Some minor changes to the text are noted at the end of the book.
NEW YORK BEADLE AND ADAMS, PUBLISHERS, 98 WILLIAM STREET.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by BEADLE AND ADAMS, in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
Young Edwin Inwood leaped down from the small tree in which he had been perched for the last half hour, and ran swiftly toward the brook where his elder brother, George, and a large negro named Jim Tubbs, were waiting, ever and anon raising their heads, and looking towards the boy who was acting as sentinel, several hundred yards away, as if they were expecting some such an alarm as this.
“Quick! they’ll soon be here!” he added in his terrible excitement.
“How many are there?” inquired George, catching up his shovel at the same time with his rifle.
“I shouldn’t wonder if there were twenty. I’m sure I saw a dozen, any way.”
“More likely dar’s a tousand!” angrily exclaimed Jim, gathering his implements together, preparatory to making a move. “Dis yer’s a nonsince--jest as we gits in among de gold, dem Injins has to ’gin dar tricks.”
“Hurry, Jim,” admonished the young man, beginning to grow nervous. “It won’t do to be caught here.”
“Dey hain’t cotched dis pusson yit, an’ if dey undertooks it, somebody’ll git hurt. I can swing dat pick kind o’ loose when I makes up my mind to do so. I’s ready--now whar does ye pitch to?”
George Inwood, loaded down with his gun and implements, hurried up the channel of the brook, for several hundred feet, and then, making a sudden plunge to the right, disappeared as abruptly as if the earth had opened and swallowed him. The next moment, his brother Edwin, a lad some fifteen years of age--whisked after him, and then Jim came lumbering along, somewhat after the manner of an ox, when goaded off his usual plodding walk.
“Dis yer’s graceful!” he muttered, not deigning to look behind him to see whether the envious aborigines were visible, “I never did like to trot, s’pecially when an Ingin was drivin’ me, an’ only does it to please de boys.”
“Come, Jim, move faster!” called the voice of George Inwood from some subterranean point.
Further exclamation was cut short, for at this instant the indignant African was seized by the ankle with such force, that he fell prostrate upon his back, and, despite his struggles and threats of dire punishment, was quickly drawn out of sight and hearing.