Oliver Strange - Sudden Westerns 06 - Sudden Gold-Seeker(1937) (32 page)

 
          
It
was her usual greeting, but this time it made the old man blink. He hesitated
for a bare instant, and then. “Mornin’, my dear,” he returned huskily. Paul’s
frown was hut momentary.

 
          
“Good
news, girls,” he announced. “We take the trail today.”

 
          
“To Deadwood?”
Lora inquired.

 
          
“No, to El Dorado—the Land of Gold.
Oh, it isn’t far. We
just travel up this creek till we reach a belt of trees, find an overhanging
point of rock which moves, and there we are. Do you remember it—Ducane?” Snowy
received the gibe apathetically. “Can’t say I do,” he mumbled.

 
          
“Feller
in Californy told me of a swingin’ stone.
a
big chunk,
one man could start rockin’ but twenty couldn’t tip her over. I reckoned he was
lyin’.
Never heard o’ the like in these parts.”

 
          
“You’re
going to see one, and work under the shadow of it, digging dust—for me,” Paul
said harshly. “And if you try to steal any I’ll have you whipped.”

 
          
“Mister
Lesurge does not mean that, Uncle Phil,” Mary said quietly. “If we have good
fortune, you will share.” Paul was quick to retrieve his error. “Of course I
was only joking,” he protested, but his laugh did not ring true.

 
          
While
the preparations for departure were being made, Mary contrived to get the
prospector alone.

 
          
“What
is your real name, Uncle Phil?” she asked.

 
          
He
shook his head. “I disremember—I’ve been ‘Snowy’ so long. Yo’re mighty good to
me, Mary, seein’ how I’ve deceived you. There didn’t seem much harm the way
Paul put it, an’ I was meanin’ to play straight with you.” Her eyes were
gentle. “I don’t doubt that, and my real uncle could not have been more kind.
But how did you know so much about my father?”

 
          
“Fagan
wised up Paul, an’ he told me,” Snowy confessed, and then, “Where did Fagan git
his facts?”

 
          
“I
cannot say. He travelled nearly all the way with me when I came to Wayside, but
I told him nothing.”

 
          
“So
he might ‘
a
’ oeen around when yore father …” Snowy did
not finish.

 
          
“It
is possible,” she admitted, and stared at him. “You don’t think—”

 
          
“I
do—times; you’d be s’prised,” he said. “An’ Mary that fella Lesurge ain’t fit
to lick the mud off’n the boots o’ them two cowboys.” It was as though another
man had spoken, and by the time amazement had given place to indignation, he
was some yards distant.

 
          
“Uncle
Phil,” she called sharply.

 
          
“I’m
tellin’ you,” he answered, and scurried away.

 
          
Later,
as they followed the curves of the little creek, she put a question to Paul:

 
          
“You
expect to find Green at this place we’re going to?”

 
          
“Yes,
and probably his friend Mason, who declined to join my party.”

 
          
“But
why should Green have come, since he knew where o find the mine?”

      
 
“That’s
his damned cleverness. If he could persuade us that the ravine was the genuine
article, we go back to Deadwood in disgust, leaving him a clear field, an
artful scheme which, thanks to you, we shall defeat.” The praise did not please
her—she was dubious about the part she’ had played, and almost regretting the
search for her uncle and his elusive fortune. It had been a shock to discover
that the quaint, gentle old man was a fraud and she could not yet believe that
he had meant ill to her. It gave her a feeling of lonely helplessness which the
presence of Paul failed to eradicate.

 
          
She
found herself hoping first that Gerry would be there, and then that he would
not.

 
          
The
fugitives found the company at the Rocking Stone busy as beavers, but they
gathered round eagerly to hear the news, for the puncher’s early appearance,
with a companion, told them something had happened. The story did not take
long.

 
          
“So
here we are,” Sudden concluded.
“Husky figures to throw in
with us.”
The big miner shed his coat and rolled up his sleeves. “Gimme
a shovel,” he said. “One week here an’ I’ll go back an’ stand Deadwood on its
head.”

 
          
“We
won’t have a week,” Sudden warned. “I reckon that right now they’re on the way.”

 
          
“Yu
think they’ll find us?” Gerry asked.

 
          
“Shorely,
the girl will weaken—Lesurge has a medicine tongue with women”—he saw the boy
wince—“an’ she’s fond o’ Snowy, even though he ain’t what she thought.”

 
          
“Never
could understan’ her bein’ kin’ to that of scatterbrain,” Gerry said.

 
          
“Snowy
is straight,” Sudden told him. “Don’t yu gamble too much on his bein’ loco
neither.” He spoke to Husky. “Yu gotta remember that this claim belongs to Miss
Ducane; we’re on’y workin’ it for her.”

 
          
“What’s
yore plan?” Rogers asked the puncher.

 
          
“Hide
the hosses outside an’ put a man at the entrance,” Sudden said. He studied the
long, steep slope at the top of which the giant stone frowned down upon them,
direful, menacing.

 
          
“Cuss
it, if they get up there they can pepper us like rats in a pit.” However, short
of abandoning the mine, which none of them even thought of, there was nothing
else to be done. The horses were removed to a grassy hollow hedged in by thick,
thorny scrub, and Bowman, armed with a rifle, was stationed at the entrance.
The others went on with the work of gathering the wealth which for centuries
had lain there undisturbed. Sudden and Gerry were together.

