Lando

*

Sackett Got To Texas With A Well-Oiled Hogleg, A Racing Mule That Didn't Look Worth Its Salt And A Damn Good Idea Of The whereabouts of buried gold across the border in Mexico.

In Mexico he had bad luck. His party had to run for it, and when Lando stood rear guard they pulled out and left him. Six years in a Mexican prison put muscles in his arms, fire in his heart and pure recklessness in his head.

When he caught up with the men who betrayed him, it made no difference that he didn't have a gun.

They are the unforgettable pioneer family created by master storyteller Louis L'Amour to bring to vivid life the spirit and adventure of the American frontier. The Sacketts, men and women who challenged the untamed wilderness with their dreams and their courage. From generation to generation they pushed ever westward with a restless, wandering urge, a kinship with the free, wild places and a fierce independence. The Sacketts always stood tall and, true to their strong family pride, they would unite to take on any and all challenges, no matter how overwhelming the odds. Each Sackett novel is a complete, exciting historical adventure, and read as a group, Louis L'Amour's The Sacketts form an epic story of the building of our mighty nation, a saga cherished by millions of readers around the world for more than a quarter century.

THE GOLD WAS GOOD.

Every single one of the million pieces--fat, yellow, fresh, Spanish coins, enough to make ten men rich for life!

The gold was good, what was wrong was where it was buried, a sandy island in the Gulf, sixty miles south of the border--sixty miles inside Mexico!

Lando Sackett knew the Mexicans weren't about to let no Texan come in and get that gold.

The one that tried could easy be a dead man soon as he laid a hand on it, but Lando needed gold, needed it bad, and the whole damn Mexican army wasn't going to stop him!

Chapter One.

We Sacketts were a mountain folk who ran long on boy children and gun-shooting, but not many of us were traveled men. And that was why I envied the Tinker.

When first I caught sight of him he was so far off I couldn't make him out, so I taken my rifle and hunkered down behind the woodpile, all set to get in the first shot if it proved to be a Higgins.

Soon as I realized who it was, I turned again to tightening my mill, for I was fresh out of meal and feeling hunger.

Everybody in the mountains knew the Tinker.

He was a wandering man who tinkered with everything that needed fixing. He could repair a clock, sharpen a saw, make a wagon wheel, or shoe a horse.

Fact was, he could do almost anything a body could think of that needed doing, and he wandered up and down the mountains from Virginia to Georgia just a-fixing and a-doing. Along with it, he was a pack peddler.

He carried a pack would have put a crick in a squaw's back, and when he fetched up to my cabin he slung it down and squatted on his heels beside it.

"If you reckoned I was Higgins," he said, "you can put it out of mind. Your Cousin Tyrel cut his notch for the last Higgins months ago. You Sacketts done cleaned them out."

"Not this Sackett. I never shot 'ary a Higgins, although that's not to say I wouldn't had they come at me."

"Tyrel, him an' Orrin, they taken out for the western lands. Looks to me like you're to be the last of the Sacketts of Tennessee."

"Maybe I will and maybe I won't," said I, a-working at my mill. "I've given thought to the western lands myself, for a man might work his life away in these mountains, and nothing to show for it in the end."

The Tinker, he just sat there, not saying aye, yes, or no, but I could see he had something on his mind, and given time would have his say.

"You're the one has the good life," I said.

"Always a-coming and a-going along the mountains and down to the Settlements."

There was a yearning in me to be off the mountain, for I'd lived too long in the high-up hills, knowing every twisty creek to its farthest reaches, and every lightning-struck tree for miles.

Other than my cabin, the only places I knew were the meetinghouse down to the Crossing where folks went of a Sunday, and the schoolhouse at Clinch's Creek where we went of a Saturday for the dancing and the fighting.

"Tinker," I said, "I've been biding my time until you came along, for come sunup it is in my mind to walk away from the mountains to the western lands."

Filling the mill's hopper, I gave the handles a testing turn, then added, "If you've a mind to, I'd like you to come with me."

Now, the Tinker was a solitary man. A long-jawed man, dark as any Indian, but of a different cast, somehow, and he'd an odd look to his yellow eyes. Some said he hailed from foreign lands, but I knew nothing of that, nor ought of the ways of foreign folk, but the Tinker knew things a body could scarcely ken, and held a canny knowledge of uncanny things.

Beside a fire of an evening his fingers worked a magic with rope or yarn, charming queer, decorative things that women took fancy to, but the likes of which none of us had ever seen.

"I have given it thought, 'Lando," he answered me, "but I am a lone man with no liking for company."

"So it is with me. But now it is in my mind to go the western lands and there become rich with the things of this earth. You have the knack for the doing of things, and I have a knack for trade, and together we might do much that neither could do alone."

"Aye ... you have a knack for trade, all right. A time or two you even had the better of me."

A time or two he said? Every time. And well he knew it, too, but it was not in me to bring that up.

"Except for one thing," I said. "You never would trade me a Tinker's knife."

He took out his pipe and settled to smoke, and I knew it was coming, this thing he had on his mind.

"You have enemies. Is that why you have chosen to leave at this time?"

It ired me that he should think so, but I held my peace, and when I spoke at last, my voice was mild.

"Will Caffrey and his son? They have reason to fear me, and not I to fear them. It was my father's mistake to leave me with Will Caffrey to be reared by him, but pa was not himself from the grief that was on him, and in no condition for straight thinking."

"Caffrey had a good name then," the Tinker said, "although a hard-fisted man and close with money.

Only since he became a rich man has he become overbearing."

"And it was the gold I claimed from him at Meeting that made him rich, and none of his earning.

He had it from my father to pay for my keep and education."

"You put your mark upon his son."

"He asked it of me. He came at me, a-swinging of his fists."

When I had emptied the meal from the hopper, I tightened the mill and filled the hopper again, for such a mill as that of mine could grind only to a certain coarseness on the first grinding, and then the mill must be tightened and the meal reground before it was fit for the baking or for gruel.

"They are saying how you faced Will Caffrey at Meeting, and him a deacon of the church and all, and demanded he return the money your father left with him, and all the interest he had from its use.

"They tell how he flustered and would give you the lie, but all knew how five years ago you ran from his farm and have lived alone in this cabin since, and how, suddenly, after your father left Will Caffrey had money with which to buy farms and cattle.

"You'll not be forgiven this side of the grave, not by Will Caffrey. He is a proud man and you have shamed him at Meeting."

"The money is rightfully mine, Tinker. When he decided my father would not return, he took me from school and put me to work in the fields, and sent his son to school in my place."

The mill was ready, and again I ground my meal, the noise allowing for no talk, but when I'd emptied the hopper I said, "If it is enemies I have, it is the Caffreys. I know of no others."

He shot me a curious glance, which puzzled me with its content. "Not three tall, mustached men with dark hair and long faces? Three tall men as alike as peas in a pod ... named Kurbishaw?"

"It was my mother's name."

"They are riding to kill you."

"You saw them where?"

"In the Cherokee towns. They asked questions there."

"The Indians are my friends. They will tell them nothing."

"When last I saw them they had old Midah Wolf and were buying him drink."

Midah was an old man with a love for the bottle and a memory of youth that only drink could bring back. When drunk, he was enemy to no man and would surely talk. He would be sorry after, but that would be of no help.

"The Kurbishaws are my mother's folk. They will surely be coming for other reasons."

"I have heard them say, "We have killed the wolf, now we shall kill the whelp."'"

They had killed the wolf? If by that they meant my father, I did not believe them. My father might have many faults, but lack of shrewdness was not one of them. As I grew older I had remembered his actions around our mountain cabin, and now I knew that he had been aware of danger, that he had lived no moment without that awareness.

Yet he had not returned ... had they killed him, indeed?

"I have only my father's worn-out rifle," I said, "and a dislike for shooting men I do not know, nor have I any appetite for violence."

The Tinker glanced at me shrewdly, and I wondered what went on behind those yellow eyes. Was he my friend, in truth? Had I learned this doubt of people? Was it acquired by brief but hard experience?

"If they find their way to the Crossing, Caffrey will be quick to tell them where you are." The Tinker turned his yellow eyes straight at me.

"Did you never wonder why your pa came to this lonely place with his bride? There's a story told in the lowland towns."

"There was trouble when he married ma. Her family objected to him."

"Objected is a mild ^w. They objected so much they hired a man to kill him when his brothers-in-law decided against trying it. Your pa killed the man and then lit out for the hills so he would not have to kill her brothers and have their blood between them.

"Or so the story is told. Yet there is a whisper of something else, of something beyond pride of family. There is a tale that they hated your father for a reason before he even met your mother."

We Sacketts had come early to the mountains.

Welsh folk we were, Welsh and Irish, and my family had come to America one hundred and fifty years before the Colonies fought for their independence. A relative of mine had been killed in the fierce fighting in North Carolina in the revolt that failed.

We settled on the frontier, as it then was, along the flanks of the Blue Ridge and Smoky mountains, and there we made ourselves part of the rocky hills and the forests. Pa was the first of our family to run off to the lowlands and return with a bride.

