as you all do, I have hoarded it for my own use, because I know we shall all be blown up some day; but, if you think I have not calculated the chances of being found out by Norris, you are very much mistaken. If I were murdered, or be away from this shop for a single day, there is not a man in San Francisco who would not know before the next evening all about the handsome villa and the people who live there. It is an old precaution, but it wouldn’t be easy to invent a safer.”
“Bah! you are thinking of the keeper of the Sacramento hell, that some of our people say is your brother, though your names are not alike. Why, my good fellow! we stepped in there as we came along, and he had the bad luck to get into a row with Wilson here, and got himself shot in the scuffle. One:—two!—”
With the utterance of the word three, four bowie-knives were thrown like so many javelins, and the accomplice in so many murders fell on his face to the ground, driving still deeper into his body the knives of his late associates. They then collected all the gold and jewels they could find, and left the house; but, except themselves and Norris, nobody knew of the circumstances of Levi’s death, nor what had become of the diamonds.
Among other methods of getting gold practised by these thieves was the following. When a very successful miner came down to San Francisco, they tracked him from the city in the direction of the place to which he returned, and as surely as he came near the city the next time, so surely was he stopped and never suffered to enter it. The quantity of gold brought down by the Rawlinsons was so unusually large that one of Norris’s city friends, to whose knowledge it had come in the way of business, mentioned it to him as something extraordinary, especially as he knew they had arrived from England but a short time. This information was not thrown away upon Norris, and two of the gang were sent after them, not to molest them in any way, for the fact that they had left the city with a train of ten mules raised the presumption that they had discovered a mine of gold which it might be better worth their while to take possession of than to murder the Englishmen for the sake of what ten mules could carry.
Like bloodhounds plodding along a cold scent the two ruffians slowly followed the Rawlinsons, keeping far behind all day but approaching very close to them at night. The journey was longer and more wearisome than they had expected, but at last they entered the gorge. The train of mules was out of sight, and but for the traces they had left, the spies would not have known whether to turn to the right hand or to the left. The pines enabled them to continue their pursuit without much risk of being seen by persons who had spent days without seeing a human being, and to whom it never occurred to suspect their presence. The late hour to which the Englishmen sat up talking, and the fatigue which two of them had undergone, kept them in their encampment till a late hour the next morning; and before they were stirring the two thieves were on their way back, with their pockets tilled with dirt and their bags with provisions they had stolen from the sleepers.
As may be supposed, the talk of the Englishmen had been less of the past than of their plans for the future. The father, with the caution he had acquired from experience, taking into consideration the fact that their presence there was known to the Indians (concerning whose barbarities the most frightful stories were in circulation), the risks they incurred in travelling to and from San Francisco, and the almost certainty that they would not long be able to conceal their discovery from others, was in favour of loading all their mules, and as many more as they could get from the Indians, with gold, and then trying to make some arrangement with persons at San Francisco by which they might get a fair proportion of the gold without any further personal risk. Arthur and Geoffrey were both in favour of making a second trip to the city before adopting this course, and their father yielded to them.
But for the necessity of giving the mules rest they might have set out in a couple of days, which would have given them ample time to have collected as much gold as, with that in the hole, would have sufficed to load the animals. As to getting any mules from the Indians they found that impossible, either because they could not understand that the beasts would be brought back to them again, or because they did not choose to part with them even for a few days. Having prepared everything for their journey with all the precautions that occurred to them, Arthur and his father again started, Geoffrey having volunteered to remain behind as before. The nearer they approached San Francisco the more nervous and anxious they became. The enormous value of the metal they carried inspired incessant fears, for which there was far greater foundation than they were conscious of, and these at last reached such a pitch, that instead of continuing to follow the path by which they had previously travelled, and which was the most direct, they turned aside and made a circuit, and arrived eventually at San Francisco in safety some time before Norris and his associates had given up watching for them. When these latter found they had been disappointed, they decided on delaying the expedition they had arranged in consequence of the report the two had made who had followed the Rawlinsons until the latter had left the city on their return, so that they might know if they intended returning alone.
As I am desirous to keep this narrative within the smallest possible limits, I will pass over the events of the second visit of the Rawlinsons to San Francisco, though they are not without interest, and will return to them as they are seated together in the valley, discussing their final plans. They had collected as much gold as they could carry away with them on the fourteen mules they possessed—for they had bought four more on their last journey to the city—and had concealed a large quantity besides which they could fetch away at their leisure, if they could not succeed in forming the company they intended. They had just dined, and were lying under the shade of the trees, talking of friends at home in England, and the surprise and pleasure they would feel at seeing them return so rich. The Indian was smoking a cigar, and watching the countenance of each
