7 Gone Gold

Mr. Smeets stood in the middle of the road. His fists were clenched.

“Who let my bear out?” he said. “Who did it?”

“I saw it all, Bill,” said the man who had fired the gun. “It was that dog there!”

He pointed at Bo-Bo. She lowered her ears.

“I saw it too,” a third man said. “Used her nose and opened up the latch. Not a bad trick.”

“Well, whose flea-bitten mongrel is that?” demanded Mr. Smeets.

Bo-Bo prickled. “I am not flea-bitten!” she barked.

“She belongs to that foreign boy!” the man with the gun said. He pointed at Sheng.

When he said the word “foreign,” his voice turned nasty. Sheng flinched. Bo-Bo started to shake. Foreign! There was that word again. Didn’t they know Sheng couldn’t go home? Like she couldn’t go back to her old pack!

“Get him!” Mr. Smeets ordered. “And the mutt.”

Two of the men grabbed Sheng. Someone seized Bo-Bo by the scruff of her neck. She struggled, but the man who held her was too strong. Sheng yelled. Bo-Bo growled. A second man grabbed her.

Before she knew it, the men had dragged them behind the saloon. They pinned Sheng against the wall by his shoulders. Two men still held Bo-Bo by the neck fur.

“Let him go!” she growled.

Mr. Smeets leaned over Sheng.

“My bear was worth two hundred dollars, boy,” he said. “And your dog let her go! Did you tell her to do it?”

Sheng shook his head fast. Mr. Smeets put his face right next to Sheng’s.

“You owe me two hundred dollars!” he said. “In gold!”

“I… I don’t have two hundred dollars,” Sheng said. “Not in gold, or any other way.”

“See how much he has, Pete,” Mr. Smeets ordered.

The men held Sheng’s arms fast. Sheng kicked and struggled. His feet came off the ground. Bo-Bo barked desperately. The man named Pete turned out Sheng’s pockets. He found the leather bag of gold dust. He tossed it in his hand and caught it. “Only about three dollars here, I’d say.”

“That’s our gold for the tax!” Sheng protested.

“Not anymore,” Mr. Smeets said.

“That’s not fair!” Sheng shouted.

“Fair?” said Pete. “What’s not fair is you people coming over and taking our gold. You should go back to where you came from.” He put the bag of gold dust into his pocket. “We’ll take this for your tax. And you still owe Mr. Smeets two hundred dollars.”

Sheng went limp. “How am I going to get two hundred dollars?” he whispered. It seemed to Bo-Bo that the fight had gone out of him.

Mr. Smeets smiled. “Well, your father’s claim should just about cover it,” he said.

Sheng’s eyes widened. “No,” he mouthed.

We can’t lose the claim! Bo-Bo thought.

“But tell you what,” Mr. Smeets went on. “It’s your lucky day. It so happens I’ve got a thing or two to do outside town first. How much is gold selling for today, Pete?” he asked.

“Twenty dollars and sixteen cents an ounce,” Pete said, grinning.

“Two hundred dollars is about ten ounces of gold,” Mr. Smeets said. “I’m a forgiving man. I’ll make you a deal. If you bring me ten ounces of gold by sundown, I’ll forget all about this. If not, I’ll take your father’s claim and we’ll call it even. Sound fair to you, Pete?”

“Sounds fair to me,” Pete answered.

Mr. Smeets nodded at the two men who were holding Sheng. They let him go.

“Better get started!” he called. He sauntered away.

The men holding Bo-Bo let go of her, too. She ran to Sheng. The men walked away, laughing.

Sheng’s face twisted with misery and anger. “Where could I ever find that much gold all at once?” he whispered. “The most we’ve ever found is one ounce in a whole month! Why can Mr. Smeets just do that to us?” He kicked the wall.

A crow cawed overhead. Sheng looked up at it and blinked hard. Bo-Bo could tell he was trying not to cry.

“You’re a good dog, Bo-Bo,” he said. “I know you are. But why did you do that? How can I even go home to Father and Uncle? I don’t know anywhere I could get that gold! Not in one day!”

He sat down against the wall and stared at the ground.

Gold again. Those pebbles and bits of rock that always seemed to be so important. And Sheng needed enough gold to be worth two hundred of those things called “dollars.” Before sundown.

I did it again, thought Bo-Bo. I was too soft, just like Thunder said. Sheng and his family were going to lose everything they had worked so hard for. All because she had felt sorry for a bear. They would have nowhere to go. They would starve.

And it was all her fault.