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.A tent and blankets and a frying pan and grub; two good legs and wild country to travel; a gold pan and a pick—these things, to Cash, spelled independence and the joy of living.The burros and the two horses were luxuries, he declared.When they once got located on a good claim they would sell off everything but a couple of burros—Sway and Ed, most likely.The others would bring enough for a winter grubstake, and would prolong their freedom and their independence just that much.That is, supposing they did not strike a good claim before then.Cash had learned, he said, to hope high but keep an eye on the grubstake.Late in August they came upon a mountain village perched beside a swift stream and walled in on three sided by pine-covered mountains.A branch railroad linked the place more or less precariously with civilization, and every day—unless there was a washout somewhere, or a snowslide, or drifts too deep—a train passed over the road.One day it would go up-stream, and the next day it would come back.And the houses stood drawn up in a row alongside the track to watch for these passings.Miners came in with burros or with horses, packed flour and bacon and tea and coffee across their middles, got drunk, perhaps as a parting ceremony, and went away into the hills.Cash watched them for a day or so; saw the size of their grubstakes, asked few questions and listened to a good deal of small-town gossip, and nodded his head contentedly.There was gold in these hills.Not enough, perhaps, to start a stampede with—but enough to keep wise old hermits burrowing after it.So one day Bud sold the two horses and one of the saddles, and Cash bought flour and bacon and beans and coffee, and added other things quite as desirable but not so necessary.Then they too went away into the hills.Fifteen miles from Alpine, as a cannon would shoot; high up in the hills, where a creek flowed down through a saucerlike basin under beetling ledges fringed all around with forest, they came, after much wandering, upon an old log cabin whose dirt roof still held in spite of the snows that heaped upon it through many a winter.The ledge showed the scars of old prospect holes, and in the sand of the creek they found "colors" strong enough to make it seem worth while to stop here—for awhile, at least.They cleaned out the cabin and took possession of it, and the next time they went to town Cash made cautious inquiries about the place.It was, he learned, an old abandoned claim.Abandoned chiefly because the old miner who had lived there died one day, and left behind him all the marks of having died from starvation, mostly.A cursory examination of his few belongings had revealed much want, but no gold save a little coarse dust in a small bottle."About enough to fill a rifle ca'tridge," detailed the teller of the tale."He'd pecked around that draw for two, three year mebby.Never showed no gold much, for all the time he spent there.Trapped some in winter—coyotes and bobcats and skunks, mostly.Kinda off in the upper story, old Nelson was.I guess he just stayed there because he happened to light there and didn't have gumption enough to git out.Hills is full of old fellers like him.They live off to the'rselves, and peck around and git a pocket now and then that keeps 'm in grub and tobacco.If you want to use the cabin, I guess nobody's goin' to care.Nelson never had any folks, that anybody knows of.Nobody ever bothered about takin' up the claim after he cashed in, either.Didn't seem worth nothin' much.Went back to the gov'ment.""Trapped, you say.Any game around there now?""Oh, shore! Game everywhere in these hills, from weasels up to bear and mountain lion.If you want to trap, that's as good a place as any, I guess."So Cash and Bud sold the burros and bought traps and more supplies, and two window sashes and a crosscut saw and some wedges and a double-bitted axe, and settled down in Nelson Flat to find what old Dame Fortune had tucked away in this little side pocket and forgotten.CHAPTER NINE.THE BITE OF MEMORYThe heavy boom of a dynamite blast rolled across the fiat to the hills that flung it back in a tardy echo like a spent ball of sound.A blob of blue smoke curled out of a hole the size of a hogshead in a steep bank overhung with alders.Outside, the wind caught the smoke and carried streamers of it away to play with.A startled bluejay, on a limb high up on the bank, lifted his slaty crest and teetered forward, clinging with his toe nails to the branch while he scolded down at the men who had scared him so.A rattle of clods and small rocks fell from their high flight into the sweet air of a mountain sunset."Good execution, that was," Cash remarked, craning his neck toward the hole."If you're a mind to go on ahead and cook supper, I'll stay and see if we opened up anything.Or you can stay, just as you please."Dynamite smoke invariably made Bud's head ache splittingly.Cash was not so susceptible.Bud chose the cooking, and went away down the flat, the bluejay screaming insults after him.He was frying bacon when Cash came in, a hatful of broken rock riding in the hollow of his arm
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