Gold, Gold, in Cariboo! A Story of Adventure in British Columbia

  GOLD, GOLD, IN CARIBOO!

  A Story of Adventure in British Columbia

  by

  CLIVE PHILLIPPS-WOLLEY

  Author of "Snap" "A Sportsman's Eden" &c.

  Illustrated by Godfrey C. Hindley

  New Edition

  Blackie and Son LimitedLondon Glasgow and Dublin1903

  CONTENTS.

  CHAP. Page I. THE GOLD FEVER, 9

  II. A "GILT-EDGED" SPECULATION, 23

  III. A LITTLE GAME OF POKER, 33

  IV. THE MOTHER OF GOLD, 41

  V. "IS THE COLONEL 'STRAIGHT?'" 52

  VI. THE WET CAMP, 64

  VII. FACING DEATH ON THE STONE-SLIDE, 73

  VIII. THEIR FIRST "COLOURS," 82

  IX. UNDER THE BALM-OF-GILEAD TREE, 89

  X. THE SHADOWS BEGIN TO FALL, 97

  XI. "JUMP OR I'LL SHOOT," 107

  XII. A SHEER SWINDLE, 117

  XIII. THE BULLET'S MESSAGE, 125

  XIV. WHAT THE WOLF FOUND, 132

  XV. IN THE DANCE-HOUSE, 144

  XVI. THE PRICE OF BLOOD, 153

  XVII. CHANCE'S GOLD-FEVER RETURNS, 162

  XVIII. ON THE COLONEL'S TRAIL AGAIN, 170

  XIX. "GOOD-BYE, LILLA," 177

  XX. THE ACCURSED RIVER, 184

  XXI. PETE'S CREEK, 192

  XXII. GOLD BY THE GALLON! 203

  XXIII. THE HORNET'S NEST, 211

  XXIV. DROWNING IN THE FOREST, 222

  XXV. IN THE CAMP OF THE CHILCOTINS, 234

  XXVI. RAMPIKE'S WINTER QUARTERS, 243

  XXVII. THE SEARCH FOR PHON, 250

  XXVIII. THE KING OF THE BIG-HORNS, 258

  XXIX. PHON'S RETURN, 266

  XXX. CRUICKSHANK AT LAST! 276

  ILLUSTRATIONS

  PageCORBETT SEIZES HIS ONE CHANCE FOR LIFE _Frontis._ 80

  "WITH A SCREAM OF FEAR THE CHINAMAN SPRANG OUT" 116

  LILLA ACCOSTS THE COLONEL IN THE DANCE-HOUSE 146

  "GOLD--GOLD IN FLAKES, AND LUMPS, AND NUGGETS" 210

  CHAPTER I.

  THE GOLD FEVER.

  In the April of 1862, Victoria, British Columbia, was slowly recoveringfrom what her inhabitants described as a serious "set back."

  From the position of a small Hudson Bay station she had suddenly risenin '58 to the importance of a city of 17,000 inhabitants, from whichhigh estate she had fallen again with such rapidity, that in 1861 therewere only 5000 left in her to mourn the golden days of the "Frazer Riverhumbug."

  In '48 the gold fever broke out in California, and for ten years, in thewords of an eye-witness, 50,000 adventurers of every hue, language, andclime were drifting up and down the slopes of the Great Sierra, insearch of gold, ready to rush this way or that at the first rumour of afresh find.

  In '58 California's neighbour, British Columbia, took the fever. The cryof "Gold, gold!" was raised upon the Frazer, and the wharves of SanFrancisco groaned beneath the burden of those who sought to take shipfor this fresh Eldorado.

  In a year most of these pilgrims had returned from the new shrine,poorer by one year of their short lives, beaten back by the grim canyonsof the Frazer river, or cheated of their reward by those late floods,which kept the golden sands hidden from their view. In '58 and '59 theminer cursed Victoria as a city of hopes unfulfilled, and left her todream on undisturbed of the greater days to come.

  She looked as if, on this April day of '62, her dreams were of thefairest. The air, saturated with spring sunshine, was almost too softand sweet to be wholesome for man. There was a languor in it whichdulled the appetite for work; merely to live was happiness enough;effort seemed folly, and if a man could have been found with energyenough to pray, he would have prayed only that no change might come tohim, that the gleam of the blue waters of the straits and the diamondbrightness of the distant snow-peaks might remain his for ever, balancedby the soft green of the island pine-woods: that the hollow drumming ofthe mating grouse and the song of the meadow lark, and the hum of wakingnature might continue to caress his ear, while only the scent of thefresh-sawn lumber suggested to him that labour was the lot of man.

