The Baltimore County union, the Towson news., 1909-12-18

l666, Ul6dCu6u JO Cudlky WulIe, Will
an Apache arrow-point fixed in the
eye-socket.
The spell of wonder aroused by the
skull had hardly dissolved when Pat
terson opened his door to find leath-
er pouch. seemingly ancient enough
to have been carried by the Spanish
conquistadores. The pouch contained
sample of gold ore of exceeding
richness.
The sample was ofwhite quartz, the
size of a mans fist, all fuzzy with yell
low wires. Virgin metal, forced
through the rock crevices in spirals,
overlaid the basic stone as with golden
filigree-work. Such ore was not
known in the Tres Alamos district,
nor could veteran prospectors remem-
Der that any had been found within
hundred miles. From whence, then,
had Jim brought this? The camp
dreamed golden dreams, and the
crippled outcasE of the hills was trans
formed into an object of universal
solicitude.
Patterson wove an ingenius theory
about the skull and the leather pouch.
He assumed that Jim had found them
in the same place, and that treacher-
GUS redskins had struck down gold
hunter on the threshold of realiza-
ton of his widest hopes.
To watch for Jim on his next night
ly visit, then to follow to his rendez-
vous in the hills, was the plan. Pat
terson, Blake, and Reynolds were
chosen for the work. Arming them
selves with ropes for use in difficult
parts of the hills, they hid out in the
mesquit. A promise of storm was
gathering slowly on the horizon, but
overhead the sky was clear as bell.
At midnight, under the full glare of
the moon, Jim was discovered hob
bling swiftly from the entrance to the
ravine. In his mouth was white OBJ
ject whose nature could not be deter
mined. With infinite care he depos-
tied his offering in the accustomed
place, after which he paid stealthy
visitto the scrap-pile behind the kitch-
en-. Then he was off, mere blot of
shadow vanishing into the blackness
of the de6le.
Reynolds, mad with a thirst for
gold, led the pursuit, and often it was
necessary to hold him in check lest he
should draw too near and divertthedog
from his course. Two miles out, Jimis
lank, ungainly form topped a rise.
There he stood, a silhouette against
the moons yellow disk, his body
hunched together and his nose raised
to sniff the air. Coyotes, half-broth-
ers and would-be Gains, howled from
the dim regions around, and Jim was
seen to turn slowly, preserving silence
the while.
The quaveringyelps fierce with lust
for blood, drew nearer, and from the
foot of the slope the men saw pack
of the wild hill scavengers dart clear
of the lowering shadows. The venge-
full ones leaped at the devoted Jim
with snap and snarl.
Jim was pariah. The strain of
alien blood that had led him to hum
ger for master among men had made
him equally an outcast among his
kind and among those whose favor he
courted. Although he fought nobly,
yet he would have been overborne
and rent in pieces had not Patterson,
Blake and Reynolds charged to his
rescue. The pack fed helter-skelter
in every direction, Jim seizing his op-
portunity and disappearing as COM
pletely as the rest.
Patterson and his companions re-
turned to the mine, determined to
make fresh start with the approach
of daylight. Jim's last offering, they
discovered, was skeleton hand, be-
longing, no doubt to the same anat-
omy that had furnished the skull.
In the early morning, Patterson,
Reynolds, and Blake picked up a
trail of blood on the opposite side of
the uplift whose crest had been the
scene of Jim's battle and rescue.
Mile after mile to the brink of Can
yon Diablo the crimson line was fol-
lowed, only to be lost in the red shale
of the gulch's brim. The party sepa-
rated for search, Patterson going
down into the canyon, which mar
rowed, at this point, to a width OF
scarce fifty feet.
The stormy portents of night had
thickened with the coming OF day.
The sky was overcast, and thunder
muttered in the direction of Diablo 6
head-waters. Blake shook his head
| and prophesied cloudburst with a
tidal wave down the defile. He even
counseled return to the mine and
another search later on.
Reynolds was obdurate. 1t rain
came, Jim's blood would be washed
away and the trail lost. Blake sug
gested that Jim could be followed
again. Reynolds, brutally selfish
declared that no crimson trail could
be left again; perhaps the coyotes
had wounded Jim to death, and the
camp would know him no more.
The wind grew into gale durinl
the colloquy. Lightning zigzaggeo
through the rocky scarps Of the hills
and thunder doomed among the crags
Blake descended a little down th'
steep canyon-side, made trumpe
of his hands, and shouted to Patter
son. The foreman had scaled tn,
tortuous steep Of the opposite wall
gaining shelf after shelf, only to hal
on his last foothold and see fifty fee
of sheer granite above him.
| He waved his hand in answer &
Blake and started down, but as b
started a roar echoed from up tn
canyon, and wall of water, churne'
Ito foam, rolled toward him with tn
speed of an express train. In fias
Diablo Creek became torrent. On
great wave followed another, film
the gulch by leaps and bounds.
Escape was cut off for Patterson b