 
          
“How
much o’ this mine will Snowy an’ Miss Ducane get if Lesurge can put his dirty
paws on it?” the latter asked presently.

 
          
“Six
foot each to lie in, same as the rest of us,” was the grim reply. “An’ he’ll
wash the dust out first.”

 
          
“But
he wouldn’t kill the girl.”

 
          
“Mebbe
not—at once, but she’d come to wishin’ he had.” The young man’s spade rasped
fiercely against the rock floor. “We’re as strong as they are. Why not go an’
clean ‘em up?”

 
          
“He
holds the trump card—Miss Ducane. If we could steal her away—but she wouldn’t
come.”

 
          
“Yu
tellin’ me she’s in love with that—skunk?” Gerry demanded hotly.

 
          
“Whatever
has skunks done to yu?” Sudden asked satirically. “Mebbe she thinks she is.

 
          
Yu
see, he’s got all the points that appeal to a girl, an’ he
don’t
run around with outlaws.”

 
          
“No,
Fagan and company bein’ highly respectable members o’ the community,” the boy
sneered.

 
          
“But
he on’y employs ‘em Gerry, which is some different,” Sudden said with quizzical
gravity. “Now if yu paid me to do yore killin’
… ”

 
          
“Aw,
go to hell,” was the inelegant rejoinder.

 
          
The
afternoon was waning when they got the first intimation of the enemy’s
presence, and a sad one it was. Rogers had gone to relieve the sentinel, only
to come back on the run, his face drawn with rage and grief.

 
          
“Tom’s
dead,” he cried. “God damn the murderin’ rats.” In horrified silence they
followed him. There, just outside the opening, Bowman
lay
sprawled face downward, his hands full of rubble gripped in a last agony. An
ugly red stain below the neck of his shirt betrayed the manner of his passing.
Sudden knelt beside the body.

 
          
“Stabbed
from behind,” he said.
“Never had a chance.
What’s
that?” He pointed to a level space on the cliff-wall, just above the dead man’s
head. Scratched there in rude print were the words, “Evens up for Husky.”
Sudden
stood,
his face rigid with grief; he had
brought this man to his death. “That settles it,” he said. “We’ll move the camp
here an’ have two of us in it allatime; we mustn’t be catched again.” The
others nodded agreement. Familiar as they all were with violence, the swiftness
of the tragedy had stunned them. In grim silence they carried their comrade
away, and later laid him to rest in a corner of the basin. As they piled rocks
over the grave, Rogers, who had known him long, spoke for them all:

 
          
“I’d
never ask for a better pardner than Tom.”

 
          
Determined
not to be misled again, Lesurge kept as close as possible to the creek. This
involved a circuitous route and the negotiation of many thickets and patches of
scrub, lengthening the journey considerably. It was Paul himself who first
descried the belt of pines with the conical rock cleaving the sky above them.

 
          
On
the verge of the pines, near where the stream emerged, Paul decided to camp.
Calling Hank aside, he gave him certain directions, and with a nod of comprehension,
the fellow took his rifle and vanished, on foot, into the deep shadow of the
trees. The others lighted two fires, at a little distance apart, unloaded the
packs, and made preparations for spending the night there. It was more than an
hour before Hank reappeared striding swiftly.

 
          
“Well?”
he said, as the messenger came to where he was pacing up and down, alone.

 
          
“You
were right, boss, they’re there, shore enough,” was the reply. “An’ by the way
they’re pitchin’ in the stuff’s there too. It’s a hole in the rocks—like a big
holler tooth, an’ I couldn’t see but the one way in.”

 
          
“How many of them?”

 
          
“Seven—leastways,
there was seven.”

 
          
“What
do you mean?”

 
          
“Well,
one was watchin’ an’ I sorta subtracted him, just to level up for Husky.” The
evil smirk of satisfaction with which he admitted the murder wilted as he read
his employer’s expression. “You clumsy clown,” Paul rasped. “That puts them on
their guard and makes it impossible for us to get in.”

 
          
“I
had to abolish him,” Hank said sullenly. “Couldn’t ‘a’ seen nothin’ no other
way; that hole is
walled
all round.”

 
          
“The
more reason for leaving the opening available,” Lesurge snarled. “In the dark,
with only one man to deal with, we could have surprised and overpowered them
while they slept. Was Green there?”

 
          
“Yeah, an’ his bunkie, Mason, an’ Jacob.”

 
          
“Jacob?
What’s he doing there?”

 
          
“I
didn’t ask,” Hank replied impudently, and got a black look, which disturbed him
not at all; he was hitting back to recover his self-respect.

 
          
Lesurge
dismissed him with a gesture and joined the women, who, with Snowy, were
sitting by one of the fires. The old man eyed him furtively as he approached.

 
          
“It
is as I expected,” he informed them. “Green, Mason, and five—four others are in
possession of your property, Mary, and shifting them is not going to be easy.”
The girl looked troubled. “Would it not be possible to make some arrangement—to
share?” she asked. “If the mine is as rich as we believe, there should be
enough for all.”