  And yet, in spite of this seeming dreaminess in nature, the old earthwas busy fashioning new things out of the old, and the hearts of men allalong the Pacific slope were waking and thrilling in answer to the newmessage of Mammon--"Gold! gold by the ton, to be had for the gatheringin Cariboo!" The reports which had come down from Quesnel, of thefortunes made in '61 upon such creeks as Antler and Williams, hadrestored heart to the Victorians, and even to those Californian minerswho still sojourned in their midst, so that quite half the people in thetown, old residents as well as new-comers, were only waiting for thesnows to melt, ere they rushed away to the mining district beyond theBald Mountains.

  But the snows tarry long in the high places of British Columbia, and thedays went on in spite of the men and their desire, and bread had to beearned even in such an Elysium as Vancouver Island, with all the goldwhich a man could want, as folks said, within a few weeks' march ofthem; so that hands and brains were busy, in spite of the temptations ofHope and the spring sunshine. Moreover, there were dull dogs even thenin Victoria, who believed more in the virtue of steady toil than ingold-mining up at Cariboo.

  Thus it happened, then, that a big, yellow-headed axeman, and a ray ofevening sunlight, looking in together through an open doorway upon WharfStreet, found a man within in his shirt sleeves, still busily engagedupon his daily task.

  "Hullo, Corbett, how goes it? Come right in and take a smoke."

  The voice, a cheery one with a genuine welcome in it, came from theinside of the house, and in answer the axeman heaved his great shoulderup from the door-post and loafed in.

  In every movement of this man there was a suggestion of healthyweariness, that most luxurious and delightful sensation which comes overhim who has used his muscles throughout the day in some one of thoseoutdoor forms of labour which earn an appetite, even if they do not gaina fortune.

  As he stood in the little room looking quizzically at his friend'swork, Ned Corbett, in his old blue shirt and overalls, with the axelying across one bare brown forearm, might have served an artist as amodel for Labour; but the artist into whose studio he had come had noneed for such models. There was no money in painting such subjects, andSteve Chance painted for dollars, and for dollars only. Round the roomat the height of a man's shoulder was stretched a long, long strip ofmuslin (not canvas, canvas would cost six bits a picture), and thisstrip had been sized and washed over with colour. When Corbett entered,Chance had just slapped on the last patch of this preliminary coat ofpaint, so that now there was nothing more to be done until the morrow.

  "Well, Steve, how many works of art have you knocked off to-day?" askedCorbett.

  "Works of art be hanged!" replied his friend. "I've covered about twentyfeet of muslin, and that at five dollars a picture isn't a bad day'swork. What have you done?"

  "Let me see, I've cut down a tree or two and earned an appetite,and--oh, yes, a couple of dollars to satisfy the same
. Isn't thatenough?"

  "All depends upon the way you look at things. I call it fooling yourtime away."

  "And I call this work of yours a waste of talent worse, fifty timesworse, than my waste of time. Look at that thing, for instance;" and Nedpointed to a large canvas, bright with all the colours of the rainbow.

  "That! Well, you needn't look as if the thing might bite, Ned. That isthe new map of Ophir, a land brimming 'ophir'--forgive the joke--withcoarse gold, and, what is more important, bonded by those immaculateknights of the curbstone, Messrs. Dewd and Cruickshank."

  "An advertisement, is it? Well, it is ugly enough even for that. Howmuch lower do you mean to drag your hapless art, you vandal? 'Auctioningpictures,' as you call it, is bad enough, but this is simplesign-painting!"

  "Well, and why not, if sign-painting pays? You take my advice, Ned; getthe 'sugar' first, the fame will come at its leisure. Sign-painting ishonest anyway, and more remunerative than felling trees, you bet."

  "That may be," replied the younger man, balancing his axe in his stronghands, "and more intellectual, I suppose; but, by George, there's apleasure in every ringing blow with the axe, and the scent of the freshpine-wood is sweeter than the smell of your oil-paints."

  "Pot-paints, Ned, two bits a pot. We don't run to tube-paints in thisoutfit."

  "Well, pot-paints if you like; but even so you are not making a fortune.We can't always sell those panoramas of yours, you know, even at adollar a foot."

  "That's _your_ fault, Ned; you've no eye for the latent merits of mypictures, and therefore make a shocking mess of the auctioneer'sdepartment. However, I am not wedded to my art. If lumbering andpainting don't pay, what do you say to real estate?" and as he spoke,Chance put his "fixins" together and proceeded to lock up the studio forthe night.

