"Queer thing!" he commented. "You find the worst rotters in any
country squatted over the richest minerals."
At the time, Courtenay gave slight heed to this bit of crude
philosophy. It was not until he called to mind the Kaffir, the
Australian black, the Alaskan Indian, the primeval nomads of
California, Colorado, and Northern Siberia, that he saw how
extraordinarily true was his friend's dictum. Then he looked on the
shores of Good Hope Inlet with a new interest. Would a city ever
spring up in that desolate land, a city builded of those pebbles which
had clattered against the solid walls of the Kansas? Who could tell?
The long romance of gold contained stranger chapters.
But the captain had more important things with which to bother his
brains than the fanciful laying out of corner lots on the comparatively
level bluff overlooking Otter Creek. He saw to the reverent burial of
poor Pietro Gama, entered full details of the fight in the ship's log,
and helped Walker to search the suspected coal for a further supply of
dynamite, as the utility of the surface mines had been demonstrated
beyond a doubt. He thought it possible, given the necessary time, to
rig a device which would be practically invisible. A fresh set of
dummy poles, which the Indians would probably avoid in the event of a
second attack, might deflect the canoes into the area of new mines laid
at sea level.
Their utmost diligence brought to light no further supply of the
explosive. Evidently, the prepared lumps of coal, each containing a
stick of dynamite, which were placed among the bunker at Valparaiso,
had been conveyed on board by one man, so it was more than likely there
was not another ounce of the stuff on the ship except the three
specimens first discovered. These, water-soaked and useless, were
locked in a drawer in the chart-house.
While scrutinizing the bunker, Courtenay found a grimy piece of paper,
crushed into a ball and amalgamated with coaldust by means of the glue,
or other substance, which had been used for making the bombs intended
for the destruction of the furnaces. He examined it carefully,
believing it had the appearance and texture of cartridge paper. He
placed it in his pocket, and, while changing his clothes before joining
the others at supper, came on it again with a certain surprise. He
plunged it into a basin of hot water, and it yielded its secret. It
was the outer wrapper of a stick of dynamite; it bore the circular
stamp of the manufacturers, the "Sociedad Anonyma de las Costas del
Pacifico." This, in itself, meant nothing. The same company probably
supplied hundreds of mines with the five-pound boxes in which dynamite
is packed, and, if the stamp were the only clue, none could possibly
say when or where it had been issued for use.