“What the …” muttered the sheriff, and lit a match. Then he drew his breath in a sharp, gasping sound. In the hollow space uncovered was a pack rat’s cache; a litter of rusted nails, bits of glass, a bottle stopper—and a handful of quartz chunks, each one sparkling up into the flickering light.
But that was not all. Along the burrowed passage, ran a broad rusty yellow band—an outcropping vein of purest gold!
The boy looked up with dimmed eyes.
“I—I killed Steven!” he choked out. “He gave us all this—and I killed him! The pick went into him as he was runnin’ out—”
The limp, inert body of a pack rat lay in his lap. Steven had made his greatest trade.
Suddenly there was a furtive movement in the room. Banshee Taylor was at the open door and in his hands was the double-barreled shotgun covering them.
“Hey! What are you doing?” The sheriff wheeled about and spoke sharply. In the man’s face there was triumph.
“You all stay right where you are! I’ll blow the head off of anyone that moves! This claim ain’t never been registered . . . but it’s going to be—today! I’m goin’ to take the car!”
The sheriff’s voice was hoarse with rage.
“You—you scoundrel! You’d try to take a strike like this away from a kid an’ an old man. . . .”
He moved forward, but the gun halted him. “Stand back—or I’ll shoot—”
Then Shanty’s voice came, clear as a ringing bell. “Fooled again, Banshee—the gun ain’t loaded!”
The man hesitated, his jaw sagging. In that instant, the sheriff and his deputy whipped out their revolvers.
With an oath Banshee Taylor flung his useless weapon from him and stumbled through the driving fury of the rain toward the stream. A bullet cracked past him. He swerved, and plunged into the water. The turbulent, muddy current caught at him. He leaped for a bowlder, missed his foothold—and crashed face downward on the sharp point. The three men and the boy upon the bank saw him throw out his arms, thrashing wildly. Then the rushing eddy and whirl of the maddened torrent dragged him down, rolling him over and over like a log. .
The sheriff and his deputy plunged in and battled with the fierce current. The rain beat at them with frenzied, stinging fury. The inert body avoided them, was swirled away, pushed under, battered against jutting logs and bowlders—but at last they dragged it up on the bank. The sheriff straightened up, shivering in the downpour.
“He’s done for,” he said briefly. “Skull’s smashed in. Well, he had it coming to him. Shanty, I’ll stand by you and the kid—we’ll register that claim in his name today!”
“It’s half Shanty’s!” cried out the sober-faced boy. “He’s goin’ to be my adopted father!”
In Sacramento the next day, freshly clothed, and entertained by the sheriff at the most bountiful dinner either of them had known for many days, the question arose as to a name for the claim that was to prove one of the greatest finds since the old days of the Gold Rush.
On one side of Shanty sat Bill; on the other side, a demure, red-headed little girl whose adoring brown eyes never left the kindly, weather-beaten face.
“I think, lad,” Shanty said solemnly across the remnants of turkey and cranberry sauce, “that in honor o’ the day it oughta be called ‘Christmas Mine,’ for—”
But Bill shook his head.
“Nope—it’s goin’ to be called ‘The Even-Steven’! You wouldn’t find many pals who would give their lives for you!”
The sheriff and the old prospector looked at each other.
Shanty nodded gravely.
“I reckon that’s so; ‘The Even-Steven’ it shall be! An’ don’t ye be takin’ yer pal’s death too much to heart, lad. For if Steven is the b’y I think he was, he’d be glad that he could trade his life fer the happiness o’ two sech as yerself and the wee lass !”
“And you too, Shanty,” Bill said quickly.
The old man smiled. Tears of complete happiness were smarting behind his own eyelids. Then the sheriff lifted his big white coffee cup.
“Here’s to you all!” he said heartily. “A merry Christmas, and many of ’em!”