Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1905-09-19
CHAPTER Xxx

"Wiley, as l told you, had talked about
his discovery to anybody and everybody,
but he had never given ghost of hint
as to where it lay. Nobody could have
guessed within FIVE hundred miles, even
if anybody had taken the trouble. Most
people took it for a craze, but old Zelkar
believed it, and he made all these prob
lem drawings l have about me now, and
the plan of the board with it's letterings.
and he used to go about Offering to
guide people if they would only find
the money for the expedition and go
halves with him. He couldn't find soul
to believe in him or his diamonds, and
when it came to Wiliey's knowledge that
the old Hebrew had offered to betray the
treasure, he swore he'd shoot him at
sight. That kept Zelkar out of Wileys
way, as you may very well imagine, and,
with his only patron gone, the problem
worker was so hard up that he was with
out food for days together.
This is where | come in. In those
! days-it's fifteen years ago now-I be-
! longed to a syndicate which had arrang-
ed to prospect for gold. 1t was a meas
| ly sort of an affair, and it never came
| to much. 1t was called the Ezekiel Com
! pany, because an old Jew of that name
had been its founder. There were a doz-
en- of us altogether, and a bigger set of
cut-throats than you could have found
among us was never seen in the world
The whole crowd of us were down at a
place called Ampsie together when | met
Zelkar, and heard the story of the treas
ure-the river-bed full of diamonds. l
laughed at it, as everybody else had
laughed, and l chaffed old Zekar about
it until l found that he was literally dy-
ing of starvation. l fed him up of
course, and we all went up-country for
week to look at a place we'd heard Of
1t turned out good for nothing, and we
came back. Zelkar was on the hard pan
once more He offered me his problems
on parchment, saying nothing, of course,
about their meaning l didn't want 'em,
but finally. out of pity for the old chap,
l bought 'em. The whole gang of the
syndicate was there at the time.
''rhe old boy used to hang about after
this and hint and hint about some mys-
terious value that attached to his prob
lens until / was sick of him. But one
day, when he was bothering me, it &C.
CURED to me TO say: Look here, old
chap, know all about It; you've sold ME
Diamond river 1t was the strangest
thing that ever happened in my life. l.
wasn't even drawing a bow at venture.
What l said hadn't any real meaning to
myself. 1t was a mere piece of silly
banter. But | had no sooner spoken
than Zelksr let out a cry, and came
| straight for me with a face as pale as
ashes. How do you knowY says he, all
trembling and shaking and staring You
never saw fellow in such a state as
he was. l looked at him very straight.
and l said, We'll, Zelkar, l didn't know
anything, but you've given me something
| to think about He went away without
a word, but he sent me one or two of
the queerest looks l ever saw, and sew
eral of the rufians of the syndicate who
| happened to be there at the time were
quite fixed in their own minds that there
was a good deal in it.
THE next thing l knew was that
Wiley was dead, and it was said that he
had put his problems and his plan into
| the hands of young Englishman, a dis
tant relative of his, and had explained
everything to him. The youngster went
up-country, but the native tribes were
at war among themselves, and the expedi-
ton came to grief. Problems and plan
were lost in the wilderness. The lad
was shot, but he managed to send down
some kind of mutilated message. He
| had actually found Diamond river. There
was no mistake about that. Perhaps it
was through his fever, or he may have
written in haste and furry, but though
| his one professed purpose in writing was
to tell the whereabouts of the find, he
gave no intelligence of it at all. And so
the thing died out of remembrance for
years and years. l thought that Zelkar
must be dead for a certainty for the
legend of q dried up watercourse full of
diamonds as big as pigeons eggs was
common property, and he would have
been able to find any number of men TO
back him. There were lots of men, too,
who knew how Wiley had meant to lock
up his secret in the chess problem.
''It turned out that Zelkar was alive
after all. but he was as helpless as if he