The Kurbishaws made much of themselves and cut a wide swath among the lowland folk, looking down their long noses at us who lived in the hills.

We Sacketts set store by kinfolk, but we never held up our family with pride. A mill grinds no corn with water that is past. Come trouble, we Sacketts stand shoulder to shoulder as long as need be, but we made no talk of ancestors, nor how high they stood in the community.

Yet it was no wonder that pa took the eye of the lowland girls, for he was a fine, upstanding man with a colorful way about him, and he cut quite a dash in the lowland towns.

He rode a fine black gelding, his pockets filled with gold washed from a creek the Cherokees showed him, and he dressed with an elegance and a taste for fine tailoring. There was gold from another source, too, and as a child I saw those hoarded coins a time or two.

My father showed me one of them and I loved the dull reflection of the nighttime firelight upon it.

"There is more where that came from, laddie, more indeed.

One day we shall gather it, you and I."

"Let it lie," ma said. "The earth is a fit place for it."

Such times pa would flash her that bright, quick smile of his and show her that hard light in his black eyes. "I might have told them where it was, had they acted differently about us," he would say; "but if they have it now it shall cost them blood."

How long since I had thought of that story? How long since I had even seen that gold until pa brought it out to turn over to Caffrey for my education and keep?

Her brothers had planned for ma to marry wealth and power, and when she ran off with pa they were furious, and challenged him. He refused them, and as he refused them he held two finely wrought pistols in his hands.

"You do not wish to fight me," he said, and tossed a bottle into the air. With one pistol he smashed the bottle, andwiththe second he hit a falling fragment. It was after that they hired a man to kill him.

Pa and ma would have lived their lives among the lowland folk had the Kurbishaws let them be, but they used their wealth and power to hound them out of Virginia and the Carolinas, until finally they took refuge in the mountain cabin among the peaks, which pa built with his own hands.

The cabin was a fair, kind place among the rocks and trees, with a cold spring at the back and a good fishing stream not a hundred yards off. And happily they lived there until ma died.

"If you stay here," the Tinker went on, "they will kill you. You have but the one barrel of your old rifle and they are three armed men, and skilled at killing."

"They are my uncles, after all."

"They are your enemies, and you are not your father.

These men are fighters, and you are not."

My head came up angrily, for he spoke against my pride. "I can fight!"

Impatience was in his voice and attitude when he answered. "You have fought against boys or clumsy men. That is not fighting. Fighting is a skill to be learned. I saw you whip the three Lindsay boys, but any man with skill could have whipped you easily."

"There were three of them."

The Tinker knocked the ash from his pipe. his'Lando, you are strong, one of the strongest men I know, and surprising quick, but neither of these things makes you a fighter. Fighting is a craft, and it must be learned and practiced. Until you know how to fight with your head as well as with heart and muscle, you are no fighting man."

"And I suppose you know this craft?"

I spoke contemptuously, for the idea of the Tinker as a fighting man seemed to me laughable.

He was long and thin, with nothing much to him.

"I know a dozen kinds. How to fight with the fists, the open hand, and Japanese- as well as Cornish-style wrestling. If we travel together, I will teach you."

Teach me? I bit my tongue on angry ^ws, for my pride was sore hurt that he took me so lightly. Had I not, when only a boy, whipped Duncan Caffrey, and him two years older and twenty pounds heavier? And since then I'd whipped eight or nine more, men and boys; and at Clinch's Creek was I not cock of the walk?

And he spoke of teaching me!

Opening his pack, the Tinker brought out a packet of coffee, for he carried real coffee and not the dried beans and chicory we mountain folk used. Without moving from where he was, he reached out and brought together chips, bark, and bits of twigs left from my wood-cutting andof them he made a fire.

He was a man who disliked the inside of places, craving the freeness of the open air about him. Some said it was because he must have been locked up once upon a time, but I paid no mind to gossip.

While he started the fire and put water on to boil, I went to a haunch of venison hanging in the shed and cut a healthy bait of it into thick slices for roasting at the fire. Then I returned to grind more meal.

Such mills as mine were scarce, and the corn I ground would be the last, for I planned to trade the mill for whatever it would bring as I passed out of the country.

If it was true the Kurbishaws sought to kill me they could find me here, for mountains are never so big that a man is not known.

But the thought of leaving this place brought a twinge of regret, for all the memories of ma and pa concerned this place. Yonder was the first tree I'd climbed, and how high the lowest branch had seemed then! And nearby was the spring from which I proudly carried the first bucket of water I could hold clear of the ground.

No man cuts himself free of old ties without regret; even scenes of hardship and sadness possess the warmth of familiarity, and within each of us there is a love for the known. How many times at planting had my shovel turned this dark earth!

How many times had I leaned against that tree, or marveled at the cunning with which pa had fitted the logs of our house, or put all the cabinets together with wooden pins!

The Tinker filled my plate and cup. "We shall talk of fighting another time."

Suddenly my quieter mood was gone and irritation came flooding back. No man wishes to be lightly taken, and I was young and strong, and filled with the pride of victories won.

"Talk of it now," I said belligerently, "and if you want to try me on, you've no cause to wait."

"You talk the fool!" he said impatiently.

"I am your friend, and I doubted if you have another.

Wait, and when you have taken your whipping, come to me and I will show you how it should be done."

Putting down the coffee cup, I got to my feet. "Show me," I said, "if you think you can."

With a pained expression on his lean, dark face he got slowly to his feet. "This may save you a beating, or I'd have no part of it. So come at me if you will."

He stood with his arms dangling, and suddenly I thought what a fool I was to force such a fight on a friend; but then my pride took command and my fingers clenched into a fist and I swung at him.

End it with a blow, I thought, and save him a bad beating. That was in my mind when I swung.

Suddenly long fingers caught my wrist with a strength I'd never have believed, and the next thing I knew I was flying through the air, to land with a thump on the hard ground. It fairly knocked the wind from me, and the nonsense from my brain as well; but then I saw him standing a few feet away, regarding me coolly.

Anger surged through me and I lunged up from the ground, prepared for that throw he had used upon me.

This time I struck the ground even harder--he had thrown me in another way, and so suddenly and violently that I had no idea how it was done.

There was some sense in me after all, for I looked up at him and grinned. "At least you know a few tricks. Are these what you would show me?"

"These, and more," he said. "Now drink your coffee. It grows cold."

My anger was gone, and my good sense warned me that had he been my enemy I should now have been crippled or dead. For once down, he could put the boots to me and kick in my ribs, crush my chest or crush my skull. In such fighting there is no sportsmanship, for it is no game but is in deadly earnest, and men fight to win.

"Have you heard of Jem Mace?" he asked me.

"No."

"He was the world champion prize fighter, an Englishman and a gypsy. He whipped the best of them, and he was not a large man, but he was among the first to apply science to the art of fist fighting. He taught me boxing and I have sparred with him many times.

"Footwork is not mere dancing about. By footwork you can shift a man out of position to strike you effectively, and still leave yourself in position to strike him. By learning to duck and slip punches, you can work close to a man and still keep your hands free for punching. Certain blows automatically create openings for the blows to follow."

He refilled his cup. "A man who travels alone must look out for himself."

"You have your knives."

"Aye, but a hand properly used can be as dangerous as a knife." He was silent for a moment, and then added, "And a man is not lynched for what he does with his hands."

We both were still, letting the campfire warm our memories. What memories the Tinker had, what strange thoughts might come into his head, andof what strange things he had seen, I knew nothing, but my own memories went back to the day pa left me with Will Caffrey.

Three heavy sacks of gold he passed over to Caffrey that day, and then he said, "This is my son, of whom I have spoken. Care for him well, and every third coin is your own."

"You'll be leaving now?"

"Yes ... to wander is a means to forgetting, and we were very close, my wife and I." He put his hand on my shoulder. "I'll come back, son.

Do you be a good boy now."

Pa advised Caffrey to send me to the best schools and treat me well, and in due time he would return.

For the first year I was treated well enough, yet long before the change came I had seen shadows of it. Often at night I would hear Mrs.

Caffrey complaining of the extra burden I was, and how much the money would mean to them if they had not to think of me. And Caffrey would speculate aloud on how much interest the money would bring, and what could be bought of lands and cattle with such an amount of gold.

Her ^ws bothered me more than his, for I sensed an evil in her that was not in him. He was a greedy, selfish man, close with money and hard-fisted as well as self-righteous; but as for her --I think she would have murdered me. Indeed, I think it was in her mind to do so.

Caffrey had a reputation for honesty, but many a man with such a reputation simply has not been found out or tested, andfor Will Caffrey the test of those bags of gold was too much for his principles to bear. The year after pa had gone they took me from school--theirthe own son continued--and they put me to work with the field hands. Eleven years old I was then, and no place to go, nor anyone to turn to.

The day came when Duncan struck me.

Contemptuous of me he was, taking that from his parents' treatment of me, and he often sneered or cursed at me, but when he struck me we had at it, knuckle and skull.

