The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1895-09-29

Se. For mining laws is mining laws
and it's the one thing ye can't ge
over" he added, with the peculiar su
/ perstitious reverence of the California
miner for that vested authority.
But Key scarcely listened. All tina
he heard seemed only to link him more
fatefully and indissolubly With TIT
young girl. He was already impatient
Of even this slight delay in his quest
In his perplexity his thoughts had re
verted to Collinson's; the mill was {
good point to begin his search from
/ its good-natured, stupid proprietor
might be his guide, his ally and ever
! his confidante.
When his horse was baited ne was
again in the saddle. "If yer going Col
/ linson's way, yer might ask him if he's
lost horse" said the foreman. THE
morning after the shake some Of the
boys picked up a mustang with make.
up lady's saddle on" Key started
While it was impossible that 1t could
have been ridden by Alice, it might
have been the woman who had pre-
coded her.
Did you make any search?" he said,
eagerly. "There may have been an ac-
cident"
e reckon it wasn't no accident" re-
turned the foreman, cody, 'for the
had been staked out and broken away.
Without another word Key put spurs
to his horse and galloped away, leaving
his companion staring after him. Here
was clue; the horse could not have
strayed far; the broken tether indi-
Gated a camp; the gang had been
gathered somewhere in the vicinity,
where Mrs. Barker had warned them;
perhaps in the wood beyond Collin
sons. He would penetrate it alone
He knew his danger, but as a single
unarmed man he might be admitted
TO the presence of the leader, and the
alleged claim was a sufficient excuse.
What he would say or do afterward
depended upon chance. 1t was wild
scheme-but he was reckless. Yet he
would go to Collinson's first.
At the end of two hours he reached
the thickest wood that grew upon the
shelf at the top of the grade which
descended to the mill. AS he emerged
light Of the valley below he sharply
refined in his horse and stopped. An
other bound would have been his last.
For the shelf, the rocky grade itself.
the ledge below, and the mill upon it
were all gone! The crumbling outer
wall Of the rocky grade had slipped
away into the unreasonable depths
below. leaving only the sharp edge of
a cliff which incurved toward the
woods that had once stood behind the
mill, but which now bristled on the
very edge of a precipice. A mist was
hanging over its brink and rising from
the valley; it was a fulfilled stream
that was coursing through the former
dry bed of the river and falling
down the face of the bluff.
He rubbed his eyes. dismounted,
crept along the edge OF the preci-
pice and looked below; whatever had
subsidized and melted down into its
thousand feet of depth there was no
trace left upon its smooth face.
Scarcely an angle of drift or debris
marred the perpendicular; the burial
OF all ruin was deep and compact: the
erasure had been swift and sure-the
obllteration complete. 1t might have
been the precipitation of ages, and not
of single night At that remote dis
tance 1t even seemed as if grass were
growing over this enormous
sepulchre, but it was only the tops of
the buried pines. The absolute silence.
the utter absence of any mark of con-
Vulslve struggle-even the lulling
Whlmper Of falling water gave the
scene a pastoral repose.
So profound was the impression upon
Key and his human passion. that IF at
first seemed an ironical and eternal
ending of his quest. 1t was with dim
Guilty that he reasoned that the catas-
trophe occurred before Alice's flight.
ING mat even Collinson might have
nad time to escape. He slowly slirted
the edge of the chasm and made his
way back through the empty woods
behind the old mill site toward The
place where he had dismounted. His
lorse seemed to have strayed into The