Barkerville Gold by Dayle Gaetz Read Free Book Online Page B

of the campsite.
    â€œYou can’t be serious,” Sheila whispered. “He could come back at any minute.”
    â€œHe won’t,” Katie said confidently. “He’s gone down to the washroom and he took a book with him. Don’t you know? Men that age sit there, like, forever. So we have plenty of time to take a look.”
    â€œBut why should we want to?”
    â€œBecause if he’s the same man who went creeping past our campsite last night, I want to find out what he’s up to.”
    â€œWhy?” Sheila demanded.
    â€œRemember what Rusty overheard in the Wake-Up Jake? People who read Spirits of the Cariboo will soon be rushing up here to search for Three Finger’s gold. I think the rush has already started, and unless I miss my guess, this guy has a map that can help find it.”
    Much as Rusty hated to admit it, this made sense to him. “I’ll come with you,” he offered.
    â€œI’ll wait here,” Sheila said. “If I see him coming I’ll whistle like this.” She placed two fingers against her lips and gave a loud, shrill whistle.
    Katie and Rusty left their bikes at the roadside and ran into the campsite. They stopped at the picnic table and studied the paper.
    â€œIt’s a map of Barkerville,” Katie said.
    Rusty nodded. “But not just Barkerville—all the trails and old mines and cabins in the whole area.”
    â€œWow! I wonder where he got it.”
    Rusty studied the legend in the bottom right-hand corner. “I don’t know, but it looks just like one my dad gave me, which is a copy of an old map from before the fire in 1868.” Rusty rubbed the curled corner of the map between his fingertips. It felt thin and crisp and was yellowed with age.
    A short ruler lay at an angle across the map, marking a route between Barkerville and a miner’s cabin up to the west, near Lowhee Creek.
    â€œDo you think—” Katie stopped abruptly. She listened for a second then whispered, “Did you hear that?”
    â€œWhat?” Then Rusty heard it too. A loud snort. Bear! he thought, and his heart stopped beating.
    There it was again! Not a snort but a sneeze. And it came from inside the camper van behind them. The springs creaked. The van wobbled.
    â€œLet’s go!” Katie whispered.
    They started for the road. A shrill whistle stopped them dead. Swinging around, they ran for the trees behind the campsite. As they passed the van, Rusty saw a small red motorcycle propped against its back bumper. They crashed through trees and bushes, heading for the next campsite. At first Rusty thought it was empty, but as they skirted around a thick fir tree, he noticed a small tent-trailer. They stopped again, undecided.
    Rrrr-whump . A van door slid open behind them.
    They ran into the tent-trailer’s campsite, skirted behind the trailer, reached the front road and ran around the curve. Rusty was sure that their two bikes, lying on the roadside near the campsite, would give them away. But his fears vanished when, before reaching the back road, they saw Sheila standing close against some bushes where she had moved all three bikes.
    â€œI don’t think that man saw you in his campsite,” she whispered, “because he was still a long way down the road when I whistled.”
    While they paused to catch their breath, Katie told Sheila about the map and the sneeze. They climbed on their bikes, continued on to the back road and cycled past Prospector Man’s campsite as fast as they could pedal. Rusty was afraid to look. He followed the girls to the far end of the campground.
    In the lead as usual, Sheila stopped at the bottom of a dirt trail that wound invitingly into the forest. A wooden sign pointing up the trail identified it as the Lowhee Walking Trail .
    â€œWant to go up there?” Sheila asked eagerly.
    â€œNot today,” Katie said. “We’re going swimming,