Oliver Strange - Sudden Westerns 06 - Sudden Gold-Seeker(1937) (35 page)

 
          
“Take
me away, Uncle Phil, anywhere,” she sobbed.

 
          
The
old man put an arm round her. “We gotta be patient, honey,” he said. “They’d
just naturally shoot us down. Things’ll come right.”

 
          
“I’ve
no one but you.”

 
          
“Well,
I wouldn’t say just that. There’s a young fella not so far off mightn’t agree.”
It brought the colour into her cheeks again; the thought of Gerry was very
pleasant. “I expect he’s forgotten,” she whispered.

 
          
“When
I see him last he was mighty partic’lar in his inquiries,” Snowy lied
cheerfully.

 
          
Lesurge
was giving orders to Fagan. “That old fraud and the girl must be watched,” he
concluded. “By the way, she knows you assisted her father into the next world.”

 
          
“The
hell she does’?’ the other growled. “Who told her?”

 
          
“Lora,
I expect,” Paul prevaricated. “She can prove nothing, and out here …” He
shrugged his shoulders. “Of course, if she took the story to that gun-slinger,
Sudden
… ”
Fagan’s alarmed expression told him that
Mary Ducane would be well guarded.

 
          
“Get
busy,” he said, “and we’ll smoke those rats out of their hole.”

 
          
The
morning sun shone down upon a saddened but grimly determined group in the
Rocking Stone mine.

 
          
“They’ll
strike to-day,” Sudden said, and no one doubted it.

 
          
Jacob
and Humit were placed on guard, while the rest dug and washed for gold, their
rifles beside them. The two cowboys were working together, glumly and silently.
Both were seeing visions: Sudden, of an apparently fear-distraught, frantic
woman, and Gerry,
a pair of frosty blue eyes
, in a
proud little face, rosily indignant because he had told the owner he meant to
marry her.

 
          
“Damnation!”
he said presently.

 
          
“Scratched
yore finger?” Sudden asked solicitously.

 
          
“No,
broke my neck,” Gerry retorted, and then, “Wonder if she’s all right?”

 
          
“Reckon
so—her brother’ll look after her,” was the reply. “What
the ?”
Gerry commenced, adding, as comprehension came to him, “I warn’t thinkin’ o’
Miss Lesurge.”

 
          
“No?”
his friend asked innocently.

 
          
“Yo’re
the wise guy, ain’t yu?” Gerry gibed. “S’pose yu tell me how them poison-toads
is goin’ to get us outa here?”

 
          
“They
might starve us, or plug the outlet o’ the creek an’ flood the basin—the
entrance bein’ considerable above the floor level,” Sudden pointed out. “But
both them methods is kind o’ slow, an’ I’d say—” Crack! The spiteful report of
a rifle rang out and Husky swung round, clutching his left arm.

 
          
“Hell’s
bells, yu got yore answer,” Sudden swore, and jumped for his Winchester.

 
          
A
thinning puff of smoke showed that the shot had come from the slope leading to
the Rocking Stone, and a moment later, three others, from different points,
followed. One swept Gerry’s hat from his head, while another whistled
uncomfortably close to his companion’s ear.

 
          
Sudden
flung himself at full length behind a heap of gravel.

 
          
Gerry
spread himself beside his friend. The pile, woefully small even for one, was
the only cover available.

 
          
Husky and Rogers, who were nearer the camp, made a bolt and reached
it safely.

 
          
“Good
for them,” Sudden commented. “But now we’ll have all the attention.” Four
bullets which ploughed through the gravel in front of them endorsed his remark.
Gerry wriggled and cursed. “Yu hit?” Sudden asked anxiously.

 
          
“Stone
cut my cheek,” was the reply. “It’s like bein’ peppered with a scatter-gun.” He
pushed up a rampart of gravel, only to have it dispersed by another volley. “May
the bones rot in their bodies,” he added viciously, as he spat out a mouthful
of grit.