  "Real estate! Why, fifty per cent of the inhabitants of the Queen Cityare real estate agents professionally, and most of the others areamateurs. Be a little original, outside your art anyway, old fellow. Idon't want anything to do with real estate, except in acre blocksbeyond the city limits, and a jolly long way beyond at that!"

  "Is that so?" asked a mellow voice from behind the last speaker. "Then,my dear sir, Messrs. Dewd and Cruickshank can fix you right away. Whatdo you say to a little farm on the gorge, fairly swarming with game, andadmirably suited for either stock raising or grain growing?"

  "Viticulture, market-gardening, or a gentleman's park! Better go thewhole hog at once, Cruickshank," laughed Chance, turning round to greetthe new-comer, a dark, stout man with an unlit cigar stuck in the cornerof his mouth.

  "You must have your joke, Mr. Chance; but the farm is really a gem forall that, and with the certainty of a large advance in price thissummer, a man could not do better than buy."

  "What, is the farm better than a claim in Ophir?" laughed Chance.

  "Ah, well, that is another matter!" said Cruickshank. "The farm is agilt-edged investment. There is, of course, just a suspicion ofspeculation in all gold-mining operations, though I can't see where therisk is in such claims as those you mention. By the way, have youfinished the map?"

  "Yes, here it is," replied the artist, producing a roll from under hisarm, and partly opening it to show it to his questioner. "I call itrather a neat thing in sign-boards, don't you? I know I've used up allmy brightest colours upon it."

  "Yes, it will do; and though I don't suppose Williams Creek is quitethat colour," laughed Cruickshank, "I am happy to say that our reportsare not over-coloured, even if our map is. Do you know the Duke ofKent, Mr. Corbett?"

  "No. Who is the Duke of Kent? I'd no idea that we had any aristocratsout here."

  "Oh, the duke's is only a fancy title; most titles are that way in thefar west."

  "My sentiments exactly, Colonel Cruickshank," replied Corbett; andanyone inclined to quarrel with him might have thought that Corbettdwelt just a thought too long upon the "colonel."

  But Cruickshank was not inclined to quarrel with a man who stood sixfeet two, and girthed probably forty inches round the chest, and who wasreported, moreover, to be master of quite a snug little sum in goodEnglish gold.

  "The Duke of Kent has a claim alongside those which we bonded last fall,and he tells me that he has already refused a hundred thousand dollarsfor a half share in it."

  "A hundred thousand dollars for a half share! Great Caesar's ghost, why,you could buy half Victoria for the money!" cried Chance.

  "Well, not quite, but a good deal of it, and yet I've no doubt but thatwe have quite as rich claims amongst those we offer for sale. How can itbe otherwise? They lie side by side on the same stream."

  "Have you seen any of these claims yourself, colonel?" asked Corbett.

  "Every one of them, my good sir. My clients are for the most part my owncountrymen, and you may bet that I won't let them be done by any beastlyYank."

  "Civil to you, Steve," laughed Corbett.

  "I beg your pardon, Mr. Chance, but there are Americans _and_ Americans;and you can understand that a man who has spent the best years of hislife wearing the Queen's uniform feels hotly about some of the fraudspractised upon tender-feet by Californian bilks."

  "Why, certainly; don't apologize. I suppose there are a few honest menand a good many rogues in every nation. Did you say you had seen theclaims yourself? I thought you were in Victoria in the fall."

  "No; Dewd and I were up together. I came down and he stayed there. Thereis big money in them. Change your minds, gentlemen, and give up art forgold-mining."

  "No, thanks; I think not," replied Corbett.

  "No! Well, you know best. Good-day to you. You won't take a drink, willyou?"

  "No, I won't spoil my appetite even for a cock-tail."

  "So long, then!" and with a flourish of his gold-headed cane, which wasmeant to represent a military salute, the somewhat florid warrior divedthrough a swing-door, over which was written in letters of gold, "TheFashion Bar."

  "Say, Corbett," remarked Chance as Cruickshank disappeared, "don't youmake yourself so deuced disagreeable to my best customers. Cruickshank'sorders keep our firm in bread and cheese, and I can see you want to kickthe fellow all the time he is in your company."

  "All right, old chap; but I didn't say anything rude, did I? If he wouldonly drop the 'British army' and 'we English' I wouldn't even want to berude. What the deuce does he care whether he gets his dollars from aBritisher or a Yank?"

  "Not much, you bet! But here we are. Hullo, Phon, have you got themuck-a-muck ready?"

