It was at this point that Carroll took a hand.Acting in collusion with the expert agent for the British American Gold and Silver Mining Company, he had bought for hundreds of dollars and sold for thousands the Old Prospector's claims.Not that the old man had lost that financial ability or that knowledge of human nature that had given him his high place in former days, but he was possessed of a dream of wealth so vast that ordinary fortunes shrank into insignificance in comparison.He had fallen under the spell of an Indian tale of a lost river of fabulous wealth in gold that disturbed all his sense of value.In one of his prospecting tours he had come upon an old Indian hunter, torn by a grizzly and dying.For weeks he nursed the old Indian in his camp with tender but unavailing care.In gratitude, the dying man had told of the lost river that flowed over rocks and sands sown with gold.In his young days the Indian had seen the river and had gathered its "yellow sand and stones"; in later years, however, when he had come to know something of the value of this "yellow sand and stones" he had sought the river, but in vain.A mountain peak in one vast slide had filled up the valley, diverted the course of the river, and changed the whole face of the country.For many summers the Indian had sought with the unfaltering patience of his race the bed of the lost river, and at length, that very summer, he had discovered it.Deep down in a side canyon in the bed of a trickling brook he had found "yellow sand and stones" similar to those of the lost river of his youth.As the dying Indian poured out from his buckskin bag the glittering sand and rusty bits of rock, there entered into the Old Prospector the terrible gold-lust that for thirteen years burned as a fever in his bones and lured him on through perils and privations, over mountains and along canyons, making him insensible to storms and frosts and burning suns, and that even now, old man as he was, worn and broken, still burned with unquenchable flame.
Under the spell of that dream of wealth he found it easy to pay his "debts of honour" to Carroll with mining claims, which, however valuable in themselves, were to him paltry in comparison with the wealth of the Lost River, to which every year brought him nearer, and which one day he was sure he would possess.That Carroll and his confederate robbed him he knew well enough, but finding Carroll useful to him, both in the way of outfitting his annual expeditions and in providing means for the gratifying of his life-long gambling passion, by which the deadly monotony of the long winter days and nights was relieved, he tolerated while he scorned him and his villainy.
Not so Perault, whose devotion to his "ole boss" was equalled only by his hate of those who robbed while they derided him, and he set himself to the task of thwarting their nefarious schemes.For this Perault had incurred the savage wrath of Carroll, and more than once had sufered bodily injury at his hands.
The Stopping Place was filled with men from the ranges, freighters from the trail, and the nondescript driftwood that the waves of civilisation cast up upon those far-away shores of human society.
With all of them Perault was a favourite.Carroll was out when he entered.On all sides he was greeted with exclamations of surprise, pleasure, and curiosity, for all knew that he had set out upon another "annual fool hunt," as the Prospector's yearly expedition was called."Hello, Rainy, what's happened?" "Got yer gold dust?""Goin' to retire, Rainy?" "The Old Prospector struck his river yit?"greeted him on every side.
"Oui, by gar! He struck heem, for sure," grinned Perault.
"What? The Lost River?" "What? His mine?" chorused the crowd, awakened to more than ordinary interest.
"Non, not Los' River, but los' man, blank near." And Perault went on to describe, with dramatic fervour and appropriate gesticulation, the scene at the Black Dog, bringing out into strong relief his own helplessness and stupidity, and the cool daring of the stranger who had snatched his "ole boss" out of the jaws of the Black Dog.
"By Jove!" exclaimed a rancher when the narrative was finished, "not bad, that.Who was the chap, Rainy?""Do' no me.Tink he's one what you call pries'.Your Protestan'
pries'."
"What, a preacher?" cried the rancher."Not he.They're not made that way.""I don't know about that, Sinclair," said another rancher."There's Father Mike, you know.""That's so," said Sinclair."But there are hardly two of that kind on the same range.""Fadder Mike!" sniffed Perault contemptuously."Dat beeg feller hees roll Fadder Mike up in one beeg bunch an' stick heem in hees pocket.
Dat feller he's not 'fraid noting.Beeg blam-fool, jus' lak ole boss, for sure.""I guess he must be good stuff, Rainy, if you put him in that class.""Dat's hees place," averred Rainy with emphasis."Jus' lak ole boss."At this point Carroll came in.
"Hello, Perault!" he said."What the blank, blank are ye doin'
here?"
Perault spat deliberately into the ash-pan, tipped back his chair without looking at the big Irishman, and answered coolly.
"Me? After one pack pony an' some outfit for de ole boss.""Pony an' outfit, is it?" shouted Carroll."What the blank, blank d'ye mane? What 'av ye done wid that pack pony av moine, an' where's yer blank ould fool av a boss?"Carroll was working himself up into a fine rage.
"De boss, he's in bed," replied Perault coolly."De pony, he's in de Black Dog Reever, guess.""The Black Dog? What the blank, blank d'ye mane, anyway? Why don't ye answer? Blank ye f'r a cursed crapeau of a Frenchman? Is that pony of moine drowned?""Mebbe," said Perault, shrugging his shoulders, "unless he leev under de water lak one mush-rat.""Blank yer impudence," roared Carroll, "to be sittin' there laughin'
