Oliver Strange - Sudden Westerns 06 - Sudden Gold-Seeker(1937) (8 page)

 
          
“You
have done very well, my friends,” he said. “Three ounces of dust, at eighteen
dollars the ounce—which is the ruling rate—is not bad for a beginning.”

 
          
“On’y three ounces?”
Gerry said disappointedly. “I reckon it
oughta be three pounds for the work we put in.”

 
          
“You
have been fortunate,” the old man told him. “Hundreds of men here slave for
weeks without making a grubstake. Big finds only come to the favoured few.”

 
          
“Yo’re
a hawg, Gerry,” Sudden reproved. “What yu got to-day would take yu darned near
a month to earn punchin’
cows.
”

 
          
“I’d
get my grub thrown in,” Mason grumbled.

 
          
“Yeah,
with a shovel,” his friend laughed. “It’s about the on’y way they could fill
yu. C’mon, let’s go an’ start a famine.” They went out wrangling, oblivious to
the curious expression in the eyes of their host.

 
          
“It
doesn’t seem possible,” he muttered.

 
          
Snowy
had said no more than the truth when he described the residence of Miss Lesurge
as the best in the town. Standing back a little from the street, solidly built
of squared logs, it comprised two storeys and was comfortably furnished. Even
Paul Lesurge paid his sister a compliment upon it.

 
          
“The
man who had it put up made a pile soon after it was completed and started for
the East,” she explained. “I got it cheaply.” Paul’s dark eyes held hers for a
moment, and then he smiled.

 
          
“Good
for you, Lora,” he said. “I am pleased with it. I knew I could depend on you.”

 
          
“Didn’t
know we was comin’ to yore own house, Paul,” Snowy said.

 
          
“Having
business in Deadwood I must stay somewhere, so I sent my sister on to make
arrangements.
Naturally, since I have a home, my friends are
welcome.” He had already presented his guests and Miss Lesurge had welcomed
them graciously. Tall, not yet thirty, her pale, oval face, full red lips, and
eyes that matched the black hair deftly coiled on a haughty head gave her a
compelling beauty. She moved with a sinuous ease which accentuated her fine
figure and somehow reminded Mary Ducane of a tiger-cat. This impression was
deepened by her low voice, which, at times, was almost a purr. Paul Lesurge was
still interested in the house.

 
          
“It
must have cost the original owner a fortune,” he mused. “All this furniture
could only be brought by ox-wagons across the plains. Why did he sacrifice it?”
Miss Lesurge shrugged her shapely shoulders. “Rillick—that was his name—wanted
to get away. Another successful miner offered to play him at poker for the
property, he setting up a certain sum in gold against it.

 
          
Rillick
accepted and won almost all the other possessed, nearly doubling his own wealth
in one night. After that, he didn’t care if he gave the house away.” When the
guests had retired to their rooms, Paul turned to his sister. “So Rillick gave
you the house?” he said.

 
          
With
a gesture of impatience she got up, opened a drawer and took out a paper. “I
paid him a thousand dollars for it,” she replied. “Here is the receipt.”
Lesurge hardly looked at it.

 
          
“Only that?”
The woman’s dark eyes flashed. “Only that,” she
repeated. “What sort of a fellow was he?”

 
          
“Youngish, not bad-looking, and worth half a million.”

 
          
“Why
didn’t you go?” She flinched as though he had struck her, and then said coldly:
I argued that if a fool—and he was one—could clean up as much as that, we could
treble it. The old man seems half mad; is he really her relative?”

 
          
“No,
but she believes him to be, which is all that matters,” Paul said. “He’s only
crazy about gold.”

 
          
“Then
he doesn’t know where the mine is?” Lesurge explained the position and when he
had finished, she said rather scornfully, “Fagan appears to have blundered. You
seem to be fond of half-wits.”

 
          
“A
blunt instrument is useful at times,” he told her. “Why did you warn the girl?
Have you had trouble?”

 
          
“Two
days after I arrived here a man grossly insulted me in the street; he was
drunk, and a Mexican at that.”

 
          
“What
happened?”

 
          
“I
stabbed him,” she said coolly, and, noting the frown on his face, added, “Oh,
there was no fuss. I paid the funeral expenses and was complimented by leading
citizens on my pluck.

 
          
These
boors think I’m wonderful.” The contempt in her tone was real enough.

 
          
Lesurge
nodded his satisfaction. “Excellent,” he said. “We’ll have them eating out of
our hands before we’re through.”

 
          
“So
the cowboys followed you here?” she asked.

 
          
“Yes,
but they’ll be too busy scrambling for gold to bother us,” Paul assured her. “And
anyway, Mason is dumb; Green, the black-haired one, might be dangerous; if he
gets into the game we’ll have to deal with him.”

 
          
“The
girl is pretty—in a way,” she said casually, her eyes upon him.

 
          
But
Paul Lesurge could play poker. “I suppose she is,” he replied carelessly.
“The kind of ‘wild blossom from the prairie’ type that a man with
brains would tire of in a month.”

 
          
“For
once, I think you are wrong, Paul,” she returned. “What is to happen to her?”

