The Eaton Democrat. (Eaton, Ohio) 1875-1903, 1875-05-20

AN10A - - 1OA4b 114O > DONLo u 11IODo
three or four deep, and soft as a velvet
cushion /; trees two hundred feet high,
all one blaze of flowers from top to bot
tom ; leaves big enough to wrap you up
like a blanket !; tree-ferns big as a table
cloth, all glittering like the finest silver
lace /; humming- birds and monkeys and
parrots, and butterflies Is broad as the
palm of your hand waterfalls sheer
down over great black precipices a thou
sand feet high ; and far away behind the
everlasting mountains, piled one above
another till they seemed to go right up
to heaven. Among all these enormous
things we eight men, big and strong as
we were, seemed of no more account than
a lot of ants crawling on a blade of grass;
and 1 think 1 never felt so small in my
life as I did then.
However, I hadn't much leisure to
think about it at the time, for you can't
expect q fellow to have much of an eye
for scenery when he's hacking his way
through q great cobweb of branches too
thick for the light to get through, with
his boots full of ants and his mouth full
of gnats, and the damp vapor-bath heat
of the woods melting him away bit by
bit, fifty prickles going into him at
once, a thorn-bush scalping him from
above, and a creeper tripping him up
down below.
And SO we hammered along, till at last
we worked up to the plateau and saw the
great lake spreading away before us as
far as ever We could see. We weren't
long of making out the three-cornered
crag, mol the shadow neither, for it was
Just sunrise when we got there, as if O.
purpose for us /; and once we'd made it
out we hardly waited to take breath be-
fore we were at it tooth and nail.
Tho first day was a regular blank one
till just toward shutdown, and then the
Portigee screeched out suddenly that
he'd got something heavy. 1 helped
him to haul up the pan, and there, sure
enough, was a bar of gold over a foot
long, and pretty nigh as thick as my two
fingers here. At that we all shouted at
once, and went at it harder than ever
and I really think our chaps would have
worked all night, but Seth stopped 'em.
He told 'em that the gold wouldn't run
away, and that if they put on too much
steam at first they'd Just knock them
selves up before they were half through,
and that they'd better just lightafre and
get dried, and have some supper, and f1
up some kind of shelter against the dew,
and then start fair next morning. And
SO they did.
The next day and the next and the
next after that we kept bringing it up IL
handfuls-gold circlets and chains and
necklaces and ingots without end. But
on the fifth day 1 found the provisions
| getting so low that I was rather scared,
for up here there was no game of any
sort, there being no vegetation at that
height for the game to live on. So we
held a council of war. Our chaps haG
this time that I verify believe they'dh have
kept digging on till they died of hunger
but Seth and I, who were a little cooler
talked them over at last. We told EN-
that we'd got enough already to make
us all as rich as Jews ; that we must al
starve if we didn't replenish our stool
somehow /; that tento one the 'fnd" was
played out (and, indeed, none of us haG
taken a grain all that morning.; and that
in any case, the lake was always there
and they could come back and try agai1
whenever they liked. So, bit by bit, W,
worked 'em round, and all started to q
back together.
We'd hard work of it the first part o
the way, for our loads were pretty heavy
and stumbling in and out of the grea
rocks was no joke, let alone that the fv,
days work had taken it out of us NOR
than we expected. One of the Spaniard
got a bad fall, and not one of us but hat
his bruise to show. But at last we go
over the barren bit and found ourselve
fairly down among the wood again ; AM
then 1 began to be jolly, thinking thi
was the end of it. But it wasn't-it wa
only the beginning.
CHAPTER II.
One afternoon, when we'd got wei
down among the lower ranges, we wer
Just looking about for q place te cam
(for the Spaniards who had got hurt wa
beginning to give up), when one of tn
niggers said suddenly
"Senor, man watch us !"
Hooked up, and there, sure enough
was a man "a savage-looking felloy
enough, but evidently no Indian) watch
ing us from the top of a ridge, a little t.
the left. He kept looking after us for
little while, and then disappeared as j
the earth had swallowed him.
"Don't like that" says Seth, "tha
critters seen that we carry a heavy swag
and he's gone to tell some of his chums
you betl
"'Wheno one has found a pumpkin-pie,
He goes and tells the t'others! +
feel like campln' in a strong plac
tonight, 1 dol"
And SO we did-with a deep cano
(gorge) behind us going sheer dow
nearly a hundred feet and a thick clum'
of trees in our front that made cover
while beyond it the ground was smoot
and level for a good eighty yards, s
that no living thing could come near Il
without being seen and fired at.
Just as we'd Lit our fire, and were BIZ
ginning to cook, we saw first one ma
and then another, till we'd counted Fl
teen in all, come ~zigzagging in and OF
of the bushes, down the face of the oppC
site ridge. They halted just at the edg
of the thicket, and took a look at th
smoke of our fire rising above the trees
and then two of them laid down the:
rifles, and were coming across the clea1
, ing to us, looking as friendly as the
could, when old Seth shoves his hea
through the leaves, and says in Spa1
ish !:
Gentlemen, we're talking over
| little business of our own, and wish t
be private, 20 you'll oblige us by keeE
ing your own side, and we'll keep ours
, for we have a way of shooting thing
, that come too near us, and we should b
sorry to lift you by mistake !"
Back the two beauties went, lookin
r as silly as a ha'porth of treacle in a TIVE
, gallon jug, and Seth rubbed his hand
, and gave a chuckle.
! "They'd got a bottle in each hant
} them two," says he ; "they war gwin
to make us slowed, and then clean OIL
our swag ; but they don't fool this chill
q no how. Naow, ye see, they'll wait ii
! dark, and her go for us with a rush
! that's what's the matter with them-bl
1 guess we'll be mot at home when the
, CALL"
He whispered to me to cut down three
=. go-- - Al -