The Mellette County pioneer. [volume] (Wood, Mellette County, S.D.) 19??-1971, 1922-02-17
CHAPTER XII.
Around Robin Hoods Barn.

After we had covered possibly two
of the four miles between the CHINA
bar and the railroad station, the dog
branched off to the left along the
mountain on Il road that vas little
better than a bride path through the
forest. and which, for the time, kept
its level on the slope, neither ascend
ing nor descending.
How about il. Daddy / asked.
"Whcre Toes this trail Go?"
Give it time enough, it ONE out
at the old IIaverSack, on Greaser
mountain"
Ends there. YOU mean?'
You said it; far as | know, it ends
there"
What is the H~avcrsack?"
1T amt nOthin', now. Used to be IL
gold prospect eight r ten year ago.
Never got far enough along to be IA
mine, they tell me-"
1t was certainly singular that the
dog should be leading us to an aban-
doned mining project, but Barney
seemed to know perfectly we'll where
he was going.
In one of the gulch headings there
was q patch of wash sand in what was,
in wet weather, Il runway for water,
but which was now only Il streamlesS
ravine with a few damp spots in 1t.
Here Daddy called a halt, and while
the dog sat down and yaWned at us
and otherwise manifested his impa-
thence at the delay, the old man gath
cred a few %pine-cones and twigs,
struck a match and lighted q fire, eau
tioning me meanwhile not to walk on
the damp sand patch.
/ hadn't the slightest idea of what
he was driving at, and he didn' eX-
plain; but after the fire had blaZed
up enough to light the surroundings a
bit, he went down upon his hands and
knees and began to give an imitation
of a man hunting for a dropped piece
of money. 'Its sort o queer. Jeanie's
beer here, and the dogs been back and
across a couple o times, as you can
see. But Fullerton hasn't crossed here.
There's only the n set % tracks
We made q wider search, with a
dead pine branch for a torch, but
found no other tracks; in fact, the
gulch was quilted so deeply above and
below that there was no other prac-
ticable crossing place for q horse. If
.Jeanie had headed for the gulch-and
the hoof prints in the sand, and
Daddy's identification Of them seemed
TO prove this past any question Of
doubt-she had headed it alone. But
why had she been riding alone into
the depths OF this uninhabited noun
tain wilderneSSI
Calm and ~self-cOntained as'he usual
Nv was, ! could see, or rather feel, that
Daddy Hiram was growing increasing
~ nervous as we pushed on. l didn't
blame him so far from it, / was shar-
ing the nervousness in full measure.
What were we going TO find at the
end Of the trail?
It must have been ct least two miles
beyond the damp sand patch that the
dim trail we had been following ended
abruptly at the abandoned mining
claim spoken Of by Daddy Hiram-the
Haversack. The starlight was bright
enough to show Is what there was to
be seen, which wasn't much Il couple
of tulnbie-down shacks, a shed that
had probably been the prospectors'
blacksmith shop, and a tunnel mouth
that had once been securely boarded
up, but from which the bulkheading
was now partly fallen away.
Once more Daddy hunted for a dead
pine branch and lighted n torch. The
shackS were empty. Of course, and
while we did not 20 into the tunnel,
we could see, through the broken bulk
heading, that 1t was half filed with
caved-in earth and broken stone. I'm.
derfoot there was only Tia coarse