Grey Thunder Mountain

1. Auflage 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5183-0459-0
Verlag: Charles River Editors
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 318 Seiten

Zane Grey was an American author best known for writing Western fiction.  With books such as Riders of the Purple Sage and Betty Zane, Grey is perhaps the most famous writer of Westerns with many of his books being adapted into movies and TV shows.  This edition of Grey's Thunder Mountain includes a table of contents.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Grey, Zane

Leseproben

CHAPTER II
.................. EXCITEMENT PREVAILED IN THE EMERSON camp. Sam succumbed to some extent to the uncontained joy of his brothers. Jake declared it was a good thing that there was not any whisky in the packs. They fell over each other preparing supper and partaking of it. Jake could not decide what he wanted to do with his share. Lee had his ranch picked out, his herds, his horses, and he decided that a rich young cattleman, not bad-looking, might possibly find a wife. Faint thunder came rumbling from the darkness. “Ah-huh! Thar’s the old-man mountain grumblin’ thet we ain’t got the gold yet,” exclaimed Sam. A menace seemed momentarily to hold the three in thrall. It passed, and with it the hilarity, the boyish indulgence in wild prospect. “Listen, boys,” spoke up Sam, seriously. “We’ve struck gold. Maybe I need to tell you thet the majority of prospectors who strike it rich never reap the profits of their discovery.” “Why’n hell not?” roared Jake, aghast, his rugged visage red in the firelight. “It’s just a fact, thet’s all. Prospectors ain’t business men. They’re usually ignorant, heedless, improvident. They lose out somehow.” “We ain’t gonna lose nothin’,” declared Jake, belligerently, he who had formerly been the most pessimistic. The gold fever had inflamed his brain. Kalispel looked on silently, conscious of a sinking sensation within his breast. “If we can sell out for a hundred thousand dollars we’d be wise to do it,” said Sam, ponderingly. “Hell no!” yelled Jake, and entreated Kalispel to side with him. “A hundred thousand seems a lot of money, but—” muttered Kalispel, struggling with his feelings. “Right here we form a company,” went on Sam, emphatically. “Thet is, a company to work this quartz vein. Thet’ll leave us free to take up placer-minin’ claims on the bench. We want to pick out the three richest claims before the stampede.” “Stampede?” echoed Jake. “Shore. They’ll be a mad rush to this valley the day thet chunk of quartz is shown in Challis, Boise, or Salmon.” “I might have figgered thet,” admitted Jake. “Sam, why need anyone learn about the quartz vein?” queried Lee. “It’ll take a ten-ton stamp mill to work this mine.” “Ten-ton!” ejaculated Kalispel. “How on earth could such a mill be gotten here?” “Packed in on mules. It can be done. It must be done.... An’ now you see why we must sell out, or sell a half interest, at least. We have no money.” “Why not keep the quartz mine secret, while we work all this placer mine for ourselves?” asked Kalispel. “Then afterward sell out or finance the job ourselves?” “Thet’s a big idee,” agreed Jake. “It may be a good idee, but it’s not good business. We want action. We’d risk everythin’ to keep this quartz mine a secret. Because sooner or later, while we are workin’ the placers, other miners will drift in. The Bitter Root range an’ the Lemhi are full of them.” “Well, let them drift,” declared Kalispel. “We can take care of ourselves an’ hang on to our holdin’s. All the time we’ll be diggin’ gold while keepin’ our best secret. Then, when we are forced to show our hand, all right. An’ the situation will be precisely the same as it is now.” Jake agreed with Kalispel, and they argued with Sam. But he was obdurate, and at length out of deference to his superior experience and judgment they let him have his way. Whereupon they fell to discussing the other aspects of the case. Sam finally worked out a plan. He would stay in the valley, guarding the quartz mine, while working the placers along the stream. Jake and Kalispel were to trace the best trail possible out of the mountains and then make their way to Boise, where they would exhibit their quartz finding to prominent mining-men, and consider no less than a hundred thousand dollars for a half interest, the contracting parties to furnish the mill, have it packed in, and work the mine. If a good deal could not be consummated at Boise, they were to proceed to Challis and Salmon. Sam said he