It was even-up fighting until I realized all his blows were struck at my face, so I scrooched down as he rushed at me and struck him a mighty blow in the belly.

It taken his wind. He let go a grunt and his mouth dropped open, so I spread wide my legs and let go at his chin.

With his mouth open and jaw slack, a girl might have broken his jaw, and I did, for I was a naturally strong boy who had worked hard and done much running and climbing in the forest.

He fell back against the woodpile where I had been working, his face all white and strange-looking, but my blood was up and I swung a final fist against his nose, which broke, streaming blood over his lips and chin.

The door slammed and his ma and pa were coming at me, Will Caffrey with his cane lifted, and her with her fingers spread like claws.

I taken out.

So far as I could see, nothing was keeping me, and by the time I stopped running I was far off in the piney woods and nighttime a-coming on.

By that time I was twelve years old and knew only the mountains. The towns I feared, so it never occurred to me to leave all I had known behind.

The one place I knew was the cabin, and there I had known happiness, so I turned up through the woods, hunting the way.

It was thirty-odd miles of rough mountain and forest, and I slept three nights before I got there, the first nights I ever spent in the forest alone.

When at last I came to the cabin I was a tuckered-out boy.

If they ever came seeking me, I never knew. They might have come before I got back, or after, when I was off a-hunting. More than likely they were pleased to be free of me, for now they had the gold.

Five years I lived there alone.

That isn't to say I didn't see anybody in all that time. Long before ma died I used to go hunting with the Cherokee boys, and I could use a bow and arrow or set a snare as good as the best of them. These were wild Cherokees who took to the mountains when the government moved the Indians west.

Pa had been friendly with them, and they liked me.

Whenever I was over that way I was sure of a meal, and many a time during that first year I made it a point.

Whilst working with Caffrey I had done most of the kitchen-garden planting, and there was seed at the house. The Cherokees were planting Indians, so I got more seed from them, and I spaded up garden space and planted melons, corn, potatoes, and schlike. For the rest, I hunted the woods for game, berries, nuts, and roots.

It would be a lie to say I was brave, forofa night I was a scared boy, and more than once I cried myself to sleep, remembering ma and wishing pa would come home.

Those first years it was only the thought of pa coming back that kept me going. Caffrey had been sure pa was dead and had never left off telling me so, although why he should be so sure I never knew. It wasn't until I was past fifteen that I really gave up hope. In my thinking mind I was sure after that that he would not come back, but my ears pricked every time I heard a horse on the trail.

Travel was no kind thing those days, what with killers along the Natchez Trace and the Wilderness Road, Bald Knobbers, and varmints generally. Many a man who set out from home never got back, and who was to say what became of him?

First off, I swapped some dress goods ma had in her trunk for a buckskin hunting shirt and leggings; and after I had trapped, I traded my muskrat and red-fox skins with the Cherokees for things I needed. The cornmill was there, and after my first harvest I always had corn.

My fourteenth birthday came along and ma wasn't there to bake me a cake like she'd done, so I fried myself up a batch of turkey eggs.

And that was a big day, because just shy of noon when I was fixing to set up to table, the Tinker came along the trail.

It was the first time I'd seen him, although I'd heard tell of him. He sat up to table with me and told me the news of the Settlements. After that he always stopped by.

The Tinker hadn't very much to say that first time, but he did a sight of looking and seeing. So I showed him around, proud of the cabin pa had built and the way he'd used water from the creek to irrigate the fields when they needed water-- although rain usually took care of that.

The Tinker noticed everything, but it wasn't until a long time after, that some of his questions started coming back to mind to puzzle me. Especially, about the gold.

Once he asked me if I had any gold money ... said he could get a lot for gold.

So I told him about all our gold going to Will Caffrey, and he got me to draw him a picture what those gold pieces looked like.

"Your pa," he said, "must have been a traveled man."

"Sacketts haven't taken much to travel,"

I said, "although we hear tell that a long time ago, before they came over to the Colonies, some of them were sailors."

"Like your pa," he said.

"Pa? If he was a sailor he never said anything about it to me. Nor did ma ever speak of it."

He looked at a knot I had made in a piece of rope. "Good tight knot. Your pa teach you that?"

"Sure--t's a bowline. He taught me to tie knots before he taught me letters. Two half-hitches, bowline, bowline-on-a-bight, sheep's bend--all manner of knots."

"Sailor knots," the Tinker said.

"I wouldn't know. I expect a good knot is useful to a lot of folks beside sailors."

Aside from the cornmill and ma's trunk filled with fixings, there wasn't much left at the cabin beside pa's worn-out Ballard rifle and the garden tools. In the trunk was ma's keepsake box. It was four inches deep, four inches wide and eight inches long, and was made of teakwood. Inside she kept family papers and a few odds and ends of value to her.

The Ballard was old, and no gun to be taking to the western lands, so I figured to swap it off when I did the mill, or at the first good chance.

If I was going to meet up with Bald Knobbers or wild Indians I would need a new, reliable gun.

Now the Tinker, he sat there smoking, and finally as the fire died down he said, "Daylight be all right for you?"

It was all right, so come daylight we taken off down the mountain for the last time.

One time, there on the trail, I stopped and looked back. There was a mist around the peaks, and the one that marked the cabin was hidden. The cabin was up there in those trees. I reckoned never to see it again, or ma's grave, out where pa dug it under the big pine.

A lot of me was staying behind, but I guess pa left a lot up there, too.

And then we rounded the last bend in the trail and my mountain was hidden from sight. Before us lay the Crossing, and I had seen the last of the place where I was born.

Chapter Two.

We fetched up to the Crossing in a light spatter of rain, and I made a dicker with the storekeeper, swapping my cornmill for a one-eyed, spavined mare.

It was in my mind to become rich in the western lands, but a body does not become rich tomorrow without starting today, so I taken my mare to a meadow and staked her out on good grass. A man who wants to become rich had better start thinking of increase, and that mare could have a colt.

The Tinker was disgusted with me. "You bragged you'd a mind for swapping, but what can a man do with a one-eyed, spavined mare?"

Me, I just grinned at him. Two years now I'd had it in my mind to own that little mare. "Did you ever hear of the Highland Bay?"

"She was the talk of the mountains before she broke a leg and they had to shoot her."

"Seven or eight years ago the Highland Bay ran the legs off everything in these parts, and won many a race in the lowlands, too."

"I recall."

"Well, when I was working in the fields for Caffrey, the Highland Bay was running loose in the next pasture. A little scrub stallion tore down the fence and got to her."

"And you think this no-'count little mare is their get?"

"I know it. Fact is, I lent a hand at her birthing. Old Heywood, he who owned the Highland Bay, he was so mad he gave the colt to a field hand."

There was a thoughtful look in the Tinker's eyes.

"So you have a one-eyed, spavined mare out of the Highland Bay by a scrub stallion. Now where are you?"

"I hear tell those Mexicans and Indians out west hold strong to racing. I figure to get me a mule that will outrun any horse they've got."

"Out of that mare?" he scoffed.

"Her get," I said. "She can have a colt, and sired by the right jack stud I reckon to turn up a fast mule."

We sat there on the bank watching that little mare feed on green meadow grass, and after a bit, I said to the Tinker, "When a man owes me, one way or another I figure to collect. Do you know where Caffrey keeps his prize jack?"

He didn't answer, but after a bit he said, "Nobody ever races a mule."

"Tinker, where there's something will run, there's somebody will bet on it. Why, right in these mountains you could get a bet on a fast cow, and many a mule is faster than a horse, although mighty few people believe it. The way I see it, the fewer folk who believe a mule can run, the better."

Caffrey's jackass could kill a man or a stallion, and had sired some of the best mules ever set foot. Before dark we were hidden in a clump of dogwood and willow right up against the Caffrey pasture fence.

The wind was across the pasture and from time to time the jack could catch scent of my mare, and while he couldn't quite locate her, he was stomping around in there, tossing his head and looking.

"Two things," I said, "had to work right for me to leave this here country--the timing had to be right: You had to come up the trail, and that mare of mine had to be ready. And this here jack will work the charm."

"You're smarter than I thought," he said, and then we sat quiet, slapping mosquitoes and waiting until it was full dark. Crickets sang in the brush, and there was a pleasant smell of fresh-mown hay.

Watching the lights of that big white house Caffrey had built just two years ago, I got to thinking how elegant it must be behind those curtains. Would I ever live in a house like that?

And have folks about who loved me? Or would I always be a-setting out in the dark, looking on?

Caffrey had done well with pa's money. He had it at a time when gold had great value, and he'd bought with a shrewd eye there at the war's last years. He was one of the richest men around.

When I called on him at Meeting to return the money I had no hope I would get it, but I wanted to put it square before the community that he had wrongfully used money with which he had been trusted.

I'd no money nor witnesses to open an action for recovery ... but almost everybody around had wondered where he got that gold money.

