6,000 Tons of Gold. Henry Richardson Chamberlain
here penniless, we may bring the most valuable cargo that ship ever carried. Will you take the chances?”
Brent had listened to the Scotchman’s extraordinary narrative with ever increasing interest. The Patagonian chief’s description of buried millions in nature’s richest treasure-house bewildered him with its prodigality of wealth, its prodigious massing of riches. The story was almost incredible yet plausible. He knew not what to think. He was unable at first to think at all with calmness. But he had only one answer to Fraser’s fascinating proposition. If the prospect of success had been but one in a thousand it would have been enough.
“Of course I will take the chances and gladly,” he exclaimed warmly. “But do you not suspect,” he added presently, “that the Indians have concocted this story in order to secure through you the purchase of a large quantity of goods at much lower rates than they could obtain them from the traders?”
“A very natural suspicion, my lad,” responded Fraser, “and it does credit to your bump of caution. But I have absolute faith in them. My reasons are not easy to define, perhaps. I have heard some wonderful yarns in my time and I have grown even more suspicious than is reasonable, I imagine, but I believe these Patagonians told me the simple truth. That is far from saying we shall ever get possession of this treasure. Now, as for terms of partnership, I will pay all the expenses of the expedition and give you a third of whatever proceeds it yields. You agree to see the thing through to the end, coöperating with me of course in every way that circumstances may make necessary. Is that satisfactory?”
“Perfectly, and generously liberal terms they are, too,” said Brent, and the two men clasped hands to seal the compact.
CHAPTER II.
INVADING NATURE’S TREASURE-CHAMBER.
Brent never had worked so hard in his life as during the days that followed his strange engagement for the pursuit of fabulous treasure. The disabled Fraser, none too patient in his irksome imprisonment, directed most of the young man’s movements. His first efforts were in search of a suitable ship for a coasting and trading trip of indefinite length. He succeeded after a few days in finding a trim schooner of about two hundred and fifty tons which seemed to be just what was needed. Her owners were unwilling at first to charter her for an indefinite voyage that might last three months or possibly six. On Brent’s description of her, the Scotchman was willing to buy the craft outright if necessary, but a liberal offer finally secured possession of her for six months.
Fraser hoped they might succeed in returning to Buenos Ayres by the middle of February at latest. Casimiro had told him the gold was about one hundred miles from the coast, so that the task of transportation of the immense quantity he had described would be slow and difficult. But he had explained that it was near a river, easily navigable for canoes or rafts down stream but almost impossible of ascent by either means, so rapid was the current at many places. He had promised to make such preparations as he could with the primitive means at his command during the Scotchman’s absence. Fraser hoped, therefore, that with the assistance of the Patagonians the treasure might be brought to tide-water within a month of his arrival at the nearest point on the coast.
One point in their problem troubled both Fraser and Brent for some little time. How were they to load the gold (provided they got it) upon the schooner, bring it to Buenos Ayres, and transship it to England or New York without the crew’s or other handlers’ discovering the nature of the cargo? Both men agreed that every precaution must be taken to prevent the disclosure of such a secret. They finally decided that before being put upon the schooner the metal must be packed in strong boxes securely made and practically unbreakable. When they came to figure a little they found that on the basis of the chief’s calculation of the quantity of gold, it would require a good many boxes to contain it. Even if five hundred pounds should be packed in each case, which would be as great a weight as could be conveniently handled, there would be no less than four hundred boxes necessary to contain the two hundred thousand pounds which Casimiro had roughly indicated to be the amount of the treasure. The boxes would still be very small. The specific gravity of gold is so high that it occupies about one fourth the space of iron, weight for weight.
They determined that the boxes should be made of heavy two-inch timber, and that they should be lined with sheet iron and fastened with long stout screws. It was not an easy thing to procure the manufacture of such boxes, four hundred of them, at short notice. Brent divided the work among half a dozen carpenter shops and required that the work should be completed according to specification within ten days. He bought a large yawl which was put aboard the schooner. He hoped to use it for carrying the gold-packed cases, six at a time, from the shore to the ship as she lay at anchor. He procured also a windlass with necessary tackle for hoisting aboard the heavy cases from the small boat.
The schooner was thoroughly overhauled and refitted. Brent was fortunate in finding an English captain, who picked up a crew of Englishmen and Americans, four men only besides the mate and cook. They were good seamen, the captain assured Brent, and glad to ship for such a trip under promise of a bonus if the voyage was successful. The purchase of supplies in great variety occupied several days, and it was not until the very last week in the month that preparations for departure were practically completed. They were still delayed two or three days by the non-delivery of a few of the peculiar boxes that puzzled the sailors so much as they stowed them away in the hold.
Fraser, meantime, had been mending rapidly. On the day before going aboard the schooner, his damaged leg was taken out of its plaster cast, and the surgeon promised him that at the end of another month it would be as good as the other if he treated it properly. He was delighted with the schooner when he went aboard on the morning of sailing. He insisted on hobbling about the deck a little upon his new crutches and inspecting all the equipment of the trim little craft.
It was a beautiful spring day, the 31st of October, when the schooner picked her way gracefully among the shipping and out of Buenos Ayres harbor before a light wind. There was speed as well as seaworthiness in the craft, as the owners had promised, and the two fortune-hunters, who were her only passengers, were enthusiastic over the happy auspices under which they started on their extraordinary quest. The voyage was not eventful. Storms and calms, head winds and currents, made it a trip that taxed the patience of men with minds full of tremendous possibilities. Still it was no use grumbling, as Fraser explained to his companion. Nothing could be done until the 6th of December and they might as well spend the time at sea as at Rio Negro.
There were still ten days to spare when they dropped anchor off the Rio Negro settlement. They went ashore, and the Scotchman was heartily welcomed by his friends in the little colony. He made inquiries about the Indians, and learned that Casimiro had not been seen by any of the colonists since Fraser’s departure six months before. None of the natives had appeared often at the settlement within the same period, and trade with them had almost ceased. Fraser did not regard this as a bad sign.
Brent found the ten days’ waiting far from dull amid the picturesque scenery of the wild coast and the primitive colonial life which was all a charming novelty in his eyes. His partner was not yet able to make very active use of his convalescent limb, and an Englishman in the colony accompanied the young man on several long tramps through what was to him a delightful country.
On the morning of the 6th of December, Fraser and Brent set off together on foot at about ten o’clock. The Scotchman had almost discarded his crutches, but he carried them with him on this occasion. They would help to explain Brent’s presence to the chief, he intimated. The rendezvous was at a small spring in the hills, about four miles from the settlement, where Fraser and the Patagonian had often refreshed themselves on their tramps. High noon was to be the hour of meeting. They were fully an hour in advance of the time, and when they sat down by the pool of bubbling water in a charming little hollow among the rugged hills, there was no sign of any living creature hear them. They talked together for half an hour or more about the possible results of their venture, and then the younger man began to be anxious. He was feverishly impatient to see the strange man