[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

then lighted it. Melissa refilled his cup. "A lot of men are going to get rich
here, Will. You could be one of them. You're in on the ground floor like
George Hearst, and you can do well, but you're too trusting, Will, much too
trusting ... of me, of Al Hesketh, of everybody."
"Maybe," he muttered, "maybe."
Trevallion went to work on the MacNeale claim, mucking out rock that had
already been shot down and sorting it for that worth shipping. He crushed some
of the richest-looking fragments and panned out what gold he could find. It
was a piddling operation, but it added a little to his supply of ready money
as well as giving him an idea of the ore's potential.
The lode seemed to dip to the west, but he distrusted it and spent a good bit
of time wandering over the side of the mountain or sitting on the slope below
the town, just studying the roll of the hill and the convolutions of what
exposed strata he could see. Several times he encountered others doing the
same thing, but none seemed to have any idea what they were looking for.
Probably they hoped to find an outcropping of gold ore thrusting itself up at
them.
There was no sign of Waggoner.
Two weeks after the return with Ledbetter, he got his first lead. It came
from Langford Peel.
He was having coffee at the bakery when Peel entered. He crossed the room and
sat down, and Melissa brought them coffee. "I was inGenoa a few days ago," he
commented, "and there was a man in there with some blankets for sale. A bundle
of them. Now there hasn't been a pack train over the mountain in a couple of
months, and I just thought you'd be interested."
"Know the man?"
"I do. As I once suggested, he trails around with Sam Brown. The name he's
using is Kip Hauser, but when he was around Corinne awhile back, he was using
another name."
"I think I'll go see him."
Peel nodded. "Want me to come along?"
Trevallion smiled. "Now that's kindly of you, Lang, it really is, but I think
we feel just alike on that score. That every man should saddle his own horses
and fight his own battles."
"But this is Jim Ledbetter's fight. I like Jim, and he's laid up."
Page 90
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
"I'll handle it. But, thanks."
Peel finished his coffee and glanced over at Melissa. "Thanks, ma'am. That
was right good coffee."
When he had gone Melissa looked after him. "So that's the fabled Farmer Peel,
the Chief of the Comstock! He seems such a nice man."
"He is. He was a fine soldier, too. He was a bugler at first, survived many
Indian battles and was noted even then for his skill with weapons. He's not a
man who looks for trouble.
"As a matter of fact, few of the men who are noted as gunfighters are
trouble-hunters. It's been the custom from the beginning of time for men to
settle their difficulties with weapons. It's not a policy I advocate, Melissa,
but that's the way it is, and the way it has been.
"By the time a man has won two or three such arguments, he has a reputation.
If a man is drawing a gun on you, there's not much choice but to shoot him, if
you can."
He sat over his coffee, thinking it out. If Hauser was peddling blankets,
they were almost certainly some of those stolen from Ledbetter's mules. Every
available blanket in town had been sold long ago, and as Peel said, no mule
trains had come in.
He remembered Hauser somewhat vaguely as a man seen around Gold Hill. He was
a lean, tired-looking man with watchful black eyes, but his tired looks were
deceptive. Trevallion had seen him win considerable money in a jumping contest
when he had seemed the least likely jumper in the lot.
Hauser knew him by sight, and asClyde entered the bakery the solution became
obvious. "Sit down." He gestured to Melissa. "I want you to meet Dane Clyde.
He's an actor, and a friend of mine."
Later, he described Hauser. "You can do something for me, but I don't want
you in trouble. At the first sign that he has recognized you as someone he has
seen before, quit. He's a dangerous man."
"What do you want to know?"
"Who he hangs out with, and if possible, where he goes.
"He doesn't know you, and I want you to keep away from me until this is
over." He explained about the robbed pack train and what he suspected. He also
described Sam Brown. "Avoid him, he's deadly. He needs no excuse to kill."
"I'll be careful."
Clydewas a pleasant man, easy to talk to and a good listener. "My last job
was in Frisco," he explained. "I'd come out with a company fromNew York . Came
around the Horn. Before that I played inDublin ,London ,Paris  wherever there
was a good role." He smiled. "And often enough where there was any kind of a
role!
"But I worked a season with Rachel Felix, and then went on tour with Miss
Redaway inTicket Of Leave Man."
"Who did you say?"
Page 91
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
"Miss Redaway, Grita Redaway. You wouldn't have heard of her. She's new, but
very good. She was with Felix for a season or two as an ingenue, but she's
just been coming up this past year or so. Good notices, very professional."
"Unusual name."
"It is, you know? She's a Yank, too. American, I mean. Played some through
the South when very young."
"Attractive?"
"More than that. She's beautiful, a very rare beauty. That was why she and
Rachel parted ways. No hard feelings you understand, Rachel just told her she
was too beautiful and was drawing attention from her, from Rachel, that is.
"I heard it, myself. Rachel just told her, 'Honey, you've got it, use it.'
But they're good friends."
"How old would she be? This Miss Redaway?"
"Young, just a girl, actually. I doubt if she's twenty. In fact, I am sure
she isn't."
Dane Clyde drifted away and Trevallion finished his coffee. An uncommon name,
certainly, but unlikely, very unlikely.
He remembered that night all too well, remembered holding the trembling child
in his arms, frightened himself but braver because he was needed, because she
needed him. Her need had made him stronger, helped to bring him through what
followed.
It was, he reflected sourly, the only time anybody had ever needed him, the
only time he had ever felt that need to protect, to shield. Grita had given
him, in those few moments, something priceless, something he had been a long
time recognizing.
His father had had his mother; whom didhehave?
XVII
WHEN THE WINTER came he stayed in the cabin, warm against the threat of wind
and snow. The fires in the sheet-metal stove blushed its sides with heat, and
the rooms were snug against the storm. Trevallion heard the wind and
remembered old rocks upon theCornwall coast and the sea against them, and the
cold rain falling.
He read a little from the few books MacNeale had left, and by day he worked [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

zanotowane.pl

doc.pisz.pl

pdf.pisz.pl

domowewypieki.keep.pl