  "You bet you! Soup all ready. Muck-a-muck heap good to-day you see;"and laughing and chattering Phon dived into the tent, and rattled aboutthe tin plates and clucked as if he were calling chickens to be fed.

  Phon was a character in his way, and a good one at that; a little wizen,yellow body, with an especially long pig-tail coiled up on his head likea turban; eyes and tongue which were in perpetual motion, and a greataffection for the two white men, who treated him with the familiarity ofold friendship.

  "What are you in such a deuce of a hurry for to-night, Phon?" askedCorbett a little later, when the Chinaman rushed in to take away theremains of dinner.

  "S'pose I tell you, you no let me go?" replied the fellow, halfinterrogatively.

  "Go! of course I'll let you go. I couldn't help myself, I suppose. Whereare you going to--the hee-hee house?"

  "No, no. Hee-hee house no good. No makee money there. Pay all the time.Me go gamble."

  "Gamble, you idiot! What, and lose all your pay for a month?"

  "'Halo' (_anglice_ not) lose. Debbil come to me last night; debbil say,'Phon, you go gamble, you win one hundred dollars.' I go win, you see."

  "Please yourself. You'll see as much of that hundred dollars as you didof the devil. Who's that calling?"

  Phon went out of the tent for a moment and then returned, and holding upthe tent flap for someone to enter, said:

  "Colonel Cruickshank want to see you. Me go now?"

  "All right! go to blazes, only don't expect us to pay you any m
ore wagesif you lose. Come in, colonel."

  "Won't you come out instead, Mr. Corbett? It's better lying on thegrass outside than in to-night."

  "Guess he is right, Ned. Come along, you lazy old beggar!" cried Chance.And the three men in another minute were all lying prone on a blanket bythe embers of a camp-fire, smoking their pipes and chatting lazily.

  Corbett's tent--a marvel of London make, convertible into anything froma Turkish bath to a suit of clothes, and having every merit except theessential one of portability--stood upon the very edge of theencampment, commanding a view of the sea and the Olympic Range on thefarther shore.

  The encampment itself was a kind of annexe of the town of Victoria,standing where James Bay suburb now stands, although what is to-daycovered with villas and threatened by an extension of the electrictramway was in '62 a place of willows and wild rosebushes.

  Here lived part of the floating population of Victoria, miners _enroute_ to Cariboo, remittance-men sent away from home to go to the dogsout of sight of their affectionate relatives, and a good many othernoisy good-fellows who liked to live in their shirt sleeves in the openair.

  Corbett and Chance were the aristocrats of this quarter, thanks to themagnificence of their abode and the general "tonyness" of their outfit.In their own hearts they knew that they were victims to theiroutfitter--that they were living where they were instead of in a housemerely out of regard for their tent, and for those mysterious campappliances which all fitted into one another like Chinese puzzles.

  That was where the shoe pinched. In a moment of pride they had pitchedtheir tent (according to written instructions) and unpacked their"kitchen outfits," and _they had never been able to repack them_.

  It was all very well to advertise the things as packing compactly into acase two feet by one foot six inches, but it required an expert to packthem; and so, unless they were minded to abandon their "fixings," theyhad to stay by them. Therefore they stayed, and said they preferred theopen air, even when it rained, as it sometimes does even on VancouverIsland.

  Later on they learnt better, and were consoled for their losses by thesight of the hundred and one "indispensable requisites of a camp life"cast away by weary pilgrims all along the Frazer river road. It is apity that the gentlemen who sell camp outfits cannot be compelled topass one year in prospecting before they enter upon their trade.

  But an April evening by the Straits of Fuca, with a freshly-lit pipebetween your teeth, will put you in charity even with a Londonoutfitter. The warm air was full of the scent of the sea and the sweetsmoke of the camp-fires, while the chorus of the bull-frogs sounded likenature's protest against the advent of man.

  As the darkness grew the forest seemed to close in round the intrudinghouses, and for a while even the estate agent was silent, oppressed bythe majesty of night and nature.

  It was Corbett who broke the silence at last.

  "Do you know that long, blue valley, Steve--you can hardly see itnow,--the one that goes winding away back into the mountains from thegate of the Angels?"

  Steve nodded. He was too lazy to answer.

  "That valley is my worst tempter. I know I ought to settle here andwork: keep a store and grow up with the country; but I can't do it. Thatvalley haunts me with longings to follow it through the blue mists to--"

  "To the place where the gold comes from--eh, Ned? To the place where itlies in lumps still, not worn into dust by its long journey down streamfrom the heart of its parent mountain. Old Sobersides, you have beenreading your _Colonist_ too much lately."

