"We ought to be able to hold our own here until night," said Brace, "and then make a dash into Todos Santos, get hold of some arms, and join the ladies.""The women are all right," said Crosby impatiently, "and are better treated than if we were with them.Suppose, instead of maundering over them, we reconnoitre and see what WE can do here.I'm getting devilishly hungry; they can't mean to starve us, and if they do, Idon't intend to be starved as long as there is anything to be had by buying or stealing.Come along.There's sure to be fruit near that old chapel, and I saw some chickens in the bush near those huts.First, let's see if there's any one about.I don't see a soul."The little plateau, indeed, seemed deserted.In vain they shouted;their voices were lost in the echoless air.They examined one by one the few thatched huts: they were open, contained one or two rude articles of furniture--a bed, a bench, and table--were scrupulously clean--and empty.They next inspected the chapel; it was tawdry and barbaric in ornament, but the candlesticks and crucifix and the basin for holy water were of heavily beaten silver.The same thought crossed their minds--the abandoned mine at the roadside!
Bananas, oranges, and prickly-pears growing within the cactus-hedge of the chapel partly mollified their thirst and hunger, and they turned their steps towards the long, rambling, barrack-looking building, with its low windows and red-tiled roof, which they had first noticed.Here, too, the tenement was deserted and abandoned;but there was evidence of some previous and more ambitious preparation: in a long dormitory off the corridor a number of scrupulously clean beds were ranged against the whitewashed walls, with spotless benches and tables.To the complete astonishment and bewilderment of the party another room, fitted up as a kitchen, with the simpler appliances of housekeeping, revealed a larder filled with provisions and meal.A shout from Winslow, who had penetrated the inner courtyard, however, drew them to a more remarkable spectacle.Their luggage and effects from the cabins of the Excelsior were there, carefully piled in the antique ox-cart that had evidently that morning brought them from Todos Santos!
"There's no mistake," said Brace, with a relieved look, after a hurried survey of the trunks."They have only brought our baggage.
The ladies have evidently had the opportunity of selecting their own things.""Crosby told you they'd be all right," said Banks; "and as for ourselves, I don't see why we can't be pretty comfortable here, and all the better for our being alone.I shall take an opportunity of looking around a bit.It strikes me that there are some resources in this country that might pay to develop.""And I shall have a look at that played-out mine," said Crosby; "if it's been worked as they work the land, they've left about as much in it as they've taken out.""That's all well enough," said Brace, drawing a dull vermilion-colored stone from his pocket; "but here's something I picked up just now that ain't 'played out,' nor even the value of it suspected by those fellows.That's cinnabar--quicksilver ore--and a big per cent.of it too; and if there's as much of it here as the indications show, you could buy up all your SILVER mines in the country with it.""If I were you, I'd put up a notice on a post somewhere, as they do in California, and claim discovery," said Banks seriously.
"There's no knowing how this thing may end.We may not get away from here for some time yet, and if the Government will sell the place cheap, it wouldn't be a bad spec' to buy it.Form a kind of 'Excelsior Company' among ourselves, you know, and go shares."The four men looked earnestly at each other.Already the lost Excelsior and her mutinous crew were forgotten; even the incidents of the morning--their arrest, the uncertainty of their fate, and the fact that they were in the hands of a hostile community--appeared but as trivial preliminaries to the new life that opened before them! They suddenly became graver than they had ever been--even in the moment of peril.
"I don't see why we shouldn't," said Brace quickly."We started out to do that sort of thing in California, and I reckon if we'd found such a spot as this on the Sacramento or American River we'd have been content.We can take turns at housekeeping, prospect a little, and enter into negotiations with the Government.I'm for offering them a fair sum for this ridge and all it contains at once.""The only thing against that," said Crosby slowly, "is the probability that it is already devoted to some other use by the Government.Ever since we've been here I've been thinking--I don't know why--that we've been put in a sort of quarantine.The desertion of the place, the half hospital arrangements of this building, and the means they have taken to isolate us from themselves, must mean something.I've read somewhere that in these out-of-the-way spots in the tropics they have a place where they put the fellows with malarious or contagious diseases.I don't want to frighten you boys: but I've an idea that we're in a sort of lazaretto, and the people outside won't trouble us often."
