“It hardly seems possible a man could lose himself so completely,” Della Street said.
“It’s perfectly possible,” Clarke said. “You can get lost in the desert very easily. Just think of the people who go out on hunting trips, leaving camp in the morning determined to remember exactly where it is so that they can get back at night. And when it comes to finding the camp, after a few hours’ walk, they can’t come close enough to locate any familiar landmarks.”
Mason nodded. “That,” he asked, “is the end of the Goler Mines?”
An enigmatic smile twisted Banning Clarke’s lips. “Well,” he said, “let’s go back to Horace West’s account. This, mind you, was 1886. Now, a few years later, in 1891, there was a two-fisted old prospector by the name of Hen Moss who hung out around San Bernardino and made little periodic prospecting trips out into the desert.
“Moss was making one of his regular trips, when a new burro that he had bought and was taking on its first trip decided to wander away from the rest of the outfit. You can figure how exasperated Moss was. The burro had a pack containing a lot of stuff that Moss simply had to have for his prospecting trip, and that burro just calmly took off across the desert. Moss couldn’t head him off and he couldn’t catch him. All he could do was trail along behind with the rest of the outfit, cussing and sputtering. That suited the burro fine. He had suddenly become the leader of the whole outfit. Well, Hen Moss tailed along behind that burro, cussing him, occasionally chasing him, then trying to wheedle him back. But a burro is a peculiar sort of customer. He gets an idea in his head and that idea is there for keeps. This burro was heading toward a barren stretch of country that Hen Moss had never been in before. No prospector had ever looked around very much in it because it was a wicked-looking, waterless country far removed from any base of supplies. In those days, such places in the desert were sure death.
“However, Hen Moss simply couldn’t afford to lose the stuff that was on that burro, and he hated to lose the burro. He kept on, thinking all the time that if he couldn’t catch him within the next mile, he’d turn back and let the burro go. Then, just as he was about to give up, he found that the burro was headed toward water. — Take a burro out in the desert that way and when he begins to — head toward water you can tell it every time. However, the other animals smelled the water too, and they all began to move right along. So Moss just trailed along behind, and his burro led him right down into a canyon filled with water and rich with gold.
“As soon as Hen Moss found that gold he went completely crazy. He filled up his pockets and went delirious with joy. He ran around in circles, whooping and shouting, and then started back to San Bernardino to have the time of his life. He was about halfway back before he suddenly realized he’d been so wildly excited he hadn’t even staked out a claim. For a while he hesitated about going back, but the thought of the big celebration he was going to have in San Bernardino was the determining factor. He decided to move right on into town and have one good spree, then go back to the canyon, locate his claims and do some serious mining.”
“Men always make good resolutions when they’re going to get drunk — and right afterwards,” Nell Sims said.
Clarke smiled. “What he hadn’t counted on was the reaction in San Bernardino. The town went crazy as soon as it saw Moss’s gold nuggets. They knew old Hen Moss had struck it rich. And they knew that pretty soon he was going to have to go back and get more gold. So they poured liquor into him, and watched him and kept watching him.
“Finally old Hen got down to the bottom of his gold and couldn’t buy any more booze. He began to sober up, and then realized what he was up against. He started back to his diggings, and the minute he pulled out of town, just about half of San Bernardino pulled out along with him, all of them on good horses, and packs all provisioned for a long stay in the desert.
“Hen wandered around the desert trying to throw them off his trail. He tried to pretend he’d lost the mine, tried to steal marches at night, and do about everything he could to shake them; but there was no chance. They followed along right behind—”
Banning Clarke broke off to say, “This isn’t boring you, is it?”
“Exciting,” Mrs. Sims remarked.
“It’s remarkably interesting. I take it this is all vouched for,” Mason said.
Banning Clarke tapped the little blue book. “I’m giving you history,” he said; “and so there won’t be any chance of getting it wrong, I’m checking up as I go along, although I know the story by heart. But this was back fifty years ago when the desert was full of gold, and before there was any fast transportation.”
“I understand,” Mason said. “Go on. What happened to Hen Moss? Did he manage to shake his pursuers?”
“No. He finally doubled on back to San Bernardino pretty much sore and disgusted. He was stony broke, yet he knew where he could go and in a few hours pick up enough gold to make him the king of the saloons and the dancehalls. But he couldn’t move two feet out of town without all of San Bernardino moving right along with him. He tried to find some way of getting out of town without anyone knowing it. He was licked before he started. It would have been suicide to go out in the desert without packs, and San Bernardino was keeping too close a watch on him to enable him to cache some pack burros somewhere to be picked up later.”
“And this mine he’d discovered was the lost Goler claim?” Mason asked.
“I’m coming to that in a minute,” Clarke said, and then after a moment added, “It’s been generally conceded that what he discovered was the Goler claim.”
Mason became thoughtful. “I’m interested in poor old Hen Moss and his predicament. It hardly seems possible that all this could have happened in San Bernardino. Why, we go whizzing out there in an automobile, perhaps stop long enough to buy gas, and then are on our way. It seems to be just an ordinary bustling little community, modern and up to date — just a regular city.”
“There was lots that happened in San Bernardino,” Clarke said, “but the automobile blots out history. It used to be a real mining town.”
Nell Sims, standing over by the electric stove, said, “It’s a good thing those times have passed. Think of the poor people who had to run restaurants out in that country, with no ice, no electric refrigerators, no transportation.”
“They got along somehow,” Clarke said.
Mrs. Sims wagged her head dolefully. “I don’t see how. Food preservation is the first law of nature.”
“Self-preservation,” Clarke corrected.
“Well, don’t that mean food? You can’t live without food.”
Clarke winked at Mason. “The more you try to argue with her, the deeper you get.”
“That’s because I’m right,” Mrs. Sims announced with the calm finality of one who is sure of her position and doesn’t have to bother about the impression she makes on others.
“But we’re leaving Hen Moss right out in the middle of the desert,” Della Street prompted.
“Right in the middle of San Bernardino,” Clarke reminded her, “and a mighty disgusted, disillusioned Hen Moss he was. But the old chap was something of a philosopher. So one day he whimsically observed to just about everyone in town, ‘Well, I can’t seem to get away without taking you with me, so all get packed up. We’re going to start, and this time we’re going right to the diggings. The more the merrier. If I can’t get rid of you, I’ll save a lot of time and energy just taking everyone along and not making any detours.’”