  Ned smiled, and knocking the ashes out of his pipe, began to refill it.

  "How much of all these yarns about gold up at Antler and Williams Creekdo you believe, colonel?" he asked, turning to Cruickshank. "Do youreally think anyone ever took out fifty ounces in a day with a rocker?"

  "I know it, my good sir. I have seen it. When Antler was found in 1860the bed-rock was paved with gold, and you could not wash a shovelful ofdirt that had not from five to fifty dollars' worth of dust in it."

  "Oh, there's gold up in Cariboo, Ned, but it wants finding. You've onlygot to go into the saloons to know that there is plenty of dust for thelucky ones. Fellows pay with pinches of dust for liquors whose namesthey did not know a year ago."

  "_Paid_, you mean, Chance," corrected Cruickshank. "They are all prettynear stone-broke by now. But are you longing to go and bail up gold inyour silk hat, Mr. Corbett?"

  "I am longing to be doing something new, colonel. I've taken theprevalent fever, I think, and want to make one in this scrimmage. Ican't sit still and see band after band of hard-fists going north anylonger. Town life may be more profitable, perhaps, but I want to bewith the men."

  "Bully for you, Ned! English solidity of intellect for ever! Why, youvillain, you're as bad a gambler as Yankee Chance."

  "Worse, I expect, Mr. Chance," remarked Cruickshank, eyeing the twoyoung men critically. "You would play to win, he would play for the merefun of playing."

  "Which would give me the advantage," retorted Corbett; "because in thatcase I should stop when I was tired of the game."

  "Never mind the argument," broke in Chance; "gambler or no gambler, ifyou go I go. I'm sick of that picture of the pines and the waterfall,anyway."

  "So is Victoria. 'Bloomin' red clothes'-props and a mill-race,' one chapcalled the last copy I tried to sell," muttered Corbett.

  "Well, why not buy a couple of those claims of mine?" suggestedCruickshank. "I always like to do a fellow-countryman a good turn, andit would really be a genuine pleasure to me to put you two into a goodthing."

  "How many have you left, Colonel Cruickshank?" He could not help it forthe life of him, but the moment Cruickshank became more than ordinarilyaffectionate and open-hearted Corbett put on the colonel, and, as itwere, came on guard. He was angry with himself directly afterwards fordoing so, but he could no more help it than a man can help pullinghimself together when he hears the warning of the rattlesnake.

  "Only three, Mr. Corbett; and I doubt whether I can hold those tillto-morrow morning. I am to meet a man in town at nine about them."

  "What do you want for the three?"

  "As a mere matter of curiosity?" put in Chance.

  "Well, let me see. They are '100-foot' claims, right alongside theplaces where the big hauls were made last year; but they are the last,and as you are an Englishman and a friend--"

  "Oh, please be good enough to treat this as a purely business matter,"ejaculated Corbett, blushing up to the temples, whilst anyone looking atCruickshank might for the moment have thought that his speech had hadexactly the effect he intended it to have.

  "Well, say two thousand dollars apiece; that is cheap and fair."

  "Two thousand dollars apiece! What a chap you are to chaff,Cruickshank!" cried Chance, breaking in. "Do you take us formillionaires?"

  "In embryo if you buy my shares, certainly, my dear sir."

  "Perhaps. But look here, say a thousand dollars apiece, half cash, andhalf when we make our pile."

  "Can't do it; but I'll knock off a hundred dollars from each claim, aswe are friends."

  "The market value is two thousand dollars, you say, Colonel Cruickshank(my dear Chance, do leave this to me), and you have yourself inspectedthese claims?"

  "Certainly."

  "And they are good workable claims, adjoining those you spoke of?"

  "Undoubtedly, that gives them their principal value."

  "Very well then, I'll buy the three. Here is a hundred dollars to bindour bargain. We'll settle the rest to-morrow. Now, let me give you adrink."

  "Thank you. Are the claims to stand in your name?"

  "In Chance's, Phon's, and mine. How will that do, Steve?"

  "Settle it your own way; if you have gone crazy I suppose I must humouryou. But there is a good deal owing to our firm from yours, colonel,isn't there?"

  "Of course. That can be set off against a part of the sum due as paymentfor the claims. Good-night, Mr. Corbett. Thank you for the confid
enceyou show in me. Treat a gentleman like a gentleman, and an honest manlike an honest man, say I."

  "And a thief or a business man like a thief or a business man," mutteredChance, as Cruickshank walked away. "Oh, Ned, Ned! What a lot naturewasted on your muscles which she had much better have put into yourhead!"