He had talked large of running for office, but I felt a man who would be dishonest with a boy was no man to trust with government. It always seemed to me that a man who would betray the trust of his fellow citizens is the lowest of all, and I wanted no such man as Will Caffrey to have that chance.

When I called upon him at Meeting I had my plans made to leave the mountains, for now he would not rest until he had me jailed or done away with.

Right now I was risking everything, for if I was caught I would be in real trouble.

Slapping at a mosquito, I swore softly and the Tinker commented, "It's the salt. They like the salt in your blood. On jungle rivers mosquitoes will swarm around a white man before going near a native, because a white man uses more salt."

"You've been to the jungle?"

"I've heard tell," he said.

That was the Tinker's way. He would not speak of himself. Right then he was probably smiling at me in the dark, but all I could see was the glint of those gold earrings. Only man I ever did see who wore earrings.

His being there worried me some. He was an outlander, and Tinker or not, mountain folks are suspicious of outlanders. The Tinker was a needful man in the mountains, but folks had never rightly accepted him ... so why had he come away with me?

When the barnyard noises ceased--the sounds of milking and doors slamming--we went up to the white rails of that fence and I taken a pick-head from my gear and pried loose that rail.

That one, and the next.

The mare went into that pasture like she knew what she was there for, and against the sky we saw the jack's head come up and we heard him blow. Then we heard the preen and prance of his hoofs as he came toward the mare.

We waited under the dogwood, neither of us of a mind to get shot in another man's pasture. We were half dozing and a couple of hours had gone by.

Even the mosquitoes were tiring.

Of a sudden the Tinker put a hand to my arm.

"Somebody coming," he said, and I caught the flicker of the shine on a blade in his hand.

We listened ... horses coming. Two, maybe three. The first voice we heard was Duncan Caffrey's.

"We've got to have a good horse or two in those races out west," he was saying. "The Bishop wouldn't like it if he lost money. The Bishop is touchy about money."

They had drawn up right beside the grove where we were hidden.

The older man spoke. "Now tell me about that gold. You say your pa had it from a man named Sackett? Where's that man now?"

"He left out of here. Pa thinks he's dead."

The Tinker cupped his hands to my ear. "Let's get out of this."

The trouble was that my mare was out in that pasture and I didn't want to leave her. No more did I want to leave off listening to that talk.

"You go ahead," I whispered. "I'll catch up or meet you at the crossing of the Tombigbee."

He hoisted his pack, then took up mine.

How he disappeared so quick with those packs, I'll never guess. And at the time I thought nothing of his taking up my pack, for I'd have trouble getting it and the mare both out of here.

"What difference does it make?" Dun Caffrey sounded impatient. "He's nobody."

"You got it to learn," the other man said irritably. "You're a damn' fool, Dun.

Falcon Sackett is one of the most dangerous men on earth, and to hear the Bishop talk about it, he's almighty important. So much so the Bishop has spent years hunting down every piece of that Spanish gold to find him."

"But he's dead!"

"You seen body? Nothing else would convince the Bishop. I ain't so sure he'd even believe it then."

"Are you goin' to talk all night about a dead man? Let's go get the horses," and they moved on.

It was no use waiting any longer. If I was going to get away from here it had to be now. Stepping through the opening, I started out into that pasture after my mare and not feeling any too good about it, either.

Jacks are a mean lot. If I was caught in the middle of this pasture by either the stud or the owner I might be lucky to get out alive.

It was almighty dark, and every step or two I'd hold up to listen. Once I thought I heard hoof-beats off to my left; but listening, I heard nothing more. Back behind me I heard rustling in the brush.

Suddenly, something nudged my elbow and there was my mare. All day I'd been feeding her bits of a carrot or some turnips, so she found me her ownself. More than likely it was the first time anybody'd ever fussed over her.

Hoisting myself to her back, I turned her toward that opening in the fence.

The Bishop had been mentioned, and he was a known man. River-boat gambler, river pirate, and bad actor generally, he was one of the top men at Natchez-under-the-Hill, and one of the most feared men along the river.

"Whoever went in there," somebody said, "is still there."

A light glowed close to the ground as he spoke, then vanished.

Didn't seem no call to be wasting around, so I booted the mare in the ribs and she jumped like a deer and hit the ground running--and brother, she had plenty of scat.

She went through that fence opening and when a man reared up almost in front of her she hit him with her shoulder, knocking him rump over teakettle into the brush. The other man jumped to grab me and I stiff-legged him in the belly and heard the ooof as his breath left him. He went back and down out of sight, and the mare and me, we dusted around that clump of brush and off down the pike.

There was no need to meet the Tinker at the crossing of the Tombigbee, for I came up to him just as false dawn was spreading a lemon-yellow across the gray sky. He had stopped alongside the road and put both packs down. It looked to me like he was about to open mine when I came up to him.

"You got the wrong pack there," I said.

He turned sharp around, braced for trouble.

He'd been so busy he'd not heard the mare coming in that soft dust. When he saw it was me he eased up and let go his hold on my pack.

"I was looking for the coffee," he said. "I thought you put it in your pack last night."

I didn't believe he thought anything of the kind, but I was not going to argue with him. Only it started me thinking and trying to add together two and two, which is not always as easy as it seems.

"Take it from me," I advised, "and let's get back off the trail before we coffee-up.

We may be sought after."

He pointed ahead. "There's an old trace runs up over the hills yonder. I was only down this way once, but I traveled if for a day or so."

Two days later I swapped my old Ballard for a two-wheeled cart. The Ballard wasn't much of a gun but I knew it so well I could make it shoot, and I let a farmer see me bark a squirrel with it. Now barking a squirrel is a neat trick, but most mountain boys could do it. A squirrel has little meat, and so's not to spoil any of it you don't shoot the squirrel, you shoot the branch he's setting on or one close by. It knocks him out of the tree, stuns him, and sometimes kills him with flying chips.

"You've a straight-shootin' gun," this farmer said to me. "Would you be of a mind to swap?"

We settled down to dicker. He was a whittler and a spitter, but I was natural-born to patience, so I waited him out. He was bound and determined to make a trade, and few folks came that way. That beat-up old cart hadn't been used in years, but the Tinker and me, we could fix it up. From now on we'd be in the flat-lands where it would be handy.

Between story-telling and talk of the Settlements, we dickered. We dickered again over hominy grits and sidemeat for supper, and we dickered at breakfast, but about that time I got awful busy making up my pack, talking to the Tinker and the like, and he began to think he'd lost me.

Upshot of it was, I let him have that Ballard and I taken the cart, three bushels of mighty fine apples, a worn-out scythe, and a couple of freshly tanned hides. The Tinker and me turned to and tightened the iron rims and the spokes, and loaded our gear.

It took two weeks of walking to reach the river, but by that time we had done a sight of swapping.

The little mare was looking good. Our daily marches were not long and the load she carried most of the way was light. We babied her along on carrots, turnips, slices of watermelon, and greens from along the road, and she fattened up on it.

We saw no sign of the three Kurbishaws, but they were never out of mind.

All the time I kept trying to dicker the Tinker out of one of his knives. He carried a dozen in his pack, and two belted at his waist.

A third was slung down the back of his neck under his collar. They were perfectly balanced and the steel tempered to a hardness you wouldn't believe. We both shaved with them, they were that good. In the mountains a man would trade most anything for a Tinker-made knife.

Walking along like that, neither of us much to talk, I had time to think, and I remembered back to the Tinker asking about that gold. A man has a right to be interested in gold, but why that gold in particular? And Spanish gold, they said.

Why was the Tinker starting to open my pack? If he had found what he wanted, would he have made sure I didn't come up to him at the Tombigbee or anywhere?

Was it something about that gold that started the Kurbishaws after me?

I had no gold, and never had had any. So what did I have that they might want?

Nothing.

Nothing, unless maybe there was something in ma's keepsake box. The first time I was alone I'd go through that stuff of ma's again. I never had really looked at it--mostly, I kept it because it was all I had of hers.

All I had else was some worn-out clothes, some Indian blankets, and a couple of extra shirts.

Like I've said, walking gives a man time to think, and a couple of things began to fit. Pa had never spent any of that gold that I could recall, but after Caffrey got it, some was spent. Not much right at first--he was afraid of pa coming back. And it was not long after Caffrey started to spend it that the Tinker showed up.

Not right away ... it must have taken him some time to find out where that gold came from.

The Tinker was not a sociable man, but he had made a point of being my friend. He had spent time with me, and I believed he was really my friend, but I now believed he had some other interest in that gold.

That night we reached the Mississippi and the ferry. We were avoiding main-traveled roads, and the ferry we came up to was operated by a sour, evil-smelling old man who peered suspiciously at us. We dickered with him until he agreed to take us across for a bushel of apples.

He stared at our packs as if he was trying to see right through them, but mostly he looked at Tinker's knives. Neither of us had any other kind of a weapon, except that I carried a long stick to chase off mean dogs, of which we'd met a-plenty.

"Country's full of movers," the ferryman said. "Where mought you folks be goin'?"

"Where folks don't ask questions," I told him.

