The Lost Cabin Mine
Frederick Niven
Produced by Al Haines.
_*THE*_* LOST CABIN MINE*
_By_
FREDERICK NIVEN
_New York_ DODD, MEAD 6 COMPANY 1929
title page]
COPYRIGHT, 1908 BY DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
PRINTED IN U. S. A.
TO MY SISTER
*Contents*
CHAPTER
I. Introduces "The Apache Kid" with whom Later I become Acquainted II. Mr. Laughlin Tells the Story up to Date III. Mr. Laughlin's Prophecy is Fulfilled IV. I Take my Life in my Hands V. I Agree to "Keep the Peace" in a New Sense VI. Farewell to Baker City VII. The Man with the Red Head VIII. What Befell at the Half-Way House IX. First Blood X. In the Enemy's Camp XI. How it was Dark in the Sunlight XII. I am Held as a Hostage XIII. In which Apache Kid Behaves in his Wonted Way XIV. Apache Kid Prophesies XV. In which the Tables are Turned--at Some Cost XVI. Sounds in the Forest XVII. The Coming of Mike Canlan XVIII. The Lost Cabin is Found XIX. Canlan Hears Voices XX. Compensation XXI. Re-enter--The Sheriff of Baker City XXII. The Mud-Slide XXIII. The Sheriff Changes his Opinion XXIV. For Fear of Judge Lynch XXV. The Making of a Public Hero XXVI. Apache Kid Makes a Speech XXVII. The Beginning of the End XXVIII. Apache Kid Behaves Strangely at the Half-Way House to Kettle XXIX. So-Long XXX. And Last
_*The Lost Cabin Mine*_
*CHAPTER I*
_*Introduces "The Apache Kid" with Whom Later I Become Acquainted*_
The Lost Cabin Mine, as a name, is familiar to many. But the true storyof that mine there is no man who knows. Of that I am positive--because"dead men tell no tales."
It was on the sixth day of June, 1900, that I first heard the unfinishedstory of the Lost Cabin, the first half of the story I may call it, forthe story is all finished now, and in the second half I was destined toplay a part. Of the date I am certain because I verified it only theother day when I came by accident upon a pile of letters, tied with redsilk ribbon and bearing a tag "Letters from Francis." These were theletters I sent to my mother during my Odyssey and one of them, bearingthe date of the day succeeding that I have named, contained an account,toned down very considerably, as I had thought necessary for hersensitive and retired heart, of the previous day's doings, with anoutline of the strange tale heard that day. That nothing was mentionedin the epistle of the doings of that night, you will be scarcelyastonished when you read of them.
I was sitting alone on the rear verandah of the Laughlin Hotel, BakerCity, watching the cicadi hopping about on the sun-scorched flats, nowand again raising my eyes to the great, confronting mountain, the lowertrees of which seemed as though trembling, seen through the heat haze;while away above, the white wedge of the glacier, near the summit,glistened dry and clear like salt in the midst of the high blue rocks.
The landlord, a thin, quick-moving man with a furtive air, a stragglingapology for a moustache, and tiny eyes that seemed ever on the alert,came shuffling out to the verandah, hanging up there, to a hook in theprojecting roof, a parrot's cage which he carried.
His coming awoke me from my reveries.
"Hullo," he said: "still setting there, are you? Warmish?"
"Yes."
"You ain't rustled a job for yourself yet?" he inquired, touching theedge of the cage lightly with his lean, bony fingers to stop itsswaying.
I shook my head. I had indeed been sitting there that very moment,despite the brightness of the day, in a mood somewhat despondent,wondering if ever I was to obtain that long-sought-for, long-wished-for"job."
"Been up to the McNair Mine?" he asked.
I nodded.
"The Bonanza?"
I nodded again.
"The Poorman?"
"No good," I replied.
"Well, did you try the Molly Magee?"
"Yes."
"And?" he inquired, elevating his brows.
"Same old story," said I. "They all say they only take on experiencedmen."
He looked at me with a half-smile, half-sneer, and the grey parrothanging above him with his head cocked on one side, just like hismaster's, ejaculated:
"Well, if this don't beat cock-fighting!"
Shakespeare says that "what the declined is he will as soon read in theeyes of others as feel in his own fall." I was beginning to read in theeyes of others, those who knew that I had been in this roaring BakerCity almost a fortnight and was still idle, contempt for my incapacity.Really, I do not believe now that any of them looked on me withcontempt; it was only my own inward self-reproach which I imaginedthere, for men and women are kindlier than we think them in our own darkdays. But on that and at that moment it seemed to me as though the veryparrot jeered at me.
