“Thank you, Uncle. But soon as I see what’s to be done about Slinger and — and Molly, we’ll go right back to fence-building.”

  “No more till next spring, Jim. You don’t savvy. That end of the Diamond is high, an’ this storm spelled winter. The cattle had drifted off before this snow came.”

  “Snow!”

  “Shore. Two feet at Tobe’s Well now, an’ deeper as you climb south. Tough luck, son, but don’t ask too much. Mebbe Jed Stone will get his deserts this winter, though that’s plumb too much to hope for.”

  “Aw! I put such store on finishing our drift fence before die snow flies,” exclaimed Jim, poignantly.

  “That was a dream, son. An’ Locke an’ I let you dream it...Listen! I’ve got an idee that may suit you, since Molly Dunn talked so hopefully about her brother. It seeems she thinks you had good influence on Slinger. Wal. follow it up. If you can get Slinger Dunn into the Diamond — why, you’ll have it all over the Hash Knife. — Son, it’s turnin’ tricks like this that is genuine Western.”

  “I had that idea myself, Uncle! If I can only get him! Why. Molly would sing for joy.”

  “All right, then. Let’s put our heads together. We’ve got to take Slinger to town, an’ so we’ll take Molly along. Then we’ll send for her folks and keep them at the ranch. I wouldn’t rush that kid into marryin’, not before a year. She’s backward, an’ it’d be good for her to meet people, an’—”

  “Great! Uncle, you’re just the finest ever!” cried Jim. wildly fired with enthusiasm. “Molly could go to school, or at least have private lessons, and what could not that bright girl learn in six months?”

  “You’ll have some trouble talkin’ Slinger into it, mebbe.” went on Traft. “I sat talkin’ to him a little while. He’s got one weakness shore, an’ that’s Molly. An’ I’ll gamble he has another — a ranch. Play these cards strong.”

  “Ranch?” queried Jim, eagerly.

  “Shore. I happen to own the Yellow Jacket. It’s a big, wild range, run down, with only a few thousand head of stock. I took it over on notes of Blodgett’s not long ago. Some rustlin’ down there. It’s a fine winter range. Just the place for the Diamond this next six months. You talk up the Yellow Jacket to Dunn. Tell him you’ll take him in with you as partner, or half shares, providin’ he’ll throw in with the Diamond. That’ll fetch him, unless you an’ Molly have him figured wrong.”

  Jim got up, trembling, and put a strong hand on Traft’s shoulder.

  “Uncle Jim!...So this is one of the things that makes you a great Westerner? Oh, I’ve heard a lot!...I couldn’t ask more in this world — than—”

  But he choked over that utterance and rushed round the cabin to drop in upon Molly and Slinger. He was half sitting up and looked better, especially as one of the boys had shaved him, and his face had regained some of its clean tan. Jim swallowed hard and strove for calmness. He did not dare look at Molly, whose eyes he felt.

  “Howdy, Slinger! You seem to be doing fine. I’m sure glad. How about a little talk?”

  “Suits me, if you do the talkin’,” he replied. “Molly is aboot talked out, an’ I never had nuthin’ to say.”

  Whereupon Jim sat down next to Molly, and took time to settle himself comfortably.

  “We’ll be riding you into Flag, pronto,” began Jim.

  “Say, I don’t hanker aboot thet. I’d only meet up with Bray. An’ fact is, I’ll be sorta sick fer a while.”

  “Bray won’t get near you,” went on Jim, warming to his subject. “But Doc Shields will. We’ll take Molly along an’ go right to Uncle Jim’s ranch. — And send for your father and mother to come up...You see, Slinger, it’s this way. Molly and I will be getting married in a — a year or so” — here a half-stifled gasp at his elbow disrupted him— “and you know she’s pretty much of a kid. We won’t let her go back to the Cibeque — ever — except, of course, on visits — and you just ought to be where you can see her often.”

  “I reckon I ought,” agreed Dunn.

  “Fine. I thought you’d agree. Now, here’s another angle. Do you happen to know the Yellow Jacket ranch?”

  “I shore do.”

  “What kind of a place is it?”

  “Wal, no ranch to brag aboot — only a cabin an’ corrals. But, Lord! what a range! Water an’ grass an’ timber!”