 
          
They
had been firing at intervals, largely to relieve their feelings, for they had nothing
to aim at save the rocks which sheltered the marksmen.

 
          
“I
never thought the day would come when I’d want to see Angel-face,” Sudden said
whimsically.

 
          
“Lesurge
is the jigger I’d admire to get a bead on,” Gerry replied. “If he shows
hisself, don’t yu trouble to
fire.
” But their wishes
were to go unsatisfied. Instead, they got a perfect hail of bullets and before
it their flimsy defence rapidly disintegrated. It became obvious that, in a few
moments, their position would be untenable; both were cut and bruised by flying
pebbles, and several times, each had escaped death by a bare inch.

 
          
“They’re
turnin’ the damn place into a lead-mine,” Sudden remarked. “We gotta run for
it.

 
          
Get
ready.” They waited until a lull in the fusillade suggested that the snipers
might be reloading, and Sudden gave the word. Leaping to their feet, they raced
for shelter, zigzagging as they went.

 
          
Shots
zipped past them, flinging up the dust on every side, but they reached the rest
of the band unscathed. Both were winded, for it was uphill, and the loose sand
and gravel made speed an achievement; also, their high-heeled cowboy boots were
not built for sprinting. Sudden’s first question was addressed to Husky:

 
          
“Hurt
much?”

 
          
“Flesh
wound—nothin’ bruk—smarts a few,” the miner grinned. “There’s on’y four shootin’;
where’s the other two?”

 
          
“Watchin’
Snowy an’ the women, I’d say,” the puncher surmised. “An’ I’m bettin’ Lesurge
is one of ‘em; he ain’t the sort to risk his hide.”

 
          
“Yu’d
shorely win,”
Rogers
chimed in. “What’s the next move,
Jim?”

 
          
“We’ll
clear out an’ get the hosses.”

 
          
“An’
let ‘em
grab
the mine?” Humit asked disappointedly.

 
          
“We
can get it back when we want,” Sudden argued. “One good shot up on the slope
can make this place impossible; with the rest of us workin’ this end, we’d have
‘em comin’ an’ goin’.”

 
          
“She’s
a good scheme,” Rogers agreed. “If they’d thought o’ that, we’d be out on a
limb right now.” Taking only their weapons and a small supply of food, they set
out for the spot where they had hidden the horses. This was a good half-mile
distant, and to the east, where the enemy would be unlikely to chance upon
them, for to be set afoot in the Black Hills would have been a calamity.

 
          
The
ignominious retreat of the cowboys had evoked derision among the
sharp-shooters, mingled with disgust at their own failure to bowl over at least
one of them.

 
          
“See
‘em run,” Lem called to Fagan, who was about a dozen yards distant.
“Skippin’ like a couple o’ jack-rabbits.”
He waited a while,
balanced his hat on the barrel of his gun, and raised it cautiously above the
boulder behind which he was crouching. Nothing happened, and after another
wait, he rose slowly to his full height. The expected shot did not come; the
hollow was clearly deserted.

 
          
“They’ve
pulled their freight,” he announced.

 
          
One
by one the other
marksmen
emerged from their shelters
and joined him.

 
          
“What’s
to do now?” Berg asked.

 
          
“Git
our tools an’ collar the mine. What d’you s’pose?”

 
          
“They
may come back.”

 
          
“Then
we’ll stand ‘em off,” Fagan retorted. “But I figure it this way; they must ‘a’
cleaned up a lot o’ dust while we was foolin’ in that damned ravine and they’re
content to get away with that—playin’ safe, like. If it ain’t so, why let us in
an’ have all the trouble o’ drivin’ us out again?”

 
          
The
others agreed that his reasoning was sound, and they all slithered along the
slope until they reached the spot where Paul, Snowy, and the girl were waiting,
the latter two with their wrists bound. Their gaoler, pacing restlessly back
and fore, was silent, but there was a look in his dark eyes which filled her
with fear. The men appeared, and Fagan made his report.

