第64章 THE YOUNGEST PROSPECTOR IN CALAVERAS(4)

"Cos it has my marks on it," said Johnny quickly; "it had a criss-cross I scratched on it.I kin tell it good enuf."Mr.Staples turned suddenly pale and rose."Of course," he said to Mrs.Medliker with painful dignity, "if you set so much value upon a mere worldly trifle, I will endeavor to find it.It may be in my other pocket." He backed out of the door in his usual fashion, but instantly went over to the post-office, where, as he afterwards alleged, he had changed the ore for coin in a moment of inadvertence.

But Johnny's hieroglyphics were found on it, and in some mysterious way the story got about.It had two effects that Johnny did not dream of.It had forced his mother into an attitude of complicity with him; it had raised up for him a single friend.Jake Stielitzer, quartz miner, had declared that Burnt Spring was "playing it low down" on Johnny! That if they really believed that the boy took gold from their sluice boxes, it was their duty to watch their CLAIMS and not the boy.That it was only their excuse for "snooping" after him, and they only wanted to find his "strike,"which was as much his as their claims were their own! All this with great proficiency of epithet, but also a still more recognized proficiency with the revolver, which made the former respected.

"That's the real nigger in the fence, Johnny," said Jake, twirling his huge mustache, "and they only want to know where your lead is,--and don't yer tell 'em! Let 'em bile over with waitin' first, and that'll put the fire out.Does yer pop know?""No," said Johnny.

"Nor yer mar?"

"No."

Jake whistled."Then it's only YOU, yourself?"Johnny nodded violently, and his brown eyes glistened.

"It's a heap of information to be packed away in a chap of your size, Johnny.Makes you feel kinder crowded inside, eh? MUST keep it to yourself, eh?""Have to," said Johnny with a gasp that was a little like a sigh.

It caused Jake to look at him attentively."See here, Johnny," he said, "now ef ye wanted to tell somebody about it,--somebody as was a friend of yours,--ME, f'r instance?"Johnny slowly withdrew the freckled, warty little hand that had been resting confidingly in Jake's and gently sidled away from him.

Jake burst into a loud laugh.

"All right, Johnny boy," he said with a hearty slap upon the boy's back, "keep yer head shut ef yer wanter! Only ef anybody else comes bummin' round ye, like this, jest turn him over TO ME, and I'll lift him outer his boots!"Jake kept his word, and his distance thereafter.Indeed, it was after this first and last conversation with him that the influence of his powerful protection was so strong that all active criticisms of Johnny ceased, and only a respectful surveillance of his movements lingered in the settlement.I do not know that this was altogether distasteful to the child; it would have been strange, indeed, if he had not felt at times exalted by this mysterious influence that he seemed to have acquired over his fellow creatures.If he were merely hunting blackberries in the brush, he was always sure, sooner or later, to find a ready hand offered to help and accompany him; if he trapped a squirrel or tracked down a wild bees' hoard, he generally found a smiling face watching him.

Prospectors sometimes stopped him with: "Well, Johnny, as a chipper and far-minded boy, now WHAR would YOU advise us to dig?" I grieve to say that Johnny was not above giving his advice,--and that it was invariably of not the smallest use to the recipient.

And so the days passed.Mr.Medliker's absence was protracted, and the hour of retribution and punishment still seemed far away.The blackberries ripened and dried upon the hillside, and the squirrels had gathered their hoards; the bees no longer came and went through the thicket, but Johnny was still in daily mysterious possession of his grains of gold! And then one day--after the fate of all heroic humanity--his secret was imperilled by the blandishments and machinations of the all-powerful sex.

Florry Fraser was a little playmate of Johnny's.Why, with his doubts of his elder sister's intelligence and integrity, he should have selected a child two years younger, and of singular simplicity, was, like his other secret, his own.What SHE saw in him to attract her was equally strange; possibly it may have been his brown-gooseberry eyes or his warts; but she was quite content to trot after him, like a young squaw, carrying his "bow-arrow," or his "trap," supremely satisfied to share his woodland knowledge or his scanter confidences.For nobody who knew Johnny suspected that she was privy to his great secret.Howbeit, wherever his ragged straw hat, thatched with his tawny hair, was detected in the brush, the little nankeen sunbonnet of Florry was sure to be discerned not far behind.For two weeks they had not seen each other.A fell disease, nurtured in ignorance, dirt, and carelessness, was striking right and left through the valleys of the foothills, and Florry, whose sister had just recovered from an attack, had been sequestered with her.But one morning, as Johnny was bringing his wood from the stack behind the house, he saw, to his intense delight, a picket of the road fence slipped aside by a small red hand, and a moment after Florry squeezed herself through the narrow opening.Her round cheeks were slightly flushed, and there was a scrap of red flannel around her plump throat that heightened the whiteness of her skin.

"My!" said Johnny, with half-real, half-affected admiration, "how splendiferous!""Sore froat," said Florry, in a whisper, trying to insert her two chubby fingers between the bandage and her chin."I mussent go outer the garden patch! I mussent play in the woods, for I'll be seed! I mussent stay long, for they'll ketch me outer bed!""Outer bed?" repeated Johnny, with intense admiration, as he perceived for the first time that Florry was in a flannel nightgown, with bare legs and feet.

"Ess."