  Jim really needed no more than the light of Slinger’s eyes.

  “Uncle has turned it over to me, lock, stock, and barrel,” laughed Jim. “Only three thousand head of cattle. But great possibilities for development...Now, Slinger, I want you to go in with me — be my partner in making a big ranch out of the Yellow Jacket.”

  Dunn grew quite red in the face for him.

  “Molly, is this heah fellar of yours drunk or crazy?” he asked, turning to her.

  “I — I don’t quite know — Arch,” she faltered. “But I reckon you can trust him.”

  Jim had further impetus to his enthusiasm. A small trembling hand slipped into his and clung.

  “Sure there’s a string to the offer, Slinger. There always is — in business deals. Sure it’s a big chance for you — not to say how wonderful for Molly. But I’m quite selfish in the matter. You’re more than worth the deal to me, provided, of course, you agree to my terms.”

  Jim felt another pressing little hand stealing up around him, over his shoulder.

  “Alia. An’ what’s them terms, Jim Traft?” queried Dunn. “Do you happen to know Jed Stone?” counter-queried Jim.

  “I shore ought to. Jed an’ me drawed on each other aboot a year ago. Reckon we was so durn scared we missed. But we hevn’t met since.”

  “Do you know his Hash Knife outfit?”

  “Better’n anyone who rides the Diamond.”

  “Well, it was Jed Stone and his outfit who cut the last nine miles of our fence. And he has cut his brand on the aspens. Next spring we’ll go back on the job. Slinger, to complete that fence and keep it up, I need you. Savvy? Will you throw in with me and the Diamond?”

  “Gawd! Jest gimme the chanct!” replied Dunn, hoarsely.

  “Here’s my hand. And with it is an end of the bad blood between us.”

  When Jim extended that hand he naturally released the little one that had clung tighter and tighter to his. Suddenly, while he came to grips with Slinger, and their eyes met in the understanding of men, this little hand flashed up before him to lock with the other hand behind him. As he had reason to remember, these little members were strong, and now he had more proof of that. Moreover, Molly’s arms were inseparable from them, and they twined and twined. “Mizzourie Jim!” she whispered. And between Jim and Slinger, while yet their hands gripped, intervened a pale little face, with wet eyes, dark in passionate gratitude, with red parted lips that came up and up and up —

  “Wal, Jim, I reckon thet’ll be aboot all,” said Slinger Dunn.

  THE END

  Thunder Mountain

  CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  The first edition

  Chapter One

  A WARM SPRING rain melted the deep snows in the Saw Tooth Range, and a flood poured down the headwaters of the Salmon River.

  It washed out a colony of beavers, one of which, a crippled old female with a cub, fell behind the others and lost them. She came at length into a narrow valley where the stream meandered along a wide rocky bench wooded by stately isolated pines and fringes of willow and aspen.

  The old mother beaver lingered with her cub near the mouth of an intersecting brook. In a sheltered bend under the looming mountain slope she began her labors. While the little cub played and splashed about she toiled industriously, cutting branches, carrying sticks, dragging rocks, and padding mud until she had bridged the brook and built a dam. A still pool rose behind the barrier.

  One night when the afterglow of sunset loomed dull red upon the pool and the silence of the wilderness lay like a mantle upon the valley, the old beaver noticed a strange quivering ripple passing across the placid surface of her pool. There was no current coming from the brook, there was no breath of wind to disturb the dead calm. She noticed the tremors pass across the pool, she sniffed the pine-scented air, she listened with all the sensitiveness of a creature of the wild.

  From high up on the looming mountain slope, from the somber purple shadow, came down a low rumble, a thunder that seemed to growl from the bowels of the great mountain.

  The old mother beaver did not wait to hear that again. With her cub she abandoned the quivering pool, and taking to the main stream she left the valley.

  The last remnant of the Sheepeater Indians pitched camp on the rocky bench across the stream from the abandoned beaver dam.

  Outcasts from various tribes, they were fugitives and had banded together for protection, fifty-one in all, warriors, squaws, and children, under the command of Tomanmo.

  While the braves put up their lodges, the weary squaws unpacked meager supplies and belongings. The lame children, exhausted from continuous march, sat silent with somber eyes.