could stretch food supplies for a month and it would be necessary for one of the brothers, at least, to pack in before the expiration of that time. They settled all before going to bed at a late hour. Kalispel could not sleep at once. His mind was full. It seemed that the unlucky star under which he had always ridden had marvelously brightened. And while he lay there the old mountain rumbled its faint deep thunder of warning. * * * * * On the following morning Kalispel and Jake, driving three lightly packed burros, headed up the valley on their important mission. Sam accompanied them as far as his quartz vein, which was located in an outcropping ledge of rock at the edge of the bench where it merged into the mountain. Jake, who did not like this separation, strode gloomily along without looking back. Kalispel, however, at a curve of the stream, turned to wave good-by. But Sam had already forgotten them. His red-shirted frame bent over his precious gold-bearing ledge. Jake had been given the task of lining a trail that could be used later by a heavily-packed train of mules. Wherefore he kept to the watercourse. They found that the narrow valley did not box at all, but wound to the south, grading to a rough pass between forest-patched mountain summits. They headed the stream, and by noonday had worked to the divide from which an elk trail descended under beetling cliffs. It led to a wide valley through which ran the Middle Fork branch of the Salmon river. It was a wide, swift, shallow stream. They crossed with difficulty, finding the icy water and slippery rocks hard to contend with. They camped on the opposite bank, where a roaring fire, dry clothes, and hot food dispelled the discouragement that had attended the inception of this doubtful journey. Next day they zigzagged up a vast mountain slope, covered with thick white grass, and picturesque for its numerous patches of black fir. Elk and deer scarcely took the trouble to move out of their path. Once on the summit of this range Jake encountered obstacles to the much-desired, easily-graded trail to the south-west. He made a false start and was compelled to return and more carefully study the baffling maze of sharp peaks and dark canyons. In the end he led around a mountain, from the higher shoulder of which, before sunset of that day, he pointed out to his brother the valley of the main Salmon, the town of Challis, the Lemhi mountains and to the south rolling, gray country that opened into the purple range. It took three days to grade out a trail down to Challis. The brothers camped on the outskirts of the little town. After supper Jake made inquiries, and to his dismay ascertained that a stage for Boise did not leave until Saturday, and that the supplies needed must be brought from Salmon, sixty miles down the river. Jake was a thoughtful man that night round the camp fire. Finally he unburdened himself. “Lee, I didn’t like leavin’ Sam alone in thet hole. An’ we can’t go on to Boise, make this minin’ deal, an’ come back to Sam inside of a month. So here’s what we’ll do. I’ll go on to Boise alone.... Don’t worry. I won’t lose the quartz an’ I’ll be shore nobody gets a hunch about it. Reckon I’ll not need more’n a few dollars till I make the deal. So you can have this money. You go to Salmon an’ buy three more burros, an’ all the supplies you can pack on them, an’ rustle back to Sam.... What you think of my idee?” “It’s a damn good one,” replied Lee. “By the time I get to Salmon a week will be gone. It’ll take a couple of days to outfit there. An’ with six burros all loaded down, an’ allowin’ for the steep grades an’ rough ground on that trail we worked out on—why Jake, even with good luck I couldn’t make it back to Sam in two weeks.” “You shore couldn’t. Say a month. An’ then you’ll beat any cowpunchin’ job you ever had.... Wal, it’s settled, an’ I’m relieved.” * * * * * Late afternoon of the second day, on the way down the river, Kalispel came to where the Salmon made a wide, slow bend. The several hundred acres of land inclosed by the stream in that circling constituted the ranch he had seen from a mountain-top on the way in. From that far point he had made out several groves of cottonwoods, the wide, flat, brown and green fields, the fringe of trees bordering the river, the sheltered log cabin under the lea of the hill. But at close range this ranch appeared the finest prospect he had ever encountered. The soil was fertile. He crossed several brooks on his way toward the log cabin. On each side of the river sloped up endless...