He threw me a mean look. "Doubtless you've reason," he said. "We git lots of 'em don't want questions asked."

"Tinker, did you ever operate a ferry?"

"Not that I recall."

"I've got a feeling there's going to be a job open around here--unless somebody can swim with a knot on his head."

The ferryman shut up, but when we made shore near a cluster of miserable-looking shacks I thought I saw him make a signal to some rough-looking men loitering on the bank.

"Trouble," I said, low-voiced, to the Tinker.

A bearded man with a bottle in his hand, his pants held up by a piece of rope, started toward us. Several others followed.

The bearded man was big, and he was wearing a pistol, as were some of the others.

My walking staff was a handy weapon, if need be. A Welshman in the mountains had taught me the art of stick fighting, and I was ready.

The bearded man stopped in our path as we drove off the ferry. He glanced from the Tinker to me, and it was obvious that neither of us had a gun.

Four men behind him ... a dirty, boozing lot, but armed and confident. My mouth was dry and my belly felt empty.

"Stoppin' around?"

"Passin' through," I said.

One end of my stick rested on my boot toe, ready to flip and thrust. A stick fighter never swings a wide blow--he thrusts or strikes with the end, andforthe belly, the throat, or the eyes.

"Have a drink!" The big man thrust the bottle at the Tinker.

"Never touch it," the Tinker replied.

Two of the other men were closing in on me, about as close as I could afford for them to get.

"You'll drink and like it!" The big man suddenly swung with the bottle, but he was too slow. The Tinker's hand shot out, flicking this way and that as though brushing the big man with his fingers' ends, but the big man screamed and staggered back, his face streaming blood.

Even as he lifted the bottle, the two men nearest me jumped to get close. My stick barely had room, but the end caught the nearest man in the throat and he fell back gasping horribly. As he did so, without withdrawing the stick I struck sidewise with it, not a hard blow, but the other man threw up an arm to block it and staggered. Instantly I jerked back the stick, which was all of five feet long and broom-handle size, and grasping it with both hands, struck him in the face with the end of it.

The fight was over. The Tinker glanced at the other two men, who were withdrawing. Then he coolly leaned over and thrust the blade into the turf near the road to cleanse it of blood.

Three men were down and the fight gone out of the others, and it hadn't been twenty seconds since they stopped us. No doubt they'd robbed many a traveler at this point and believed us easily handled.

We paid them no more mind, starting off up the rise toward the high ground back of the river. And that big man was dead. From time to time I'd seen fighting done, but not a man killed before, and it seemed there ought to be more to it. One moment he was coming at us blustering and confident, and the next he was dying in the trail mud.

We did not stop that night, but went on, wanting distance between us and trouble. West and south we kept on going, through sunlight and rain, the Tinker plying his trade, and me swapping here and there.

The mare was filling out, carrying her colt, and I was in fine shape.

Down at Jefferson in Texas, we laid in supplies. We walked out of town before we made camp, and we were just setting up to eat when we heard horses soft-footing it along the trail.

Turning to warn the Tinker, I saw him standing outside the firelight, a blade in his hand.

Me, I held to my place at the fire, letting them think me alone.

The riders stopped out beyond the firelight and a voice called out, not loud, "Hello, the fire!

Can we come in?"

"If you're friendly, you're welcome.

Coffee's on."

Those days nobody rode right up to a fire or a house. It was customary to stop off a bit and call in--it was also a whole lot safer.

There were three of them, one about my own age, the other two a mite older. They were roughly dressed, like men who were living out in the brush, and they were heavily armed. These men, by the look of them, were on the dodge. his'Light and set. We're peaceful folk."

They sat their horses, their eyes missing nothing, noting the Tinker there, knife in hand.

"You with the knife." The speaker was a handsome big man with a shock of dark, untrimmed hair. "You wishin' trouble?"

"Fixed for it. Not hunting it."

The big man swung down, keeping his horse between himself and the fire. "You look like movers," he said pleasantly. "I was a mover one time ... moved to Texas from Tennessee." He gestured to the others. "These here are gen-u-ine Texans."

He hunkered down beside the fire as the others dismounted, and I passed him the coffee pot. He was wearing more pistols than I ever did see, most men being content with one. He had two belted on in holsters and a third shoved down in his waistband.

Unless I was mistaken, he had another, smaller one in his coat pocket.

Loading a cap-and-ball pistol took time, so a man apt to need a lot of shooting often took to packing more than one gun. There was an outlaw up Missouri way who sometimes carried as many as six when on a raid. Others carried interchangeable cylinders so they could flip out an empty and replace it with a loaded one.

When the Tinker walked up to the fire they saw the other knives.

"You don't carry a pistol?"

"I can use these faster than any man can use a gun."

The youngest of them laughed. "You're saying that to the wrong man. Cullen here, he's learned to draw and fire in the same instant."

The Tinker glanced at the big man. "Are you Cullen Baker?" [The First Fast Draw, Bantam Books, 1959]

"That I am." He indicated the quiet-seeming man beside him. "This here's Bob Lee, and that's Bill Longley."

"I'm the Tinker, and this here is Orlando Sackett."

"You're dark enough for an Indian," Cullen Baker said to the Tinker, "but you don't shape up to be one."

"I am a gypsy," Tinker said, and I looked around, surprised. I'd heard tell of gypsies, but never figured to know one. They were said to be a canny folk, wanderers and tinkerers, and he was all of that.

Cullen Baker and his friends were hungry, but they were also tired, and nigh to falling asleep while they ate.

"If you boys want to sleep," I said, "you just have at it. The Tinker and me will stand watch."

"You're borrowing trouble just to feed us," Bob Lee said. "We've stood out against the Carpetbag law, so Governor Davis' police are out after us."

"We're outcasts," Baker said.

"My people have been outcasts as long as the memory of man," the Tinker said.

"No Sackett," I said, "so far as I know, was ever an outlaw or an outcast. On the other hand, no Sackett ever turned a man from his fire. You're welcome to stop with us."

When they had stripped the gear from their horses the other two went back into the brush to sleep, avoiding the fire; but Cullen Baker lingered, drinking coffee.

"What started you west?" he asked.

"Why," I told him, "it was one of those old-timey gospel-shouters set me to considering it.

He preached lively against sin. He was a stomper and a shouter, but a breast-beater and a whisperer, too.

"When he got right down to calling them to the Lord, he whispered and he pleaded, and right there he lost me. Seems if the Lord really wants a man it doesn't need all that fuss to get him worked up to it. If a man isn't ready for the Lord, then the Lord isn't ready for him, and it's a straight-forward proposition between man and God without any wringing of the hands or hell-fire shouting.

"When that preacher started his Bible-shouting and talking large about the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah, I was mighty taken with him. He seemed more familiar with the sins of those foreign places than he did with those of Richmond or Atlanta, but mostly he was set against movers.

"Sinful folk, he said, and the Lord intended folks to stay to home, till the earth, and come to church of a Sunday. By moving, they set their feet on unrighteous paths.

"Fact was, he talked so much about sin that I got right interested, and figured to look into it. A man ought to know enough to make a choice; and pa, he always advised me to look to both sides of a proposition.

"Back in the hills mighty few folks ever got right down to bed-rock sinning. Here and there a body drank too much 'shine and took to fighting, but rarely did he covet his neighbor's wife up to doing anything about it, because his neighbor had a squirrel rifle.

"That parson ranted and raved about painted women, but when I looked around at Meeting it seemed to me a touch of paint here and there might brighten things up. He talked about the silks and satins of sin until he had me fairly a-sweating to see some of that there. Silks and satins can be almighty exciting to a man accustomed to homespun and calico. So it came on me to travel."

Baker cupped his hands around the bottom of his coffee cup, and taken his time with that coffee. So I asked him about that fast draw I'd heard them speak about.

"Studied it out by my ownself," he said.

"Trouble is apt to come on a man sudden-like, and he needs a weapon quick to his hand. When Mr.

Sam Colt invented his revolving pistol he done us all a favor.

"Best way is just to draw and fire. Don't aim ... point your gun like you'd point your finger.

You need practice to be good, and I worked on it eight or nine months before I had to use it. The less shooting you've done before, the better. Then you have to break the habit of aiming.

"It stands to reason. Just like you point your finger.

How many times have you heard about some female woman grabbing up a pistol--something she maybe never had in her hands before--and plumb mad, she starts shooting and blasts some man into doll rags.

Nobody ever taught her to shoot--she just pointed at what she was mad at and started blazing away."

He reached inside his shirt and fetched out a gun. "This I taken from a man who was troubling me--and you'll need a gun in the western lands, so take it along. This here is a Walch Navy, .36 caliber, and she fires twelve shots."

"Twelve? It looks like a six-shooter."

"Weighs about the same. See? Two triggers, two hammers. She's a good pistol, but too complicated for me. Take it along."

She was a mite over twelve inches long and weighed just over two pounds, had checkered walnut grips, and was a beautiful weapon. Stamped 1859, it looked to be in mint condition.

