Sudden Goldseeker (1937) s-3 Page 8

  "Good work shorely deserves good pay," he observed fatuously.

  To his surprise, she dropped the subject and after one or two commonplaces, held out her hand.

  "We must meet again," she said. "You interest me." When he had gone, she rose and crossed to a mirror. "What is the matter with me?" she murmured. "Is he really dumb, or ... ?" Apparently satisfied with the reflection in the glass she curtseyed to it mockingly. "We shall see, Mister Sudden; you may be a wonder with a six-shooter but Cupid can beat you with his bow and arrow--damn you." Had the cowboy seen her at that moment, the God of Love's shaft would have sadly missed its aim. All her beauty could not make a woman with such an expression desirable.

  But Sudden was riding up the street, repeating for the third time that he had not seen Miss Ducane. He gave his explanation of Lora's interest and Gerry's eyes grew round.

  "They wanta rope yu into their plans?" he said. "But why?"

  "Mebbe they need a fast gun-slinger," Sudden said bitterly. "I'm knowed too, an' if anythin' goes wrong with those same plans, I'll be left holdin' the bag."

  "What yu mean to do, Jim?"

  "I'm takin' a hand," came the grim reply.

  "We are," the other corrected.

  Sudden expressed a doubt. "Lesurge don't like you. Yo're young, yu got a face a girl might get used to--in time, an' he has his own ideas, I figure, about Miss Ducane's future." Gerry's comment, a poor tribute to his upbringing, set out clearly and vividly, his ideas regarding the future of Paul Lesu rge.

  "Cussin' never cured anythin'," Sudden said philosophically. "We gotta wait for the next move in the game." They were not kept long in suspense; it had already been made. As they crossed the little stream which descended from their claim, Sudden noticed that the water was muddy.

  "Somebody's workin' near us," he remarked.

  Breasting the slope, they soon reached the spot. Three men were busily washing sand from the bed of the rivulet. They ceased as the riders emerged from the trees, their hands going to their guns, only to fall away again when Sudden slid from- his saddle and stepped towards them. Blue-shirted miners, neither young nor old, of the type which could be seen by the hundred in the vicinity at any hour of the day or night, with rugged, hard, but not unpleasant faces.

  "What's the bright notion, jumpin' our claim thisaway?" the puncher asked.

  The oldest of the three, who sported a grey beard, replied:

  "We didn't know it was your'n." His tone was almost apologetic, and Sudden knew that, for once, his evil reputation was helping him. "You ain't staked no claim, nor recorded her, an' she's anybody's ground." The cowboys grinned wryly at one another; this was a detail they had overlooked.

  "We figured on attendin' to that later, if it was worth while," Sudden explained. "What made yu pick on this place?"

  "Fella told us 'bout it--said a couple o' chaps was doin' well but hadn't recorded," the man replied. "You see, we bin havin' a middlin' poor time, couldn't make a strike nohow, an' with grub the price it is ..." He shrugged expressively.

  "Was the fellow named Berg?"

  "Why I b'lieve I did hear him called that--a tricky-lookin' triflin' bit of a man."

  "Yu said it," the puncher agreed. "Well, boys, yu win. Me an' Gerry has slipped up an' must take our medicine. Good luck to yu." He turned towards his horse.

  The two miners who had been silent looked at the spokesman and shook their heads.

  "Hold on thar, we ain't agreein' to that," Grey-beard said. "Yo're treatin' us fair, mister, an' we aim to do the same. We've staked three claims an' you can choose two of 'em--I'm tellin' you the ones the stream runs through is the likeliest. We'll mark out another couple an' work alongside, if yo're willin'."

  "That's a white man's offer, but I got a better idea," Sudden replied. "We'll work the five claims an' split the proceeds equally. What yu say?" Since the cowboy's ground would probably be the richest, this proposal was to the advantage of the intruders; they did not hesitate.

