Oliver Strange - Sudden Westerns 06 - Sudden Gold-Seeker(1937) (15 page)

 
          
“Who
said I was goin’ to?”

 
          
“Partner,
yu can’t lose me—I’m aimin’ to be yore shadow.”

 
          
“I
can take you right over the mine an’ you wouldn’t know it, an’ point out some
place where it ain’t,” Snowy retorted.

 
          
The
cowboy laughed again. “Yo’re a cunnin’ of fox,” he admitted. “But if yu think I
ain’t in with Lesurge, why fetch me here?”

 
          
“Paul’s
suggestion, dunno the reason; must be somethin’ behind it, for he don’t like
you.”

 
          
“That’s
mighty sad hearin’,” Sudden answered gravely, but his eyes were mirthful. “I’ve
had a dim suspicion of it my own self; I’ll have to earn his better opinion.”

 
          
“Shore,”
Snowy said, and the one word spoke volumes. “What I’m wonderin’ is why yu hate
Lesurge?” Sudden said quietly.

 
          
If
the puncher had pulled a gun on him the prospector could not have been more
amazed.

 
          
“Who
told—?” he began and stopped. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, he shrugged
and said, “I dunno how you got wise, Jim—I thought I’d diddled ‘em all,
includin’ Paul. Damn him, he’s playin’ me for a sucker an’ thinks he can rob me—Mary.
Is young Mason white?”

 
          
“He’s
my friend, Snowy.”

 
          
“That’s
good enough for me. We’ll beat that devil, clever as he is, just the three of
us. I’m agoin’ to turn in, boy; gotta be astir early.” For a while after the
old man had rolled himself in his blanket, the cowboy sat smoking and staring
into the fire, thinking over what had happened. His chance shot had hit the
mark, plumb centre, and yet he could not say why he had made it.

 
          
Snowy’s
attitude was easily explained: he suspected Lesurge meant to steal his mine, a
deadly offence in the eyes of one to whom gold was a god. Sudden, of the same
opinion, was glad to discover that the prospector was not the simple dupe he
had appeared to be.

 
          
When
they set out in the morning, the mare was disposed to be fractious, but the
magic wand brought obedience. Snowy had found occasion to make vigorous use of
it the previous day and, tough as the animal’s hide was
,
her ribs were still sore.

 
          
“Learnin’
sense, huh?” her master said, as he hauled himself into the saddle and pulled
her remaining ear. The ugly hammer-head came round, upper lip curled, showing
the big yellow teeth. “Like to chaw my leg, eh, you she-devil? Take that, an’
git agoin’.” They pushed on, thrusting through the thick shrubby undergrowth of
the foothills, twisting and turning to avoid chunks of rock and large trees,
and gradually mounting. Presently they were face to face with a wall of bare
cliff, which, rising sheer from among the foliage, appeared an insuperable
barrier.

 
          
The
mare stopped and turned a jeering eye upon her master; she evidently concluded
he had lost his way. Snowy whanged her on the rump.

 
          
“G’wan,
you hell-cat,” he barked.

 
          
“Yu expectin’ her to grow wings?”
Sudden inquired.

 
          
Snowy
grinned gleefully. “Got you
guessin’,
has it?” he
said. “Well, watch.” He urged his horse forward, rode straight into a bush at
the base of the cliff, and vanished. The cowboy followed, and the mystery was
one no longer; behind the bush was an overlapping buttress of rock which
concealed a narrow opening,
The
place to which it led
was anything but lovely. A small cuplike depression hollowed out of the
mountain-
side,
enclosed by almost vertical walls of
stone, bare, save for ragged patches of moss, grass and cactus on the
infrequent ledges. At the end opposite the entrance, a steep slope joined the
wall of the hollow and the flattish top of a small mountain, and there was
perched an enormous, cone-shaped boulder, leaning forward and seeming to
overshadow the cup below. Snowy followed his companion’s gaze.

 
          
“That’s
the Rocking Stone, that is—I named the mine after her,” he explained. “One o’

 
          
Dame
Nature’s little jokes; a big wind’ll make her bend over, but she rights herself—all
the weight at the foot, I reckon, an’ balanced just so. Gave me the creeps at
first, but there ain’t
no
danger.”

 
          
The
sly look was in his eyes again. “Purty place, eh?”

 
          
“I’ve
been in worse,” was the answer.

 
          
“You
ain’t noticed the best of it,” the old man said.

 
          
He
pointed to a little waterfall, toppling over a ledge twenty feet up, to drop,
glinting in the sunlight like a stream of jewels, into a shallow pool, thence
along a narrow, stone-rimmed gully to vanish under the rock wall.

 
          
“Every
convenience, you see, he said, and then, “Wonderin’ where the gold is, son?
Well, yo’re standln’ on it. Here’s how I figure it out. Time was when this cup
was a pool an’ mebbe it’s thousands o’ years before the water bores an outlet
big enough to empty her. All that while the stream’s a-tricklin’ in carryin’
gold-dust, which, bein’ heavy, remains when the water goes out.

 
          
Under
this rotted granite, is a layer o’ sand an’ gravel —the old bed o’ the pool—an’
it’s the richest pay-dirt I ever saw.” The puncher cast a speculative look at
the mountain towering above them.

 
          
“An’
the gold comes from up there?” he questioned.

