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

by Oliver Strange

“Sorta wooden trough for washin’ dirt, ain’t it? Snowy used to talk of ‘em,” Mason replied. “We don’t have one.”

  “They have cross-bars to catch the gold—they call ‘em `riffles,’ ” his friend went on reflectively. “That trickle o’ water is a natural flume, it’s cut a channel for itself down the slope, an’ there’s yore riffle.” He pointed to where a ledge of rock formed a miniature waterfall. “She’s worth a trial.” Straddling the stream, he scooped up handfuls of sand from above the obstruction into the pan, and began to wash it. Neither of them was as yet expert in manipulating the muddy mess, much of which was distributed over their own persons, but at length only a sprinkling of sand remained and after one glance Gerry flung back his head. Sudden clapped a wet and gritty hand over his mouth just in time to stifle the shrill cowboy yell of triumph.

  “Ain’t yu got no sense?” he asked the spluttering victim. “Why not fork yore bronc an’ go tell the town?”

  “Sorry, Jim,” Mason said. “I didn’t think.”

  “Yo’re tellin’ me,” was the sarcastic retort.

  Eagerly they bent over the pan, noting the shining grains mingled with the remaining sand. Repeated washings removed the latter, and in the end, a tiny heap of yellow metal was left.

  “She ain’t a bonanza but I reckon we’ll be able to go on eatin’,” Sudden said. “Get busy, cowboy.” Mason needed no urging. His saturnine companion might be indifferent to wealth, but he himself wanted it; he had come West to get it, and now—there was another reason.

  Drenched with perspiration, aching in every limb, they stuck to their task until a red glow in the sky announced that night was near. By this time the leathern sack which contained their gleanings had grown appreciably in weight, and they decided to call it a day.

  “My back’s like it had been broken an’ badly mended,” Sudden groaned, as he hoisted himself into the saddle. “Go easy, yu black devil,” he chided, for Nigger, having been idle all day, was disposed to be frolicsome.

  “Yo’re lucky,” Gerry told him. “Mine feels as if the mendin’ was still to do. How much d’yu figure we got?”

  “Dunno, mebbe Jacob has some scales.” He had, and the cowboys watched with interest as he adjusted them and weighed the result of their labour. Then he looked up with a little smile.

  “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.

&nbs
p; “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.

  Chapter VII

  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.

  They had almost reached the door when it swung back to admit a man who would have attracted attention in any gathering. Over six feet in height, with a perfectly proportioned frame, he moved with the ease and grace of an athlete. The yellowish hair which reached to his shoulders, pale blue eyes, long drooping moustache, and clean-cut features were offset by a calm confidence and dignity of bearing which stamped their possessor as no ordinary individual.

  His attire added to the impression. A tailed cutaway coat of dark cloth, wide trousers narrowing towards the feet, a fancy vest, high-heeled boots, and a “boiled” shirt with a narrow black tie. Buckled round his middle was a leather belt with two white-handled Colt’s revolvers.

  The hum of conversation ceased at his appearance and every eye followed him as he stepped quietly, with a nod here and there, to where Bizet was standing. The little Frenchman hurried to meet him.

  “Who is that?” Sudden asked a bystander.

  The man’s eyebrows lifted. “Say, friend, where you been hidin’?” he asked. “It’s Wild Bill, o’ course—thought everybody knowed him.”

  “I’m a stranger here,” Sudden explained, and led the way to the street.

  For a while he was silent, his mind full of the man they had just seen. Wild Bill, the most famous gunman in the West. Sudden found himself dwelling on the big man’s draw, wondering if he himself could beat it. Then he laughed; Sudden, the gunfighter, had been left behind; here, he was just Jim Green, a cowpuncher and miner. Mason’s voice broke in:

  “Yu’d never take him for a killer, would yu? Looked just an ordinary fella.”

  “An’ why not? D’yu expect every man who shoots another in self-defence to have the brand o’ Cain burned on his forehead?” Sudden retorted, with unusual bitterness.

  “I’ve seen some what didn’t need no brand,” Mason answered, and changed the subject.

  “Wonder why that s’loonkeeper hombre was so dern glad to see us?”

  “One cattleman is allus pleased to meet up with another,” his friend said. “I’ve a hunch he’s white. Here’s another big joint; let’s go in an’ see if we can scare up a Waysider.” The Monte—like the opposition establishment—was full and with the same class of customer. It was a replica of the other on a rather larger and more showy scale. Despite the crowded state of the room, they experienced no difficulty in reaching the bar—people seemed almost eager to make way for them—and Sudden again had the uneasy feeling that he was the object of general interest.

  Mason was grinning.

  “Yu might be Wild Bill hisself these toughs is so perlite,” he remarked.

  “And yu might be King Solomon if yu had any brains a-tall,” Sudden told him. “Lesurge an’ Angel-face seem to have got themselves some friends.” They were sitting at a table in a far corner and with them were several others, notably a fat, blond fellow, flashily dressed, with a heavy watch-guard made of gold nuggets slung across his vest. Interested as he was in the conversation, his pig-like eyes roamed restlessly round the room and he saw all that was taking place.

  “Reuben Stark, the owner o’ this shebang,” Sudden informed. “Dunno the others but I’ll gamble they ain’t cyphers in this city o’ sin. Mister Lesurge don’t waste his time an’ he’s whirlin’ a wide loop. I’m goin’ to buck the tiger.” They strolled over to the roulette table and again they had no trouble i
n getting near to it though there were plenty of eager speculators. The puncher won about forty dollars in a few careless throws and to the surprise of his companion, cashed in and turned away.

  “But, Jim, luck’s tannin’ yore way,” he protested.

  “That’s when to stop,” the other replied.

  He had fully expected to hear jeers at his lack of nerve from some of the coarse-faced, half-intoxicated men around him, but not even a shoulder was shrugged.

  “You got this town tamed,” Mason remarked, and hid a smile. “Yu oughta be in a show, puttin’ the lions through their tricks.”

  “It has me beat,” Sudden said. “Wonder where Snowy is?” They met him outside and he greeted them with boisterous expressions of goodwill. He reeked of whisky, but there was no slur in his speech, no unsteadiness in his gait. It was Snowy’s boast that he was never drunk until his back teeth were submerged.

  “Paul about?” he asked, when he had informed Mason that Miss Ducane was “fighting fit.

  “He’s inside, with Stark an’ some others,” Sudden told him. Snowy nodded. “One smart guy, Paul,” he said. “Won’t be long afore he’s runnin’ this yer burg an’ it’s shorely time somebody took a holt, the killin’s an’ robberies is gittin’ too mighty prevalent.”

  “Found yore mine yet, Snowy?” Gerry inquired.

  “No, young fella, an’ I ain’t going to look for it till we got some sort o’ protection. It’ll keep; I ain’t in no hurry.”

  “Some other jasper may light on it,” Gerry persisted. “‘Tain’t likely, but if it did happen that way I’d get me another; I can allus find gold—I smell it.” With a wild laugh he pushed open the door of the saloon, turned and whispered, “Keep handy,” and vanished.

  “Mad as a loon,” Mason decided.

  “I ain’t so shore,” his friend replied. “What I can’t savvy is why folks side-step me like I was a rattler?” He got the solution to the problem a few nights later as he was returning from the store where they obtained their supplies. A thin, weedy shrimp of a man, whom he recognized as one of the group with Lesurge in the Monte, stopped him.