"Thanks. I've been needing a weapon."

"Practice ... practice drawing and pointing a long time before you try firing. Don't try to aim. Just draw and point."

He put down his cup and got to his feet.

"And one thing more." He looked at me out of those hard green eyes. "You wear one of those and you'll be expected to use it. When a man starts packing a gun nobody figures he wears it just for show."

Come daybreak, they saddled and rode away, and the Tinker and me went west afoot. And as we walked, I tried my hand with that gun. I practiced and practiced. A body never knew when it would come in handy.

Somewhere behind me three Kurbishaws were riding to kill me.

Chapter Three.

We were six months out of the piney woods of Tennessee when we walked into San Augustine, Texas. It was an old, old town.

Seemed like we'd ever left home, for there were pines growing over the red clay hills, and everywhere we looked there were Cherokee roses.

We camped among the trees on the outskirts, and the Tinker set to work repairing a broken pistol I had taken in trade. An old man stopped by to watch. "Shy of gunsmiths hereabs," he said. "A man could make a living."

"The Tinker can fix anything. Even clocks and schlike."

"Old clock up at the Blount House--a fine piece. Ain't worked in some time."

The Tinker filled a cup and passed it across the fire to him, and the old man hunkered down to talk.

"Town settled by Spanish men back around 1717. Built themselves a mission, they did, and then fifty, sixty years later when it seemed the Frenchies were going to move in, they built a fort.

"Been a likely place ever since. The Blount and Cartwright homes are every bit of thirty year old, and up until the War Between the States broke out we has us a going university right here in town."

He was sizing us up, making up his mind about us, and after a while he said, "If I was you boys I'd keep myself a fancy lookout. You're being sought after."

"Three tall men who look alike?"

"Uh-huh. Rode through town yestiddy. Right handy men, I'd say, come a difficulty."

"They're his uncles," the Tinker explained, "and they're all laid out to kill him."

"No worse fights than kinfolk's." The old man finished his coffee and stood up.

"Notional man, more'self. Take to folks or I don't. You boys take care of yourselves."

The Tinker glanced over at me. "You wearing that gun?"

Pulling my coat back, I showed it to him, shoved down inside my pants behind my belt.

"I ain't much on the shoot," I said, "but come trouble I'll have at it."

San Augustine was further south in Texas than I'd any notion of coming, but the Tinker insisted on it. "The biggest cow ranches are south," he said, "down along the Gulf coast, and some of them are fixing to trail cattle west to fresh grass, or north to the Kansas towns."

Now we'd come south and here the Kurbishaws were, almost as if they known where we were coming.

"No use asking for it," I said, "we'd better dust off down the pike."

"Didn't figure you would run from trouble," the old man said. "Best way is to hunt it down and have it out."

"They're still my uncles, and I never set eye on them. If they're fixing for trouble they'll have to bring it on themselves."

The old man bit off a chew of tobacco, regarded the plug from which he had bitten, and said, "you ain't goin' to dodge it. Those fellers want you bad. They offered a hundred dollars cash money for you. And they want you dead."

That was more actual money than a man might see in a year's time, and enough to set half the no-gds in Texas on my trail. Those Kurbishaws were sure lacking in family feeling. Well, if they wanted me they'd have to burn the stump and sift the ashes before they found me.

San Augustine was a pleasant place, but I wasn't about to get rich there. The mare was far along, but it would be a few weeks before she dropped her colt.

The Tinker started putting that pistol together and I went to rolling up my bed, such as it was. The Tinker said to the old man, "Isn't far to the Gulf, is it?"

"South, down the river."

The Tinker put the pistol away and started putting gear in the cart while I went for the mare.

It was just as I was starting back that I heard him say, "This is the sort of place a man could retire ... say a seafaring man."

The old man spat, squinting his eyes at the Tinker. "You thinkin' or askin'?"

"Why"--the Tinker smiled at him--

"when it comes to that, I'm asking."

The old man indicated a road with a gesture of his head. "That road ... maybe thirteen, fourteen mile. The Deckrow place."

We taken out with our fat little mare, and the cart painted with signs to advise that we sharpened knives, saws, and whatever.

We walked alongside, the Tinker with his gold earrings, black hat, and black homespun clothes, and me with a black hat, red shirt, buckskin coat, and black pants tucked into boots. Him with his knives and me with my pistol. We made us a sight to see.

Ten miles lay behind us when we came up to this girl on horseback, or rather, she came up to us. She was fourteen, I'd say, and pert. Her auburn hair hung around her shoulders and she had freckles scattered over her nose and cheekbones. She was a pretty youngster, but like I say, pert.

She looked at the Tinker and then at the sign on the wagon, and last she looked to me, her eyes taking their time with me and seeming to find nothing of much account.

"We have a clock that needs fixing," she said.

"I am Marsha Deckrow."

The way she said it, you expected no less than a flourish of trumpets or a roll of drums, but until the old man mentioned them that morning I'd never heard tell of any Deckrows and wouldn't have paid it much mind if I had. But when we came to the house I figured that if means gave importance to a man, this one must cut some figure.

That was the biggest house I ever did see, setting back from the road with great old oaks and elms all about, and a plot of grass out front that must have been five or six acres. There was a winding drive up to the door, and there were orchards and fields, and stock grazing. The coachhouse was twice the size of the schoolhouse back at Clinch's.

"Are you a tinker?" she asked me.

"No, ma'am. I am Orlando Sackett, bound for the western lands."

"Oh?" Her nose tilted. "You're a mover!"

"Yes, ma'am," I said. "Most folks move at one time or another."

"A rolling stone gathers no moss," she said, nose in the air.

"Moss grows thickest on dead wood," I said, "and if you're repeating the thoughts of others, you might remember that "a wandering bee gets the honey."'"

"Movers!" she sniffed.

"Looks like an old house," I said. "Must be the finest around here."

"It is," she said proudly. "It is the oldest place anywhere around. The Deckrows," she added, "came from Virginia!"

"Movers?" I asked.

She flashed an angry look at me and then paid me no mind. "The servants' entrance," she said to the Tinker, "is around to the side."

"You're talking to the wrong folks," I said, speaking before the Tinker could. "We aren't servants, and we don't figure to go in by the side door. We go in by the front door, or your clock won't be fixed."

The Tinker gave me an odd look, but he made no objection to my speaking up thataway.

He said nothing at all, just waiting.

"I was addressing the Tinker," she replied coolly. "Just what is it that you do? Or do you do anything at all?"

One of the servants had come up to hold her stirrup and she got down from the saddle. "Mr.

Tinker," she said sweetly, "will you come with me?"

Then, without so much as glancing my way, she said, "You can wait ... if you like."

When I looked up at that house I sobered down some. Here I was in a worn-out buckskin coat and homespun, dusty from too many roads, and my boots down at heel. I'd no business even talking to such a girl.

So I sat down on a rock beside the gravel drive and looked at my mare. "You hurry up," I said, "and have that colt. We'll show them."

Hearing footsteps on the travel, I looked up to see a tall man coming toward me. His hair and mustaches were white, his skin dark as that of a Spanish man, his eyes the blackest I'd ever seen.

He was thin, but he looked wiry and strong, and whatever his age might be it hadn't reached his eyes ... or his mind.

He paused when he saw me, frowning a little as if something about me disturbed him. "Are you waiting for someone?" His voice had a ring to it, a sound like I'd heard in the voices of army officers.

"I travel with the Tinker," I said, "who's come to fix a clock, and that Miss Deckrow who lives here, she wanted me to come in by the servants' entrance, I'll be damned if I will."

There was a shadow of a smile around his lips, though he had a hard mouth. He taken out a long black cigar and clipped the end, then he put it between his teeth. "I am Jonas Locklear, and Marsha's uncle. I can understand your feelings."

So I told him my name, and then for no reason I could think of, I told him about the mare and the colt she would have and some of my plans.

"Orlando Sackett ... the name has a familiar sound." He looked at me thoughtfully.

"There was a Sackett who married a Kurbishaw girl from Carolina."

"My father," I said.

"Oh? And where is he now?"

So I told him how ma died and pa taken off, leaving me with the Caffreys, and how I hadn't heard from pa since.

"I don't believe he's dead," I explained, "nor that those Kurbishaws killed him. He seemed to me a hard man to kill."

Jonas Locklear's mouth showed a wry smile. "I would say you judge well," he said. "Falcon Sackett was indeed a hard man to kill."

"You knew him?" I was surprised--and then right away I was no longer surprised. This was the Deckrow plantation, the place the Tinker had inquired about. At least, he had inquired about a seafaring man.

"I knew him well." He took the cigar from his mouth. "We were associated once, in a manner of speaking." He turned toward the door.

"Come in, Mr. Sackett. Please come in."

"I am not welcome here," I said stiffly.

The way his face tightened showed him a man of quick temper. "You are my guest," he replied sharply. "And I say you are welcome. Come in, please."

Almost the first person I laid eyes on when we stepped through the door was Marsha Deckrow.

"Uncle Jonas," she said quickly, "that boy is with the Tinker."