 
          
“Shorely,”
Snowy told him, and reading the other’s thought, “The stream comes out’s a
crack in the rock ‘bout a hundred yards up; Gawd on’y knows where she starts,
but somewhere she runs through a deposit o’ gold.” He shook his head.
“You’d have to take the blame’ mountain to pieces to find it.
Wanted for you to see this place, Jim.
If anythin’
happens to me, Mary’ll need a friend.”

 
          
“She
can depend on two,” the puncher said quietly. “Good,” Snowy rejoined. “We’ll
git back now; I’ll show you the other mine on the way home.” Sudden’s eyebrows
rose.

 
          
“You
didn’t reckon I’d be
dump
enough to tell Paul about
this one, did you?”

 
          
“I
was kind o’ wonderin’; it would be a risk.”

 
          
“Risk?”
Snowy repeated scornfully. “
I’m
believin’
you.
If that soulless devil knowed o’ this,
me an’ Mary wouldn’t last a week.
To him, there’s on’y one person in the
world that matters—Paul Lesurge.” Little as he liked the man, Sudden regarded
this as an exaggeration; on the subject of his gold-mine the old fellow was
undoubtedly a little mad, and liable to suspect
everyone
of designs on it. Yet he
was trusting
the puncher, of
whom he knew little. Sudden smiled and sarcastically told himself that was the
reason.

 
          
On
the back trail, Snowy was more talkative—apparently the knowledge that his
secret was safe had lifted a load from his mind. He chirped and chattered,
mainly on his favourite topic—California.

 
          
Sudden
noticed they were not returning by the way they had come. Snowy smiled when he
mentioned it.

 
          
“This
is a short cut—less’n half the distance,” he confessed. “We could ‘a’ done it
in a day, but we might ‘a’ been trailed.” They had covered only a few miles
when the prospector halted in a sandy, shallow ravine through which a small
stream moved sluggishly. The ruins of a log shack and the disturbance of the
ground in a number of places proclaimed human habitation at some time. The
cowboy understood.

 
          
“This
is the other one?” he guessed. “Is there gold here?”

 
          
“Enough
to keep a fella hopin’,” was the reply. “You see, this creek comes from the
Rocking Stone, an’ when the snow melts on the peaks she’s strong enough to
carry the dust even this far.”

 
          
“But
if somebody works up-
stream .
?”

 
          
“She
tunnels a bit away from the cliff-wall,” Snowy said confidently. “I on’y struck
her by accident—you gotta find the way in.” As the old man had promised, the
journey back was shorter and a little less difficult, and, by late afternoon,
they reached Deadwood. They were approaching the long street between the
timber-stripped sides of the gulch when a crowd of shouting, gesticulating men
came marching towards them. In front strode a burly, coarse-faced miner
carrying a coiled rope, and immediately behind him, firmly gripped by two
others and minus his gun, stepped Gerry. The boy’s face was pale, and no sound
came from his close-clamped lips. At the sight of him, Sudden pulled his horse
across the path of the mob and dropped the reins over the saddle-horn, leaving
both hands free.

 
          
“What’s
goin’ on?” he demanded.

 
          
“Suthin’
you can’t stop,” the man with the rope retorted, though he looked a trifle
uneasy.

 
          
“We’re
aimin’ to string this fella up soon’s we find a tall enough tree.”

 
          
“An’
that goes,” yelled a score of the others.

 
          
Sudden
surveyed the half-circle of hard-featured, savage faces; dangerous men these,
all armed, and liable to be reckless of consequences when inflamed by passion.
Resting his hands on the pommel of his saddle, he said quietly:

 
          
“What’s
he done?”

 
          
“Murdered
a man an’ stole his dust,”
came
the answer. “That’s a
lie, Jim; I never was near the place,” Gerry called out, trying to step
forward.

 
          
“Close
yore yap, you,” one of the men holding him exclaimed, and both of them slung
him roughly back.

 
          
The
puncher’s cold eyes rested on them. “Turn that man loose,” he ordered. “He can’t
get away.” Though his voice was low there was menace in it. The men shuffled
uneasily for a moment and then obeyed; the crowd murmured. Sudden raised a
hand.

 
          
“Mason
is my partner,” he said. “If he has done what yu say, yo’re welcome to hang
him, but yu gotta prove it first.” The leader told the story; a solitary digger
named Wilson had been stabbed on his claim and his money-belt was missing; the
prisoner was seen near the spot soon after the crime must have been committed.

 
          
“Yu
didn’t find the belt on him?” Sudden asked, and there was a burst of jeering
laughter.

 
          
“Well,
o’ course, he might ‘a’ cached it. Where’s the fella who saw him?” From the back
ranks a reluctant figure was pushed forward and
Sudden’s
eyes narrowed as he saw that it was Rodd. The man was obviously uncomfortable
but with the courage born of being one of many, he faced the puncher with a
malevolent sneer. Sudden gave no sign of recognition.

 
          
“Shore
it was Mason you saw?” he asked.

 
          
“
Sartain,”
was the reply, “an’ he was wearin’ chaps—they ain’t
so common in these ‘arts.”

 
          
“I
wear ‘em,” the puncher pointed out.

 
          
“Then
it might ‘a’ bin yu,” Rodd said impudently, and raised a laugh.

 
          
“So
yu didn’t see his face—the chaps are all yu have to go on?” Sudden flashed, and
the man’s triumphant leer faded as he realized that he had made a slip.

 
          
“It
was him, anyway,” he growled. “I’d swear to lt.”