  Tomanmo gazed up and down this valley to which he had been led by the Nez Percé member of his band. Long and hard had been the tramp hither, and the last miles over solid rock. The soldiers could not track them here. It was a refuge. Deer and elk as tame as cattle grazed under the pines; white goats shone on the high bluffs of the south wall; mountain sheep stood silhouetted against the sky, watching the invaders of their solitude.

  “We will hide here and rest. It is well,” said Tomanmo to his band, and he sent hunters out to kill fresh meat.

  When the chief sat down he found himself facing the north slope of the valley. It struck him singularly, and he gazed with the falcon eyes of one used to the heights. Bare and steep, this slope, open to the south, slanted abruptly from the edge of the rocky bench some few hundred yards distant. What first attracted Tomanmo’s curiosity was the fact that no game trail, not even a single track, marred the smooth surface of the incline. It sheered up a long way before its purple continuity was broken by a thin line of fir trees, pointing skyward like tufted spears. From there the color gray and the smooth surface broke to scantily timbered ledges that stepped up and up prodigiously, at last to turn white with snow on the skyline. Precipitous looming mountains were the rule in that range, and all the south slopes, where the snow did not long lie, were bare of timber. But the endless south slope of this mountain showed no solid foundation of rock, no iron ribs of red granite, no bulge of cliff sheering up out of soft earth. Tomanmo shook his lean dark head.

  Presently the Nez Percé approached the chief to open a skinny fist to his gaze. He held a handful of wet gravel and sand among which glinted bright specks.

  “Ughh!” he ejaculated. “Gold!”

  “Bad. White man come,” grunted the chief.

  “Some day, long after Sheepeaters gone,” assented the Nez Percé.

  The solemn still day wore on. The pointed lodges of elk hide and the brush shelters, the columns of blue smoke rising upward, the active raven-haired squaws with their colored raiment flashing in the sun, the hunters dragging carcasses over the stones, the ragged hollow-cheeked children asleep on the ground — all attested to a settlement of permanent camp. Soon pots were steaming, fragrant viands broiled over the red coals, cakes of bread baked on the hot flat stones.

  At sunset the band feasted. Only Tomanmo did not share the sense of well-being after long hardship. While he ate he watched the changing colors on the steep slope, the darkening purple at the base, the merging of gray into the gold-flushed snow, high on the peaks.

  Dusk fell, and then silent night, with the dark velvet sky studded by cold stars. The fires burned low, gleaming red over the haggard visages of the sleepers. But Tomanmo did not sleep. He stalked to and fro, listening as a chieftain who expected the voices of his gods. A low roar of running water permeated the silence and a sharp bay of a wolf, far up the valley, accentuated it.

  Tomanmo’s ears, attuned as those of the deer to the whisperings and rustlings of the wild, registered other sounds. He sought out the sleeping Nez Percé and roused him with a moccasined foot.

  “Ughh!” exclaimed the brave, sitting up.

  “Come,” said the chief, and led him away from the circle of dying fires and sleeping savages. “Listen.”

  Across the bench, away from the murmur of stream and song of pine, close under the black looming slope, Tomanmo bade his scout bend keen ears to the silence.

  For long there was nothing. The valley seemed dead. The mountains slept. The stars watched. Wild life lay in its coverts. Then there came a ticking of tiny pebbles down the slope, a faint silken rustle of sliding dust, a strange breath of something indefinable, silence, and then again far off, a faint crack of rolling rocks, a moan, as a subterranean monster trying to breathe in the bowels of the earth, and at last, deep and far away, a rumble as of distant thunder.

  “Hear?” queried the chief, with slow gesture toward the looming bulk.

  The Nez Percé’s somber eyes, mirroring the stars, dilated in answer. Tomanmo was assured that his own sensitive ears had not deceived him.

  “It is the voice of the Great Spirit,” he said, solemnly. “Tomanmo is warned. This mountain moves.... When the sun shines we go.”

  Years later, long after Tomanmo had gone to join his forefathers, three adventuring prospectors, brothers named Emerson, toiled down into the valley from the south, and late in the day unpacked their weary burros and made camp.

  “Reckon it’s the place, all right,” said Sam, the eldest. “Thet old Nez Percé gave me a clear hunch.”