 
          
“Haven’t
thought about it,” was the nonchalant reply. There Paul Lesurge was guilty of
an error, for the woman was well aware that he always planned ahead, and was
therefore lying.

 
          
“Who
is the man with the most influence here?” he asked.

 
          
“Reuben
Stark, owner of the Monte, the largest of the gambling saloons. He has a number
of miners working for him on grubstake terms and that gives him an obedient
following.”

 
          
“Is
he a straight man?”

 
          
“Are
there any?” she asked cynically. “No, I’d say he’s as crooked as a dog’s
hind-leg, but he’ll serve your purpose. He rather admires me,” she added.

 
          
“Splendid!”
Lesurge said.
“Anyone else.”

 
          
“Jean Bizet, who runs the Paris in opposition to Stark.
A
French-Canadian, reputed to be just—but only just,” she smiled. “Has a squaw
wife, and, curiously enough, worships her. Hickok too is among our
distinguished citizens.”

 
          
“Wild Bill?”
Paul cried. “What the devil is he doing here?”

 
          
“Where
the carcase is …’ ” the woman quoted.

 
          
“Hickok
is no vulture; he has the name for being square.”

 
          
“Possibly,
but he’s not immortal, is he?” Lesurge looked at her; callous as he was, there
were times when her cold-bloodedness amazed him.

 
          
“No,
but one might be excused for thinking so,” he replied. “They say he never
misses.”

 
          
“Someone
will get him—from behind—one of these days,” she shrugged. “In any case, square
folk are easier to fool, being straight themselves they are not so suspicious
of others.”

 
          
“Well,
let’s hope we don’t have to try and fool Hickok,” was Paul’s sinister reply.

 
          
Two
weeks passed and the cowboys’ store of gold slowly but steadily increased; it
was by no means large, but, as Sudden had said, they were able to go on eating.
A day or two had exhausted the natural barrier in the stream and then they
worked upwards.

 
          
“The
dust we found has been washed down,” Sudden argued, “an’ mebbe there’s more to
come; we’ll save it the trouble.” There was more, in no great quantity, but
sufficient to be worthwhile. The task of getting it was arduous in the extreme.

 
          
“For
real work this job has a round-up beat to a frazzle,” Mason complained. “What’s
the good o’ cash yu got no chance to spend?” For since they usually arrived
home too tired to do more than eat and tumble into their blankets, Deadwood had
seen nothing of them. This was not the first hint Mason had offered and Sudden
knew that a desire for relaxation was not the real reason.

 
          
“I
guess we’ve earned a holiday,” he said. “We’ll slick up tonight an’ give the
town a treat.” Accordingly, the evening found them mixing with the stream of
humanity which thronged the sidewalks, shouting noisy greetings in a medley of
tongues, singing raucous songs, jostling one another as they entered or left
the various places of entertainment. Again Sudden experienced one of those
incidents which he was quite unable to explain. A roistering miner staggered
out of a saloon, barged into him and went down. With an oath he picked himself
up and was feeling for his gun when a shaft of light from the swinging door lit
up the cowboy’s countenance. The man stared, his hand fell to his
side,
and with a mumbled apology, he turned away.

 
          
Sudden
looked at his companion in bewilderment.

 
          
“What
do yu know about that?” he asked. “The fella was goin’ to perforate me an’ the
sight of my face scared him cold.” This was too good an opening. “What
surprises me is that it surprises yu,” Mason grinned. “Ain’t yu never used a
mirror? Yore face would make a grizzly turn tail.”

 
          
“Yu
chatterin’ chump,” Sudden said. “Let’s go in here.”

 
          
“Pull
yore hat well down, we don’t want to start a stampede,” Gerry retorted.

 
          
The
Paris Saloon was packed with people. Most of those present were men but there
was a sprinkling of the other sex, women of various ages, whose expensive
attire displayed their charms with some freedom, who drank and gambled with
their male escorts and laughed with their painted lips and never with their
eyes.

 
          
One
half of the floor space in front of the long bar was devoted to games of
chance, of which a roulette board attracted most attention. The other half
contained the customary tables and chairs. Threading a way through the latter,
the cowboys arrived at the bar and at once a dapper little man with twinkling
eyes, dark crinkly hair, and a pointed beard, stepped up.

 
          
“Gentlemen,
I am pleas’ to welcome you,” he greeted. “I have live wit’ de cow, yes, bien
sur, I, Jean Bizet, when I cook for de Cross T on de Canadian Border. Ah, dose
sacre mule, dey nearly pull de arm out.
You dreenk wit’ me?”
He chattered on, recalling incidents of the range.

 
          
“Ah,
it was de good days,” he said. “Sometimes I regret, but a man must move, not
so?
If he stay one place all de while he get—how you say—ver’
rusty.”
They returned his hospitality and Sudden told him they must get
on—they were looking for someone. The little man’s face sobered.

 
          
“Dat
soun’ bad,” he said. “What he done?” Sudden laughed. “He’s just a friend; we
ain’t on the warpath,” he explained.

 
          
Bizet
laughed too.
“I mak’ mistake.
I am glad. W’en a man
look for another it sometime mean trouble. You come again?”

 
          
“Shore
we will,” Sudden said heartily.