"Marsha, Mr. Sackett is my guest. Will you please tell Peter that he will be staying for dinner? And the Tinker also."

She started to say something, but whatever it was, Jonas Locklear gave her no time. "Peter must know at once, Marsha."

Nobody who ever heard that voice would doubt that it was accustomed to command--and to be obeyed.

"Yes, uncle."

Her backbone was ramrod stiff when she walked away, anger showing in every line of her slim figure. I wanted to smile, but I didn't.

I kept my face straight.

Locklear beckoned me to follow and led the way into a wing of the house. The moment we passed through the tall doors I knew I had entered the rooms of a man of a very different kind from any I had known.

We went into a small hallway where, just inside the door, there hung on the wall a strange shield made of some kind of thick hide, and behind it two crossed spears. "Zulu --f South Africa," he said.

The large square, high-ceilinged room beyond was lined with books. On a table was a stone head, beautifully carved and polished. He noticed my attention and said, "It is very ancient--f Libya. Beautiful, is it not?"

"It is. I wish the Tinker could see it."

"He is a lover of beautiful things?"

"I was thinking more of the craft that went into it. The Tinker can do anything with his hands, and you should see his knives. We--we both shave with them."

"Fine steel." He rubbed out his cigar on a stone of the fireplace. "This tinker of yours--where is he from?"

"We came together from the mountains. He was a tinker and a pack peddler there."

When I had washed up in the bathroom I borrowed a whisk broom to brush some of the dust from my clothing, and when I got back to the library he was sitting there with a chart in his hands. When he put it down it rolled up so that I had no more chance to look at it.

He crossed to a sideboard and filled two wine glasses from a bottle. One of them he handed to me. "Madeira," he said, "the wine upon which this country was built. Washington drank it, so did Jefferson. Every slave ship from Africa brought casks of it ordered by the planters."

When we were seated and had tasted our wine, he said, "What are your plans, Mr. Sackett?

You are going west, you said?"

"California, or somewhere west."

"It is a lovely land, this California.

Once I thought to spend my days there, but strange things happen to a man, Mr. Sackett, strange things, indeed."

He looked at me sharply. "So you are the son of Falcon Sackett. You're not so tall as he was, but you have the shoulders." He tasted his wine again. "Did he ever speak to you of me?"

"No, sir. My father rarely talked of himself or his doings. Not even to my mother, I think."

"A wise man ... a very wise man. Those who have not lived such a life could not be expected to understand it. He was not a tame man, your father.

He was no sit-by-the-fire man, no molly-coddle. His name was Falcon, and he was well named."

He lighted another cigar. "He never talked to you of the Mexican War, then? Or of the man he helped to bury in the dunes of Padre Island?"

"No."

"And when he went away ... did he leave anything with you? I mean, with you personally?"

"Nothing. A grip on the shoulder and some advice. I am afraid the grip lasted longer than the advice."

Locklear smiled, and then from somewhere in the house a bell sounded faintly. "Come, we will go in to dinner now, Mr. Sackett." He got to his feet. "I am afraid I must ask you to ignore any fancied slights--or intentional ones, Mr. Sackett.

"You see"--he paused--?th is my house.

This is my plantation. Everything here is mine, but I was long away and when I returned my health was bad. My brother-in-law, Franklyn Deckrow, seems to have made an attempt to take command during my absence. He is not alt pleased that I have returned."

He finished his wine and put down his glass.

"Mr. Sackett, face a man with a gun or a sword, but beware of bookkeepers. They will destroy you, Sackett. They will destroy you."

At the door of the dining room we paused, and there for a minute I was ready to high-tail it out of there, for I'd eaten in no such room before.

True, I'd heard ma speak of them, but I'd never imagined such a fine long table or such silver or glassware. Right then I blessed ma for teaching me to eat properly.

"Will the Tinker be here, sir?"

"It has been arranged."

Marsha swept into the library in a white gown, looking like a young princess. Her hair was all combed out and had a ribbon in it, and I declare, I never saw anything so pretty, or so mean.

She turned sharply away from me, her chin up, but that was nothing to the expression of distaste on her father's face when he looked up and down my shabby, trail-worn clothes.

He was short of medium height, with square shoulders and a thin nose. No man I had seen dressed more carefully than he, but there were lines of temper around his eyes and mouth, and a hollow look to his temples that I had learned to distrust.

"Really, Jonas," he said, "we are familiar with your habits and ways of life, but I scarcely think you should bring them here, in your own home, with your sisters and my niece present."

Jonas ignored him, just turning slightly to say, "Orlando Sackett, my brother-in-law, Franklyn Deckrow. When he would destroy a man he does it with red ink, not red blood, with a bookkeeper's pen, not a sword."

Before Deckrow could reply, two women came into the room. They were beautifully gowned, and lovely. "Mr. Sackett, my sister ...

Lily Anne Deckrow."

"My pleasure," I said, bowing a little.

She looked her surprise, but offered her hand.

She was a slender, graceful young woman of not more than thirty, with a pleasant but rather drawn face.

"And my other sister ... Virginia Locklear."

She was dark, and a beauty. She might have been twenty-four, and had the kind of a figure that no dress can conceal, and well she knew it.

Her lips were full, but not too full. Her eyes were dark and warm; there was some of the tempered steel in her that I had recognized in Jonas.

"Mr. Sackett," she asked, "would you take me in to dinner?"

Gin Locklear--for that was how she was known--had a gift for making a man feel important.

Whether it was an art she had acquired, or something natural to her, I did not know, nor did it matter. She rested her hand upon my arm and no king could have felt better.

Then a Negro servant stepped to the door.

"Mr. Cosmo Lengroffwas he said, and I'll be damned if it wasn't the Tinker.

It was he, but a far different Tinker than any I had seen before this, for he wore a black tailored suit that was neatly pressed (he'd bribed a servant to attend to that for him) and a white ruffled shirt with a black string tie. His hair was combed carefully, his mustache trimmed. All in all, he was a dashing and romantic-looking man.

Jonas Locklear was within my range of vision when he turned and saw the Tinker. I swear he looked as if he'd been pin-stuck. He stiffened and his lips went tight, andfora moment I thought he was about to swear. And the Tinker wasn't looking at anybody but Jonas Locklear. I knew that stance ... instant he could pick a steel blade to kill whatever stood before him.

The Tinker bowed from the hips. "After all these years, Captainffwas Virginia Locklear threw a quick, startled look at her brother, and Franklyn Deckrow's expression was tight, expectant.

They were surprised, but no more than I was.

It was the first time I'd heard the Tinker's name, if that was indeed it, nor had I any idea he had that black suit in his pack, or that he could get himself up like that.

Jonas spoke to me without turning his head.

"Were you a party to this? Did you know he knew me?" His tone was unfriendly, to say the least.

"I never even heard his right name before, nor have I known of anybody who knew him outside the mountains."

Not until we were seated did I again become conscious of my appearance. This table was no place for a buckskin hunting shirt, and Deckrow was probably right. I vowed then that this should not happen to me again.

That snip of a Marsha did not so much as glance my way, but Virginia Locklear made up for it. "Virginia does not suit me," she said, in reply to a question about her name. "Call me Gin.

Jonas calls me that, and I prefer it."

The talk about the table was of things of which I knew nothing, and those who spoke might well have talked a foreign tongue for all the good it did me. Fortunately, I had never been one to speak much in company, for I'd seen all too little of it.

I'd no need to be loose-tongued, so I held my silence and listened.

But Gin Locklear would not have it so. She turned to me and began asking me of my father, and then of the cabin where I had lived so long alone. So I told her of the forest and the game I had trapped, and how the Indians built their snares.

"Tell me about your father," she said finally. "I mean ... really tell me about him."

It shamed me that I could say so little. I told her that he was a tall man, four inches taller than my five-ten, and powerful, thirty pounds heavier than my one hundred and eighty.

She looked at me thoughtfully. "I would not have believed you so tall."

"I am wide in the shoulders," I said. "My arms are not long, yet I can reach seventy-six inches--the extra breadth is in my shoulders. I am usually guessed to be shorter than I am.

"Pa," I went on, "was skillful with all sorts of weapons, with horses, too."

"He would be a man to know," she said thoughtfully.

"I think I'd like to know him."

It was not in me to be jealous. She was older than me, and a beautiful woman as well, and I did not fancy myself as a man in whom beautiful women would be interested. I knew none of the things about which they seemed to interest themselves.

Yet, even while talking to Gin, I sensed the strange undercurrent of feeling at the table. At first I believed it was between Jonas and the Tinker, and there was something there, to be sure; but it was Franklyn Deckrow of whom I should have been thinking.

After dinner, we three--Locklear, the Tinker, and I--stood together in Locklear's quarters. Deckrow had disappeared somewhere, and the three of us faced each other. Suddenly all the guards were down.

"All right, Lengro," Locklear said sharply, "you have come here, and not by accident. ...

Why?"

"Gold," the Tinker said simply. "It is a matter of gold, and we have waited too long."