  “Wal, I shore hope it ain’t,” replied Jake, the second brother, with a short grim laugh.

  “Why?”

  “Hell, man! Look around!”

  Sam had been doing that avidly. The long valley, shut in by the rough red and green wall on the south, and the insurmountable and prodigious slope of talus on the north, evidently had taken his eye. But Sam was thinking of the isolation, the possibility of finding and working a gold claim without sharing it with other prospectors or being harassed by robbers. The dark caverned and notched wall on the east side, where the stream cut its way in cascades down to the valley, had a fascinating look to Sam Emerson. Those cliffs would hide gold-bearing ledges of quartz.

  “Jake, I didn’t befriend that poor old Injun for nothin’,” replied Sam, with satisfaction. “This is the valley.”

  “Wal, Sam, we never seen things alike, even as kids,” rejoined Jake, resignedly. “To me this is shore a hell of a hole. Gettin’ out will be worse than gettin’ in, an’ that was a tough job.”

  “I’ll grade out a trail,” said his brother, cheerfully, “if that’s all you’re rarin’ about.”

  “It ain’t all. It ain’t even a little,” retorted Jake, nettled by the other’s imperturbability. “This is a gloomy hole. The sun comes late an’ leaves early. It’d be hotter’n hell in summer an’ colder’n Greenland in winter. It’s too far to pack in supplies. It’s too lonely. Shore I know you an’ our gun-packin’ cowboy brother here like loneliness. But I like people. I like a barroom an’ to set in a little game now an’ then.”

  “Jake, thet last objection of yourn may soon remedy itself. You may see this valley hustlin’ with miners, an’ a gold-diggin’s town springin’ up overnight like a mushroom.”

  “Wal, it won’t last long, I’ll gamble. Look at thet slope. Five thousand feet of silt an’ gravel on end, fresh as if some one was diggin’ above an’ slidin’ everythin’ down. No grass, no brush, no trees! Nary a damn rock! It’s alive, Sam, thet slope is, an’ some wet day it’ll slide down an’ obliterate this valley.”

  Sam was impressed, and gazed up at the sinister slope.

  He had to tip his head far back to see the snow-patched summit.

  “Queer-lookin’, at thet,” he said. “But I reckon it’s been there just as long as these other mountains.”

  Jake turned to the youngest brother, Lee, who stood leaning on his rifle, looking about with piercing hazel eyes. He was a stalwart young man with the lithe build of a rider.

  “Wal, Kalispel,” drawled Jake, “you ain’t often stumped for speech. Are you linin’ up with Sam in favor of this ghastly hole?”

  “It’s great, Jake.”

  “Ah-huh.... Wal, just why? I reckoned you’d stand by me, consider’n’ your weakness for horses, girls, an’ such thet can’t be had here.”

  “I like it, Sam. You know I don’t care a heap about diggin’ gold. Too dam hard work for a cowboy! But I love the wildness an’ beauty of this valley. It’s a paradise for game. I’ll bet I saw a thousand head of elk today. An’ deer, bear, goat, sheep — even cougars, in broad daylight! I’ll hunt game while you fellows hunt gold.”

  “Humph!... Sam, what you think of Kal’s shiftin’ to your side?”

  “All proves I was right draggin’ Lee off thet bloody Montana range,” replied the eldest brother, forcefully. “I feel relieved ‘cause he won’t be lookin’ for thet hard-lipped sheriff an’, for all we know, some more of them ridin’ gents.... Rustle some firewood an’ water now while I unpack.”

  Lee Emerson, nicknamed Kalispel by the first outfit he had ever ridden for in Montana, laughed at his loquacious brothers, and laying aside his rifle for a bucket, he made for the stream. It was a goodly body of water, dark green in color, still high and somewhat roily from melting snow. In places it was running swiftly, in others tarrying in pools formed by huge boulders. Kalispel espied a big leather-back salmon rising to break on the surface, and that sight considerably enhanced the charm of this valley which had already intrigued him. There were sure to be mountain trout, also, in this stream. Stepping out on a sand-bar, he dipped the pail and filled it with water as cold as ice. As an afterthought then, Kalispel scooped up a handful of wet sand. He saw grains of gold glistening in it.