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

by Oliver Strange

  “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 whimsical 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 hillside 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. “Somè 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. 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.”

  “Conclusive, o’ course,” Sudden sneered. “Well, that clears me. Where were yu, Gerry, at the time?”

  “Work in’ on the claim, which ain’t anywhere near Wilson’s,” the prisoner replied. “These hombres grabbed me soon as I hit town, an’ wouldn’t let me say a thing.” The gathering was growing and among the newcomers Sudden noticed Berg, who, as Gerry finished speaking, thrust himself into the discussion.

  “You ain’t got no claim,” he asserted, “an’ if you had, we’ve on’y yore word you were on it.”

  “I’ve got a claim, an’ three men were with me,” Gerry snapped.

  “Who are they?” demanded the leader, impatiently swinging his rope.

  “Jesse Rogers, Bowman and Humit.” Some among the bloodthirsty throng looked doubtful—they knew these names. Others, more callous, eager only to see a man die, yelled in derision.

  “He’s playin’ for time; he don’t know them fellas. Swing the —, anyway; there’s bin too many o’ these killin’s.” With threatening curses, the ruffianly element in the crowd surged forward, only to sway back before the muzzles of the puncher’s pistols. The jutting jaw and the bleak unwavering eyes told them that the man on the black horse was not bluffing.

  “Twelve of yu get—hurt, first,” he warned, and those who had witnessed the encounter with Lefty Logan did not doubt the statement.

  “I raise the ante—make it twenty-four, Green,” a quiet voice added, and though he dared not take his eyes from the mob, the puncher knew that Wild Bill was standing beside his horse.

  The gunman waited for a few tense moments, and then said, “I guess we’ll hear what those three men have to say.”

  “Here they come—the ol’ Jew-fella is a-fetchin’ ‘em,” someone shouted.

  It was true. A moment later, Jacob, and the men he had gone in search of, hurried up.

  Sudden told the rope-bearer to question them. Their testimony was convincing—Gerry had been in their company all day, not leaving them until after the murder was discovered. A few of the crowd, disappointed of their ghoulish excitement, went away murmuring; others remained to congratulate the man they had come to hang.

  “Shore was lucky yore friend showin’ up, son,” one grinned. “We come mighty near puttin’ one over on you.”

  “You did oughta get rid o’ them leather pants,” another chimed in. “One o’ these days you’ll trip over em an’ break yor neck.” Bill Hickok put forward a different aspect of the affair.

  “These outrages are becomin’ frequent an’ they have a family resemblance which suggests the same hand,” he remarked. “Find out who planned this frame-up an’ yu will be near to discoverin’ the killer.”

  “Rodd is in with Berg,” Sudden said.

  “Berg is on’y a tool—yu’ll have to look higher,” Hickok replied. “Watch yore step an’—keep clear o’ the women.”

/>   “Now what the devil did he mean by that?” Sudden pondered, when the gunman had gone.

  “I’d say he meant Miss Lesurge, an’ if yo’re wise, yu’ll take his tip,” Gerry said.

  “I reckon I will,” his friend agreed.

  Chapter XII

  At the Lesurge residence, that same evening, Paul, his sister, and Mary Ducane gathered to hear the result of the prospector’s expedition into the wild.

  “So you found the place?” Lesurge asked. “There’s no doubt?”

  “Shore I found it,” Snowy replied. “My ol’ hut was still a-standin’ an’ I’ll bet a stack nobody’s put a foot in that gully since I was thar.”

  “That’s fine,” Paul responded. “In a little while we’ll take a gang out, but there are things to see to here first. How did you get along with Green?”

  “He’s all right,” was the casual reply. “Useful fella, but he don’t savvy nothin’ ‘bout gold-minin’.”

  “Excellent, but he knows the location? Of course, it couldn’t be avoided, but there’s a remedy for that.” He smiled at Lora, but for once she did not appear to find any humour in the remark. Snowy’s face remained expressionless; he could have made a good guess at the nature of the “remedy.”

  “You think we can depend on him?”

  “Yeah, but you’ll have to take in his pardner.”

  “Ah, Mason. Wasn’t he in trouble of some kind today?” Snowy laughed wheezily. “He was within two shakes o’ bein’ strung up, if you call that `trouble.’ It was wings an’ a harp for him if Jim an’ me hadn’t arrove.” He gave the details, and his keen little eyes noted the colour creeping back into Mary’s cheeks as she listened. Paul waved a nonchalant hand.

  “Too bad,” he said, “but these fellows work hard for their wealth, and to lose that and life as well … You can’t wonder they are vindictive.”

  “But to hang an innocent man,” Mary shuddered.

  “Well it didn’t happen,” Paul smiled. “My old schoolmaster, when he punished me by mistake, used to justify it by saying that the thrashing was probably due for something he hadn’t discovered.”