The Cave of Gold | Page 8

of Gray Cloud and started off on a gallop for the scene of the
contest with the grizzly.
How wonderful it is that the tenor of our whole after lives may be, nay,
frequently is, completely changed by some seemingly unimportant
circumstance or unexpected happening. If Thure Conroyal and Bud
Randolph had not heard the death-cry of that horse and had not turned
aside to see what had caused those agonizing sounds, they would not
have been delayed, by their contest with the grizzly, until the coming of
the three men, nor have witnessed the attack on the miner; and, if they
had not seen this attack on the miner and hurried to his rescue, they
never would have heard the miner's marvelous tale, nor have secured
the skin map; and, if they had not heard the miner's tale and secured the
skin map--But, I must let the story itself tell you all that resulted from
these unexpected and seemingly unimportant happenings.
CHAPTER II
DEATH OF THE MINER
California and 1849! Magical combination of Place and Date! The
Land of Gold and the Time of Gold! The Date and the Place of the
opening of Nature's richest treasure-house! Gold--free for all who
would stoop and pick or dig it out of the rocks and the dirt! The
beginning of the most wonderful exodus of gold-mad men in the
history of the world! "Gold! Gold!! GOLD!!! CALIFORNIA GOLD!"

The nations of the world heard the cry; and the most enterprising and
daring and venturesome--the wicked as well as the good--of the nations
of the world started straightway for California. Towns and cities sprang
up, like mushrooms, in a night, where the day before the grizzly bear
had hunted. In a year a wilderness became a populous state. A
marvelous work to accomplish, even for an Anglo-Saxon-American
nation; but, get down your histories of California, boys, and you will
learn that we did accomplish that very thing--built a great state out of a
wilderness in some twelve months of time!
Of course, Thure and Bud (Bud with the grizzly's hide had soon
overtaken Thure), as they rode along over the soft grass of the
Sacramento Valley, on this clear July afternoon of the eventful year of
1849, did not realize that all these wonderful things were happening or
were about to happen in their loved California. They knew that a great
gold discovery had been made in the region of the American River
some forty miles northeast of Sutter's Fort. Indeed, for the last year, all
California had gone gold-mad over this same discovery; and now every
able-bodied man in the country, who could possibly get there, was at
the mines. Stores, ranches, ships, pulpits, all businesses and all
professions had been deserted for the alluring smiles of the yellow god,
gold, until it might be truthfully said, that in all California there was but
one business and that one business was gold-digging.
The devastating gold-fever had swept over the Conroyal and the
Randolph ranchos; and had left, of all the grown-up males, only Thure
and Bud, who, not yet being of age, had been compelled to stay, much
against their wills, to care for the women folks and the ranchos, while
their fathers and brothers and all the able-bodied help had rushed off,
like madmen, to the mines; and only their loyalty to their loved mothers
and fathers had kept them from following. Now, the one great hope of
their lives was to win permission to go to the mines, where men were
winning fortunes in a day, and try their luck at gold-digging.
The Conroyal rancho, the Randolph and the Conroyal families had
united, when the men went to the mines, and both families were now
living at the Conroyal rancho, was some five miles from the scene of

the robbery and attempted murder of the miner; and, for the first two
miles of the homeward ride, the wounded man lay unconscious and
motionless in Thure's arms. Then he began to move restlessly and to
mutter unintelligible things.
"He sure isn't dead," Thure declared, as the struggles of the man nearly
pitched both of them out of the saddle. "Just give me a hand, Bud; for, I
reckon, we'll have to lower him to the ground until he gets his right
senses back or quits this twitching and jerking. I am afraid he will start
the wound to bleeding again."
Bud quickly sprang off the back of his horse; and together and as
gently as possible the two boys lowered the wounded miner from the
saddle and laid him down on a little mound of grass. A few rods away a
small stream of water wound its way, half-hidden by tall grass and
bushes and low trees, through the little valley where