 
          
“You
are probably right but Lem had better make sure,” Paul decided.

 
          
The
scout reached the camp almost as soon as they. He was jubilant.

 
          
“They’ve
flew the coop, shore enough,” he said. “An’ they went in a hurry—left their
tools an’ some grub behind.
The hosses ain’t there neither.”

 
          
“Good,
that’ll save us totin’ a lot o’ truck up there,” Fagan chuckled.
“C’mon, boys, let’s git agoin’.”
Lesurge stepped forward. “Wait
a moment, Fagan; I think I command here.” The man turned; whether by accident
or design, his rifle was pointed at the speaker. His mouth was twisted in an
insolent sneer.

 
          
“Best
think again,” he said. “This is where you fade out o’ the picture. You’ve hazed
us long enough, an’ we’ve put up with it ‘cause
we
knowed this moment would come. Yeah, I was yore dawg, to pat or kick, as you
pleased, a damn fool you could use, but I had this planned when I come to
Wayside an’ you’ve been workin’ for me, Paul Lesurge. Savvy?” For a moment,
Lesurge did not; the unexpectedness of the event dazed him. He was the master,
and the possibility of a mutiny had never occurred to his autocratic mind.
Fagan, a mere
animal .

 
          
Gradually
the realization of his position seeped into his bewildered brain. He was
helpless; if he attempted to punish the traitor, the others would kill him. He
had been mad indeed to put himself at the mercy of these scoundrels. No wonder
they had shown no sign of gratitude when he promised them Hank’s share. He
smothered his rising rage and steeled himself to speak calmly:

 
          
“Fagan,
we have been friends a long time, and I have always trusted you and your
companions

 
          
“To
do yore dirty work,” Lem interjected.

 
          
“For
which I paid well,” Paul replied. “After the coach affair, for example, I
handed Fagan a considerable sum to be divided amongst you.” It was a complete
fabrication, designed to sow dissension, but it brought black looks for the new
leader from the other three.

 
          
“That’s
an infernal lie,” Fagan cried. “You never gave me a cent—said you were broke.”

 
          
Paul
shrugged. “I can’t prove it, of course,” he admitted. “But have you thought of
this? If Green and his gang have worked the mine out, you get nothing, for you
lose the amount I promised to pay in any case.”

 
          
“Hell,
we’re takin’ the chance,” Fagan answered. He knew the persuasive power of Paul’s
tongue, and trusted his cronies not at all. “If the mine’s as good as Snowy
made out, them hombres can’t ‘a’ more’n scratched it.”

 
          
“The
old fool was apt to exaggerate,” Lesurge argued. “Look here, boys; I’m prepared
to share equally—cut it up five ways.”

 
          
“Now
ain’t that generous?” Fagan sneered. “But you
was
allus
great at givin’ away what warn’t your’n, Paul. Now I’ll make you a present—the
gal. I had notions ‘bout her myself once, but she’s too milk an’ water, an’ she’d
on’y be a burden.” He backed towards his pony, finger on trigger, and, settled
in the saddle, uttered a final jeer: “I’ve got yore rifle, Paul, case you
should be searchin’ for it. Give my
respec’s
to yore
wife—she’s more of a man than you’ll ever be. Adios, an’—damn you.” With
mocking salutations they rode off, leaving one whom fury had bereft of reason.
In the very instant of victory he had not only lost all but had been outplayed
and derided by one he had always despised—a “blunt instrument.” He, Paul
Lesurge, the polished, clever man of the great world, defeated by—Fagan! More
than the loss of the gold, that thought maddened him, and for a space he gave
rein to a blind rage. With upraised clenched fists and body shaking with the
violence of his passion, he cursed the men who had bested him. And then he
stopped suddenly, his wild gaze on the Rocking Stone.