  "That's a bet," their leader said, "but I reckon you two should take a bigger share." The puncher would not have it. "We're kind o' new to this game," he pointed out. "We'll gain by throwin' in with yu, Mister .. ?" 'I'm Jessie Rogers, this is Ben Humit. an' that ornery fella is Tom Bowman; we ain't much to look at but you'll find we're on the level," Grey-beard said. "We was in the Paris when you gave Logan what he shorely asked for." He looked round. "This end o' the gulch ain't bin prospected much--chaps are scared o' gettin' far from town--but they'll come, an' it'll be all to the good if there's a party of us. What you goin' to do to Berg?"

  "Box his ears," was the smiling answer. "He's on'y bein' used, Rogers, by bigger men."

  "Well, any time you want help, there's three of us," the other replied slowly.

  "I'm rememberin' that," Sudden said warmly.

  By virtue of both age and experience, Rogers took charge of the operations. His partners were deputed to stake the a ditional claims while the other three used shovel and pan. Sudden pointed out the natural rock riffle and Rogers laughed.

  "We tried that first," he said. "No wonder she warn't so rich as we expected. Hey, that ain't no way to wash dirt--you'll lose half the dust. Lemme show you." The puncher watched his skilful handling of the pan with a rueful countenance, seeing which, Rogers smiled. "Don't you care, son," he consoled. "Each to his job, they say. I'm bettin' you could throw an' tie twenty cows afore I got the rope on one." Sudden laughed and went to help Gerry with the digging.

  "Berg has done us a good turn unmeanin'," he remarked. "I'm wonderin' if it was just spite, or was he obeyin' orders?" When just before dark, they reached home, another surprise awaited them. From a sawn-off tree-stump which served as a seat outside the door, Snowy rose.

  "'Lo boys," he cried. "There's nobody to home so I just hung aroun'." They took him inside and produced a bottle and glasses, but he shook his head.

  "Ain't drinkin' right now," he excused. "Wanted to see you particular, Jim." His voice dropped almost to a whisper. "I'm agoin' to re-locate the mine. It ain't fur, mebbe I won't be gone more'n a day or so, 'less I've disremembered the landmarks, but it's wild country. Paul reckons I oughta have comp'ny--a fella who's handy with weapons."

  "So he sent yu to me?"

  "Well, he mentioned yore name an' I was pleased to hear it. I'd like for yu to come, Jim. It's been in my mind a long whiles --that's why I asked you boys to stay put. O' course, you'll be in on it," he added hastily. "How's things?"

  "Our claim was jumped this mornin'," Sudden told him, "but we ain't within sight o' sellin' our saddles yet." Thus assured that their financial condition was not desperate, Snowy asked about the claim-jumping; it was evident he knew nothing of it.

  "Mean trick," he commented, "but, o' course, if you hadn't made yore title good ... Hell, what's it matter? I'm offerin' you a bigger chance. What do you say?"

  "I'm with yu," the puncher said, after a moment's consideration.

  The old man was clearly pleased. "I'll be along 'bout daybreak, have to slide out quiet-like, I'm bein' watched," he saidimportantly. "Mind, not a word to anybody. Well, I'll get agoin'."

  "Won't yu wait till Jacob shows up?" Sudden asked. "He'd admire to meet yu; he's a Forty-niner too." Snowy's eyes showed a flicker of alarm. "Got no time now --lot to do," he muttered, and scurried out with a bare word of farewell.

  "Odd number that--he seemed kinda scared," Gerry remarked. "Mebbe he never was in California."

  "An' mebbe he was," Sudden said sardonically.

  "Don't like yu goin' alone, Jim; it would be easy to wipe out the pair o' yu."

  "Snowy is safe till Lesurge knows where the mine is."

  "Shore, but why send you?"

  "That's what I'm hopin' to find out."

  "It's a risk, Jim."

  "Shucks, the fella who allus plays it safe gets no fun outa life," Sudden said lightly. "Yu'll have to explain to Rogers, an' if yu do three times as much work it'll even my bein' away."

  "Half my usual day
extra'll be enough for that," Gerry retaliated. "If I do more, they'll be damn sorry to see yu back. Don't worry, fella; we won't miss yu, 'cept at meal-times."

  Chapter XI

  A faint, cold light above the Eastern horizon was announcing the advent of another day when the expedition set out. Snowy was draped over the saddle of an aged, stone-coloured mare to whom the loss of one ear gave a dilapidated but rather rakish appearance. Sudden eyed the beast with saturnine disfavour.

