prospectin' sprees again. He snuck out before daylight with the bay mare and a pack mule--I wisht I'd woke up and caught him. I'd of fixed him! If you hustle you can catch him this side of Haunted Mountain Gap. You bring him back if you have to lasso him and tie him to his saddle. Old fool! Off huntin' gold when they's work to be did in the alfalfa fields. Says he ain't no farmer. Huh! I 'low I'll make a farmer outa him yet. You git goin'.'
'But I ain't got time to go chasin' Uncle Jacob all over Haunted Mountain,' I protested. 'I'm headin' for the rodeo over to Chawed Ear. I'm goin' to winme a prize bull-doggin' some steers--'
'Bull-doggin'!' she snapped. 'A fine ockerpashun! Gwan, you worthless loafer! I ain't goin' to stand here all day argyin' with a big ninny like you be. Of all the good-for-nothin', triflin', lunk-headed--'
When Aunt Lavaca starts in like that you might as well travel. She can talk steady for three days and nights without repeating herself, with her voice getting louder and shriller all the time till it nigh splits a body's ear drums. She was still yelling at me as I rode up the trail towards Haunted Mountain Gap, and I could hear her long after I couldn't see her no more.
Pore Uncle Jacob! He never had much luck prospecting, but trailing around with a jackass is a lot better'n listening to Aunt Lavaca. A jackass's voice is mild and soothing alongside of her'n.
Some hours later I was climbing the long rise that led up to the gap and I realized I had overtook the old coot when something went ping! up on the slope, and my hat flew off. I quick reined Cap'n Kidd behind a clump of bresh, and looked up towards the Gap, and seen a pack-mule's rear end sticking out of a cluster of boulders.
'You quit that shootin' at me, Uncle Jacob!' I roared.
'You stay whar you be,' his voice come back rambunctious and warlike. 'I know Lavacky sent you after me, but I ain't goin' home. I'm onto somethin' big at last, and I don't aim to be interfered with.'
'What you mean?' I demanded.
'Keep back or I'll ventilate you,' he promised. 'I'm goin' after the Lost Haunted Mine.'
'You been huntin' that thing for fifty years,' I snorted.
'This time I finds it,' he says. 'I bought a map off'n a drunk Mexican down to Perdition. One of his ancestors was a Injun which helped pile up the rocks to hide the mouth of the cave whar it is.'
'Why didn't he go find it and git the gold?' I ast.
'He's scairt of ghosts,' said Uncle Jacob. 'All Mexes is awful superstitious. This 'un'd ruther set and drink, anyhow. They's millions in gold in that there mine. I'll shoot you before I'll go home. Now will you go on back peacable, or will you throw in with me? I might need you, in case the pack-mule plays out.'
'I'll come with you,' I said, impressed. 'Maybe you have got somethin', at that. Put up yore Winchester, I'm comin'.'
He emerged from his rocks, a skinny, leathery old cuss, and he said: 'What about Lavacky? If you don't come back with me, she'll foller us herself, she's that strong-minded.'
'You can write, cain't you, Uncle Jacob?' I said, and he said, 'Yeah, I always carries me a pencil-stub in my saddle-bags. Why?'
'We'll write her a note,' I said. 'Joe Hopkins always comes down through the Gap onst a week on his way to Chawed Ear. He's due through here today. We'll stick the note on a tree, where he'll see it and take it to her.'
So I tore a piece of wrapping paper off'n a can of tomatoes Uncle Jacob had in his pack, and he got out his pencil stub, and writ as I told him, as follers:
'Dere Ant Lavaca: I am takin uncle Jacob way up in the mountins don't try to foler us it wont do no good gold is what Im after. Breckinridge.'
We folded it and I told Uncle Jacob to write on the outside:
'Dere Joe: pleeze take this here note to Miz Lavaca Grimes on the Chawed Ear rode.'
It was lucky Joe knowed how to read. I made Uncle Jacob read me what he had writ to be sure he had got it right. Education is a good thing in its place, but it never taken the place of common hoss-sense.
