CHAPTER XXX. THE MYSTERY SOLVED.

One day the two were sitting in the doorway of Bill Dawkins’ hut, where the hospitable owner still made them welcome. They were looking over the few specimens of rock “rich in fine silver” that Mr. Ransom had produced that first day, when the man thrust his hands into his pockets to see if any more fragments remained there. Finally from an inside pocket he added to the growing pile of treasures a piece of flat, tarnished metal. He gave a little shudder as his fingers released it, and Jimmie glanced up in time to see a sudden change in his father’s eye, like a glimpse of suddenly remembered fear.

“What is it, father?” Jimmie cried sharply.

The man started, looked down and then smiled foolishly.

[301]

“I don’t know, son,” he replied slowly.

Jimmie picked up the bit of tarnished metal, and gave a sudden start in his turn. Quickly controlling himself, he asked as quietly as possible, “Where did you get this, father?”

“I don’t know, son,” repeated the man again. “I don’t know. I must have had it a long time,—son,—a long time.”

Jimmie looked at the little dull article a moment and then leaning forward fastened it to the breast of his father’s coat. Mr. Ransom began to look uneasy and a wild light sprang to his eyes for an instant. Jimmie immediately detached the metal piece and put it in his pocket. Then he began to chat with his father about the trees, the mountains, the hut and kindred matters, and apparently forgot all about the incident.

But the moment that Bill Dawkins returned from his day’s hunting in the mountains, Jimmie was off like an arrow from a bow for the camp down on the Big Bend.

[302]

The party were just enjoying a quiet evening meal prepared under Mountain Jim’s tutelage, when Jimmie burst in upon them.

“See that!” he cried breathlessly, holding up the piece of tarnished metal. “And that!” he added, turning the article over so as to show its blackened under side.

“It’s a badge!” cried Persimmons.

“A Northwest Mounted badge!” added Ralph.

“And it has a name scratched on the back!” reported the professor.

“And the name—is—Nevins!” concluded Mountain Jim in a tone of awe.

“And my father had that in his pocket!” said Jimmie, tears of excitement rolling down his cheeks.

“Could your father—possibly—be—Nevins?” asked the professor slowly.

“But Nevins died in the snow!” protested Harry Ware.

[303]

“No, Carthew only thought he died. No one knew,” said Mountain Jim reminiscently.

“But the Indians?” suggested Ralph.

“Maybe they saved him,—who knows?” said Jimmie, his eyes shining. “And maybe they let him wander away when he got stronger because they saw he was crazy!”

And so the talk went on, one suggestion and one surmise following another until the long evening was spent. The mystery could not be fully solved, but all agreed not to remind Jimmie’s father of the horrible experience that had been his, if he were, indeed, the subject of Trooper Carthew’s tale.

The next day the faithful doctor approved this decision. He also promised that he would get word to the trooper of this strange sequel to his story.

To digress, for a moment, as we may not linger much longer over the happy ending of Jimmie’s search. Time and the trooper proved,[304] that Mr. Ransom and “Nevins of Ours” were, indeed, one and the same. The second name had been assumed as a protection, and so had prevented the finding of Jimmie’s father long ago. A year or two after the incidents just related there was a reunion of the two men who had long before faced death together on the solitary trail, and by that time the clouds of forgetfulness had been so largely dissipated from Mr. Ransom’s befogged brain that he was able to thank the stalwart trooper for his efforts in his behalf.

Although much that had intervened between the time of Mr. Ransom’s disappearance in the snow and the time of his mental recovery was never clearly known, yet flashes of memory recalled to him Indians, warm blankets and good food. And his friends concluded that the Indians had really captured and saved him, but through some superstitious regard for his crazed[305] condition, had been kindly disposed toward him and given him his freedom.

But the silver? It was many days before Horace Ransom was strong enough to compel his brain to work backward to locate the spot where he had found the rich ore. Finally he succeeded, and the professor and the boys eventually accompanied him to the recess in the hills where the rich find had been made. The professor declared that the vein was of great richness and would yield a vast amount of silver, and so it subsequently proved.

The new Horace Ransom—the alert, middle-aged man of property that had arisen from the ashes of the mysterious derelict of the mountains—was anxious for the boys and the professor all to take shares in his mine, but they refused. Instead they turned their interest, which Mr. Ransom insisted they possessed, over to Mountain Jim.

All this, of course, did not take place in a day.[306] While Mr. Ransom was convalescing, the boys had much sport on the great Columbia in native canoes. They also had several adventurous hunting trips and memorable mountain climbs. But possibly of all their recollections of the Canadian Rockies the remembrance of the strange reunion of “the boy from nowhere” and his father was destined to stand out as the brightest and best. Little did they imagine when Ralph rescued Jimmie from the hands of the brutal brakeman, that before many years had rolled by the waif would be partner in the “Border Boy” silver mine, answering to the name “Mr. James Ransom.”

And here we will break off this tale. Another volume might easily be written relating further doings of these boys in the Canadian Rockies. But space forbids, and we must defer further acquaintance with our lads till we meet them once more in the next volume of this series, The Border Boys on the St. Lawrence.

The End