The Chesterfield advertiser. [volume] (Chesterfield C.H., S.C.) 1884-1978, 1922-03-02

: z. : y n.
"Where does this trail GOT"
"Give 1t time enough, I. CONES out
at the old Haversack, on G.easer
mountain"
Ends there, you mean2"
"Iou said 1t; far as 1 know, 1t ends
there"
What Is the HaversackT'
ut ain't nOthin, now. Used to be q
gold prospect eight r ten year ago.
Never got far enough along to be a
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 well where
he was going.
In one of the gulch headings there
was a patch of wash sand I'm what was,
i'm wet weather, a runway for water,
but which was now only q streamless
rarine with a few damp spots In it.
Here Daddy called halt, and while
the dog sat down and yawned at us
and otherwise manifested his impa-
ticnce at the delay, the old man gath
cred few pine-cOnes and twigs,
struck match and lighted. 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't ex-
plain; but after the fire had blazed
up enough to light the surroundings q
Bit he went down upon his hands and
knees and began to give an imitation
of u man hunting for dropped piece
OF money. Its sort O. queer. Jeanie's
been here, and the dogs been back and
across couple o times, as you can
see. But BullertOn hasn't crossed here.
There's only the one set o. tracks"
We made a wider search with a
dead pine branch for orch, 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 horse. II
Jeanie had headed for the gulch-.and
the hOof prints In the sand, and
Duddy'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
tain wilderness?
Calm and Self-contained as he usual
ly was, l could see or rather feel, that
Daddy Hiram was growing increasing
~ nervous as we pushed on. l didn't
blame him; so far from 1t, was shar-
ing the nervousness In full measure.
What were we going to find at the
end OF the trail?
1t must have been ut 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
1laversack. The starlight was bright
enough to show us what there was to
he seen, which wasn't much a couple
of tuinb!e-down shacks. shed that
had probably been the prospectors'
blacksmith shop, and tunnel mouth
that he'd once been securely boarded
up, but from which the bulkheadinc
was now partly fallen sway.
once more Daddy hunted for deao
pine branch and lighted n torch. The
shacks were empty. Of course, and
while we did not go into the tunnel,
we could see, through the broken bulk-
heading, that 1t was half filled with
caved-in earth and broken stone. Un-
derfoot there was only the coarse
gravel Of the tunnel spoil, and q full
troop of cavalry might have passed
over 1t without leaving any visible
trail. Worse than all, Barney, the pie
laced collie, appeared now to be COM
pleteky at fault. He was running
around In circles with his nose to the
ground; pretty plain indication that
he had lost the trail.
"Pll be bat-clawed and owl-hooted
If know what-all to do next" Daddy
puzzled.
He hadn't any the best Of me there,
and 1t was precisely at this point that
the split-faced dog took 1t into his
head to add another snarl to the knot
ted tangle. After galloping around all
over the place half q dozen times,
smiling at everything in sight, lie had
finally come to stand with his nose
at crack In the tunnel boarding. The
next instant he had leaped through
the hole where the planks had fallen
away, and presently we heard him
whining and scratching behind the
bulkhead.
don't know about Daddy Hiram's
heart, but / do know that miae was
doing nip-faps and back somersaults
when we ran up to see what the dog
had found in the tunnel. For half
second after Daddy thrust his torch
through the hole 1 was afraid to look
scared stiff at the thought of what /
might see. When ] did look, I saw the
dog digging frantically at the heap of
caved-in earth, and, Of course to my
disordered imagination, the hole In
which he was burrowing transformed
itself at once into newly made grave
Good Cod" ! gasped; and then:
Look, Daddy-right under your
torch !"
TT