But he had got it right for a wonder, so I stuck the note on a spruce limb, and me and Uncle Jacob sot out for the higher ranges. He started telling me all about the Lost Haunted Mine again, like he'd already did about forty times before. Seems like they was onst a old prospector which stumbled onto a cave about sixty years before then, which the walls was solid gold and nuggets all over the floor till a body couldn't walk, as big as mushmelons. But the Injuns jumped him and run him out and he got lost and nearly starved in the desert, and went crazy. When he come to a settlement and finally got his mind back, he tried to lead a party back to it, but never could find it. Uncle Jacob said the Injuns had took rocks and bresh and hid the mouth of the cave so nobody could tell it was there. I ast him how he knowed the Injuns done that, and he said it was common knowledge. He said any fool ought a know that's jest what they done.
'This here mine,' says Uncle Jacob, 'is located in a hidden valley which lies away up amongst the high ranges. I ain't never seen it, and I thought I'd explored these mountains plenty. Ain't nobody more familiar with 'em than me, except old Joshua Braxton. But it stands to reason that the cave is awful hard to find, or somebody'd already found it. Accordin' to this here map, that lost valley must lie jest beyond Wildcat Canyon. Ain't many white men know whar that is, even. We're headin' there.'
We had left the Gap far behind us, and was moving along the slanting side of a sharp-angled crag whilst he was talking. As we passed it we seen two figgers with hosses emerge from the other side, heading in the same direction we was, so our trails converged. Uncle Jacob glared and reched for his Winchester.
'Who's that?' he snarled.
'The big 'un's Bill Glanton,' I said. 'I never seen t'other'n.'
'And nobody else, outside of a freak show,' growled Uncle Jacob.
The other feller was a funny-looking little maverick, with laced boots and a cork sun-helmet and big spectacles. He sot his hoss like he thought it was a rocking-chair, and held his reins like he was trying to fish with 'em. Glanton hailed us. He was from Texas, original, and was rough in his speech and free with his weppins, but me and him had always got along together very well.
'Where you-all goin'?' demanded Uncle Jacob.
'I am Professor Van Brock, of New York,' said the tenderfoot, whilst Bill was getting rid of his terbaccer wad. 'I have employed Mr. Glanton, here, to guide me up into the mountains. I am on the track of a tribe of aborigines, which according to fairly well substantiated rumor, have inhabited the haunted Mountains since time immemorial.'
'Lissen here, you four-eyed runt,' said Uncle Jacob in wrath, 'air you givin' me the hoss-laugh?'
'I assure yon that equine levity is the furthest thing from my thoughts,' says Van Brock. 'Whilst touring the country in the interests of science, I heard the rumors to which I have referred. In a village possessing the singular appellation of Chawed Ear, I met an aged prospector who told me that he had seen one of the aborigines, clad in the skin of a wild animal and armed with a bludgeon. The wild man, he said, emitted a most peculiar and piercing cry when sighted, and fled into the recesses of the hills. I am confident that it is some survivor of a pre-Indian race, and I am determined to investigate.'
'They ain't no sech critter in these hills,' snorted Uncle Jacob. 'I've roamed all over 'em for fifty year, and I ain't seen no wild man.'
'Well,' says Glanton, 'they's somethin' onnatural up there, because I been hearin' some funny yarns myself. I never thought I'd be huntin' wild men,' he says, 'but since that hash-slinger in Perdition turned me down to elope with a travelin' salesman, I welcomes the chance to lose myself in the mountains and forgit the perfidy of women- kind. What you-all doin' up here? Prospectin'?' he said, glancing at the tools on the mule.
'Not in earnest,' said Uncle Jacob hurriedly. 'We're jest whilin' away our time. They ain't no gold in these mountains.'
'Folks says that Lost Haunted Mine is up here somewheres,' said Glanton.
'A pack of lies,' snorted Uncle Jacob, busting into a sweat. 'Ain't no sech mine. Well, Breckinridge, le's be shovin'. Got to make Antelope Peak before sundown.'
'I thought we was goin' to Wildcat Canyon,' I says, and he give me a awful glare, and said: 'Yes, Breckinridge, that's right, Antelope Peak, jest like you said. So long, gents.'
'So long,' says Glanton.
So we turned off the trail almost at right angles to our course, me follering Uncle Jacob bewilderedly. When we was out of sight of the others, he reined around again.
'When Nature give you the body of a giant, Breckinridge,' he said, 'she plumb forgot to give you any brains to go along with yore muscles. You want everybody to know what we're lookin' for, and whar?'
