a regular stampede,” remarked the Major – “provided the snow holds off,” he added with a glance at the grey canopy of cloud overhead.