"You don't savvy this country," said the landlord. "You want always tosay, when they ask you: 'Do you understand the work?' 'why sure! I'mexperienced all right; I never done nothing else in my life.' You wantto say that, no matter what the job is you 're offered. If you wantever to make enough money to be able to get a pack-horse and a outfitand go prospectin' on your own, that's what you want to say."
"But that would be to tell a downright lie," said I.
"Well," drawled the landlord, lifting his soft hat between his thumb andhis first finger and scratching his head on the little bald part of thecrown with the third finger, the little finger cocked in the air; "well,now that you put it that way--well, I guess it would. I never looked atit that way before. You see, they all ask you first pop: 'Did you everdo it before?' You says: 'Yes, never did anything else since I left thecradle.' It's just a form of words when you strike a man for a job."
I broke into a feeble laugh, which the parrot took up with such araucous voice that the landlord turned and yelled to it: "Shut up!"
"I don't have to!" shrieked the parrot, promptly, and you could havethought that his little eyes sparkled with real indignation. Just thenthe landlord's wife appeared at the door.
"See here," cried Mr. Laughlin, turning to her, "there 's that parrot o'yourn, I told him to shut up his row just now, and he rips back at me,'I don't have to!' What you make o' that? Are you goin' to permitthat? Everything connected with you seems conspirin' agin' me tocheapen me--you and your relations what come here and put up for monthson end, and your--your--your derned old grey parrot!"
"Abraham Laughlin," said the lady, her green eyes flashing, "you bindrinkin' ag'in, and ef you ain't sober to-morrow I go back east home tomy mother."
It gave me a new thought as to the longevity of the human race to hearMrs. Laughlin speak of her mother back east. I hung my head and studiedthe planking of the verandah, then looked upward and gazed at thefar-off glacier glittering under the blue sky, tried to wear theappearance of a deaf man who had not heard this altercation. Really Itook the matter too seriously. Had I only known it at the time, theywere a most devoted couple and would--not "kiss again with tears" andseek forgiveness and reconciliation, but--speak to each other mostkindly, as though no "words" had ever passed between them, half an hourlater. But at the time of the little altercation on the verandah, whenMrs. Laughlin gave voice to her threat and then, turning, stalked backinto the hotel, Laughlin wheeled about with his head thrust forward,showing his lean neck craning out of his wide collar, and opened hislips as though to
discharge a pursuing shot. But the parrot took thewords out of his mouth, so to speak, giving a shriek of laughter andcrying out: "Well, if this don't beat cock-fighting!"
The landlord looked up quizzically at the bird and then there was anawkward pause. I wondered what to say to break this silence thatfollowed upon the exhibition of the break in the connubial bliss of mylandlord and his wife. Then I remembered something that I decidedly didwant to ask, so I was actually more seeking information than striving toput Mr. Laughlin at his ease again, when I said:
"By the way, what is all this talk I hear about the Lost Cabin Mine?Everybody is speaking about it, you know. What is the Lost Cabin Mine?What is the story of it? People seem just to take it for granted thateverybody knows about it."
"Gee-whiz!" said the landlord in astonishment, wheeling round upon me.He stretched out a hand to a chair, dragged it along the verandah, andsat down beside me in the shadow. "You don't know that story? Why,then I 'll give you all there is to it so far. And talking about theLost Cabin, now there's what you might be doin' if on'y you had theprice of an outfit--go out and find it, my bold buck, and live happyever after----"
He stopped abruptly, for a man had come out of the hotel and now stoodmeditating on the verandah. He was a lithe, sun-browned fellow, this,wearing a loose jacket, wearing it open, disclosing a black shirt withpearl buttons. Round his neck was a great, cream-coloured kerchief thathung half down his back in a V shape, as is the manner with cowboys andnot usual among miners. This little detail of the kerchief wassufficient to mark him out in that city, for the nearest cattle ranchwas about two hundred miles to the south-east and when the "boys" whoworked there sought the delights of civilisation it was not to BakerCity, but to one of the towns on the railroad, such as Bogus City orKettle River Gap, that they journeyed. On his legs were blue dungareeoveralls, turned up at the bottom as though to let the world see that hewore, beneath the overalls, a very fine pair of trousers. On his headwas a round, soft hat, not broad of brim, but the brim in front was bentdown, shading his eyes. The cream-colour of his kerchief set off hishealthy brown skin and his black, crisp hair. There were no spurs inhis boots; for all that he had the bearing of one more at home on theplains than in the mountains. A picturesque figure he was, one toobserve casually and look at again with interest, though he bore himselfwithout swagger or any apparent attempt at attracting attention, exceptfor one thing, and that was that in either ear there glistened a tinygolden ear-ring. His brows were puckered as in thought and from hisnostrils came two long gusts of smoke as he stood there biting his cigarand glaring on the yellow sand and the chirring cicadi. Then he raisedhis head, glancing round on us, and his face brightened.
