So I lay still. Another head
appeared in the light of the cabin door, and presently the two men walked
toward me. They stopped within ten steps of me, and one said:
"Sh! Listen."
I could not have been in a more distressed state if I had been escaping
justice with a price on my head. Then the miners appeared to sit down on
a boulder, though I could not see them distinctly enough to be very sure
what they did. One said:
"I heard a noise, as plain as I ever heard anything. It seemed to be
about there--"
A stone whizzed by my head. I flattened myself out in the dust like a
postage stamp, and thought to myself if he mended his aim ever so little
he would probably hear another noise. In my heart, now, I execrated
secret expeditions. I promised myself that this should be my last,
though the Sierras were ribbed with cement veins. Then one of the men
said:
"I'll tell you what! Welch knew what he was talking about when he said
he saw Whiteman to-day. I heard horses--that was the noise. I am going
down to Welch's, right away."
They left and I was glad. I did not care whither they went, so they
went. I was willing they should visit Welch, and the sooner the better.
As soon as they closed their cabin door my comrades emerged from the
gloom; they had caught the horses and were waiting for a clear coast
again. We remounted the cargo on the pack horse and got under way, and
as day broke we reached the "divide" and joined Van Dorn.
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