  "She looks a proper Jezebel," the puncher grinned.

  Snowy had climbed down in order to display his acquisition to better advantage.

  "Funny, that's the very name the fella gave her," he said. "I'm goin' to make it 'Jessie,' for short; he told me she had a nice disposition. Barrin' that chawed-off ear " He did not finish; a lashing left hoof, which would inevitably have removed Snowy's head had he been a foot higher, gave him something else to think about. "Just playful, that's what," he added, from a safe distance.

  "Yeah, but if that lick had landed yu'd 'a' been pretty near back in Wayside by now," the cowboy said dryly. He cut a stout stick from a neighboring bush. "Thisyer is a magic wand; as long as yu carry it, she won't feel frolicsome." He proved a true prophet; after one guileful look at the weapon, Jezebel quietly submitted to being mounted.

  The prospector led the way westward along the gulch.

  Snowy appeared to know his way and rode stolidly on, thumping the ribs of his mount with unspurred heels. Presently they emerged, as from a tunnel, into daylight, and began to climb a rock-strewn slope which slanted upwards to the bare mountains ahead.

  Somehow the miner seemed to have lost much of his madness; the vacant, stupid expression so frequently on his face was absent.

  Midday brought the end of the arduous ascent and they found themselves among the black crags, great, grim needles of stone without vegetation of any kind to clothe their precipitous sides. The heat was almost intolerable. Lizards sunning themselves on the boulders and a big rattlesnake were the only signs of life save a solitary eagle, sailing serenely in the sky.

  "Yo're the lucky guy," Sudden mused aloud. "Wings is what a fella needs in these parts."

  "He, he," Snowy cackled. "Fancy a cowboy wantin' wings; wish for the moon, boy--you got as good a chance."

  "Dessay yo're right," Sudden laughed. "Well, they must be awkward things to get a coat over, anyway." The descent from the top of the ridge was shorter but more steep, and frequent precipices into which a slip would hurl the traveller made it dangerous in the extreme. Most of it had to be negotiated afoot, and both men breathed a sigh of relief when they reached level ground. This was a small desert of sand and sagebrush, and having crossed that, they encountered a second range of hills, more imposing and wilder than the first. Sudden surveyed them with an expression of whim sical despair.

  "If yu'd told me I'd 'a' rode a goat," he said.

  "We ain't gotta climb this one," Snowy replied. "We mosey along a piece through the foothills; it ain't fur now." Despite the air of confidence he affected, Sudden got the impression that his guide was not too sure; several times during the day he had lagged behind, and the puncher had seen him furtively studying a piece of paper, peering about as though in search of landmarks.

  Dusk was approaching when Snowy pulled up. "Pretty close now," he said, "but I reckon we'd better camp an' wait for daylight. Oughta be a sort o' cave where we can build a fire what won't be seen." He pushed on through the brush and then grinned at his companion as a shallow hole in the hill-side came in view.

  "Thar she is, shore as cats has kittens," he cried triumphantly. "Don't seem as no varmints has took up residence neither." Sudden dismounted. "Some `varmint' has built a fire," he pointed out.

  Snowy laughed slyly. "He's talkin' to you. Leavin' them ashes has lost me a lot o' sleep--oughta buried 'em." The cowboy asked no questions--he believed in "letting the other man talk." They made a small fire--for it would be cold later on--and ate some of the food they had brought. Then the prospector packed and lit a battered pipe, leant back with a sigh of content, and watched the other's deft fingers roll a cigarette.

  "I ain't been treatin' yu right," the puncher said presently. "I oughta be callin' yu `Ducane'. "

  "Forget it," was the reply. "I've been `Snowy' so long that half the time I don't reckernize my own name. So yo're athrowin' in with Lesurge, eh, Jim?"

  "Looks thataway, don't it?"

  "Yeah, but things ain't allus what they look like, an' if I warn't scared you'd blow me to hellangone I'd call you a liar."

  "Now's yore time," Sudden smiled. "1 ain't liable to ruo yu out till yu've showed me the mine."

  "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. Ts 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 t 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."