"Warmish," he said.
"That's what, right warmish," the proprietor replied affably, and nowthe man with the ear-rings, having apparently come to the end of hismeditations, stepped lightly off into the loose sand and Laughlin joggedme with his elbow and nodded to me, rolling his eyes toward thedeparting man as though to say, "Take a good look at him, and when he isout of earshot I shall tell you of him." This was precisely theproprietor's meaning.
"That's Apache Kid," he said softly at last, and when Apache Kid hadgone from sight he turned again to me and remarked, with the air of aman making an astounding disclosure:
"That's Apache Kid, and he's in this here story of the Lost Cabin. Yap,that's what they call him, though he ain't the real original, of course.The real original was hanged down in Lincoln County, New Mexico, abouttwenty-five year back. Hanged at the age of twenty-one he was, and hadkilled twenty-one men, which is an interesting fact to consider. That'sthe way with names. I know a fellow they call Texas Jack yet, but thereal original died long ago. I mind the original. Omohundro was hiscorrect name; as quiet a man as you want to see, Jack B. Omohundro, witheyes the colour of a knife-blade. But I 'm driftin' away. What youwant to get posted up on is the Lost Cabin Mine."
He jerked his chair closer to me, tapped me on the knee, and cleared histhroat; but I seemed fated not to hear the truth of that mystery yet,for Mrs. Laughlin stood again on the verandah.
"Abraham," she said in an aggrieved tone, "there ain't nobody in thebar."
Up jumped Abraham, his whole bearing, from his bowed head to his bentknees, apologetic.
"I was just tellin' this gentleman a story," he explained.
"I 'm astonished at you then," she said. "An old man like you a-tellingyour stories to a young lad like that! You 'd be doin' better slippin'into the bar and takin' a smell at that there barkeep's breath."
Mr. Laughlin turned to me.
"Come into the bar, sir; come into the bar. We 've got a new barkeepand the mistress suspects him o' takin' some more than even a barkeep isexpected to take. I hev to take a look to him once in a while."
Mrs. Laughlin disappeared into her own sanctum, satisfied; while the"pro-prietor" and I went into the bar-room.
The "barkeep" was polishing up his glasses. In one corner sat a grimy,bearded man in the prime of life but with a dazed and lonely eye. Healways sat in that particular corner, as by ancient right, morning,noon, and evening, playing an eternal solitary game of cards, the wholedeck of cards spread before him on a table. He moved them about,changing their positions, lifting here and replacing there, but, thoughI had watched him several times, I could never discover the system ofhis lonely game.
"Who is that man?" I quietly inquired. "He is always playing there,always alone, never speaking to a soul."
"The boys call him 'The Failure,'" Laughlin explained. "You find a manlike that in the corner of most every ho-tel-bar you go into in thishere Western country--always a-playing that there lonesome game, I 'malways scared to ask 'em what the rudiments o' that game is for they 'realways kind o' rat-house,--of unsound mind, them men is. I heerd agentleman explain one day that it's a great game for steadyin' the head.He gets a remittance from England, they say. Anyhow, he stands up tothe bar once every two months and blows himself in for about three-fourdays. Then he goes back to his table there and sets down to hislonesome card game again and frowns away over it for another couple o'months. I guess that gentleman was right in what he explained. I guesshe holds his brains together on that there game."
We found seats in a corner of the room and Laughlin again cleared histhroat. He had a name for taking a real delight in impartinginformation and spinning yarns, true, fictitious, and otherwise, to hisguests, and this time we were not interrupted. He told me the story ofthe Lost Cabin Mine, or as much of that story as was known by that time,ere his smiling Chinese cook came to inform him "dinnah vely good.Number A1 dinnah to-day, Misholaughlin, ledy in half-oh."