"We?"

"In the old days we were not friends," the Tinker said quietly, "but all that is past. The gold is there, and we know it is there. I say we should drop old hatreds and join forces."

Jonas indicated me. "How much does he know?"

"Very little, I think, but his father knew everything.

His father is the one man alive who knew where it was."

"And is he alive?"

"You," the Tinker said carefully, "might be able to answer that question. Is he alive?"

"If you suggest that I may have killed him, I can answer that. I did not. In fact, he is the one man I have known about whom I have had doubts---

I might not be able to kill him."

"I don't know what you're talking about," I said, "but I am sure my father is alive-- somewhere."

"You told me he planned to come back," the Tinker said. "Do you think he would purposely have stayed away?"

For a moment I considered that in the light of all I knew of him. A hard, dangerous man by all accounts, yet a loving and attentive father and husband. At home I had never heard his voice lifted in anger, had never seen a suggestion of violence from him.

"If he could come," I said, "he would come."

"Then he must be dead," the Tinker said reluctantly.

"Or prevented from returning," Jonas interposed dryly, "as I was for four years."

Far into the night we talked, and much became plain which I had not understood until then--why the Tinker had come to the mountains, and where he had come from; and why, when we reached Jefferson, he had insisted upon turning south instead of continuing on to the west.

I knew now that he had never intended going further west than Texas, and that he had thought of little else for nearly twenty years.

This was 1868 and the War with Mexico lay twenty years behind, but it was during that war that it all began.

Captain Jonas Locklear had sailed from New York bound for the Rio Grande, with supplies and ammunition for the army of General Zachary Taylor. There the cargo would be transshipped to a river steamer and taken upstream nearly two hundred miles to Camargo. The Tinker had been bosun on the ship.

Captain Jonas had run a taut ship, respected but not liked by his crew--and that included the Tinker.

They had dropped the hook first off El Paso de los Brazos de Santiago, the Pass of the Arms of St. James. From there orders took them south a few miles to Boca del Rio, the Mouth of the River--the Rio Grande.

It was there, on their first night at anchor, when all the crew were below asleep except the Captain and the Tinker, that Falcon Sackett emerged from the sea.

The Tinker was making a final check to be sure all gear was in place. The sea was calm, the sky clear. There was no sound anywhere except, occasionally, some sound of music from the cluster of miserable shacks and hovels that was the smugglers' town of Bagdad, on the Mexican side of the river.

Captain Jonas Locklear was wakeful, and he strolled slowly about the deck, enjoying the pleasant night air after the heat of the day.

Both of them heard the shots.

The first shot brought them up sharp, staring shoreward. They could see nothing but the low, dark line. More shots followed--the flash of one of them clearly visible, a good half-mile away.

Then there were shouts, arguments. These were dying down when they heard the sound of oars in oarlocks, and a boat pulled alongside.

There was a brief discussion in Spanish, the Tinker doing the talking. At that time Jonas knew very little Spanish, although later he learned a good deal. There was plenty of time to learn ... in prison.

There were soldiers in the boat. They were looking for an escaped criminal, a renegade. As the boat started to pull away they backed on their oars and the officer in command called back. "There will be a reward ... five hundred pesos ... alive!"

"Whoever he is," the Tinker had said, "they want him badly, to pay that much. And they want him alive. He knows something, Captain."

"That he does," said a voice, speaking from the sea. And then an arm reached up, caught the chains, and pulled its owner from the dark water. He crouched there in the chains for a moment to catch his breath, then reached up and pulled himself to the top of the bowsprit, and came down to the deck. He was a big man, splendidly built, and naked to the waist as well as bare-footed.

"That I do, gentlemen," he had said quietly. "I know enough to make us all rich."

He was talking for his life, or at least for his freedom, and he knew he must catch their attention at once. There on the deck, the water dripping from him, he told them enough to convince them.

And to his arguments he added one even more convincing-- a Spanish gold piece, freshly minted.

By that time they were in the Captain's own cabin, a pot of coffee before them. The stranger dropped the gold coin on the table, then pushed it toward them with his forefinger. "Look at it," he said. "It's a pretty thing--and where that comes from, there's a million of them."

Not a million dollars--a million of such coins, each of them worth many dollars.

There in the cabin of the brig, the three men sat about the Captain's table--Jonas Locklear, the Tinker, and the man who was to become my father, Falcon Sackett. Jonas was the only one who was past twenty-five, but the story they heard that night was to affect a change in all their lives.

Thirty-odd years before, Jean LaFitte, pirate and slave trader, was beating north along the Gulf coast with two heavily laden treasure ships. During a gale one of these ships was driven ashore, its exact position unknown.

LaFitte believed, or professed to believe, that the vessel had gone ashore on Padre Island, that very long, narrow island that parallels many miles of the Gulf coast of Texas. As a matter of fact, the ship had gone ashore some sixty miles south of Padre.

Five men, and five only, made it to shore.

Of these, one died within a matter of hours of injuries sustained during the wreck, and a second was slain by roving Karankawa Indians while struggling through the brush just back from the shore.

The three who reached a settlement were more thirsty than wise. Staggering exhausted into the tiny village, rain-soaked and bedraggled, coming from out of nowhere, they hurried to the cantina, where they proceeded to get roaring drunk on the gold they carried in their pockets.

They woke up in prison.

The commandant at the village was both a greedy and cruel man, and the three drunken sailors carried in their pockets more than three hundred dollars ... a veritable fortune at that place and time.

Upon a coast where tales of buried treasure and lost galleons are absorbed with the milk of the mother, this gold could mean but one thing: the three sailors had stumbled upon such a treasure and could be, by one means or another, persuaded to tell its location.

The commandant had no idea with what kind of men he dealt, for the three were pirates and tough men, accustomed to hardship, pain, and cruelty. They were also realistic. They knew that as soon as the commandant knew what they knew, he would no longer have any need for them. They wanted the gold, and they wanted to live, and both these things were at stake.

So they kept their secret well. They denied knowing anything of pirate treasure ... they had won the money playing cards in Callao, in Peru.

Much of what they were asked could be denied with all honesty, for the commandant was positive they had stumbled upon gold long buried, and never suspected that they themselves might have brought the gold to the shores of Mexico.

Under the torture one man died, and the commandant grew frightened. If the others died, he might never learn their secret. Torture, then, was not the answer.

He would get them drunk. Under the influence, they would talk.

The trouble was, he underestimated their capacity, and overestimated that of himself and his guards. He judged their capacity by the effect of the first drinks, not realizing they had been taken on stomachs three days empty of food.

The result was that he got drunk, his guards got drunk, and the prisoners escaped. And before they escaped they cleaned out the pockets of the commandant and his guards, as well as the office strongbox (their own gold had been hidden elsewhere), and then they fled Mexico.

The border was close and they nearly killed their horses reaching it. Splashing across the Rio Grande, alternately wading or swimming, they arrived in Texas.

The year was 1816.

Texas was still Mexico, so they stole horses and headed northeast for Louisiana. En route one of the three men was killed by Indians, and now only two remained who knew exactly where the gold lay, and each was suspicious of the other.

Knowing where a treasure is, is one thing; going there to get it, quite another. Financing such a wildcat venture is always a problem; moreover, a "cover" is needed in the event the authorities ask what you are doing there. And there is always the question: who can be trusted?

Both men intended to go back at once, either together or each by himself, but neither could manage it.

Both were out of funds, which meant work, and their work was on the sea. So they went to sea, on separate ships, and neither ever saw the other again. Each knew where there was a vast treasure in gold, but it lay upon a lonely coast where strangers were at once known as such, and the local commandant was greedy ... and aware of the treasure's existence.

Then the year was 1846, and General Zachary Taylor had invaded northern Mexico and was winning victories, but was desperately in need of supplies. Steamboats were active on the Rio Grande, ferrying supplies across from the anchorage at Brazos Santiago to the waiting steamboats at Boca del Rio. The steamboats that could navigate off the coast drew too much water for the river, so all goods must be transferred.

In command of one of those waiting boats was Captain Falcon Sackett.

The war with Mexico offered opportunity for any number of adventurers, outlaws, and ne'er-d-wells, who came at once to the mouth of the river--ffMatamoras, Brownsville, Bagdad, and the coastal villages. Two of these were men with one idea: under cover of the disturbance and confusion of war, to slip down to the coast and get away with the gold.

One was the last actual survivor of the original five; the second was the son of the other survivor. The first, Duval, was an old man now. He found his way to Boca del Rio, where he sought out and secured a job as cook on Falcon Sackett's steamboat. Duval was a tough old man, and luckily for the men on the steamboat, an excellent cook.

Eric Stouten was twenty-four, a veteran of several years at sea, and a fisherman for some years before that. But when he found his way to Mexico it was as an enlistee in the cavalry assigned to the command of Captain Elam Kurbishaw.

Striking south on a foraging expedition, Captain Kurbishaw led his men into the village where once, long ago, the survivors from the treasure ship had come. That night, just before sundown, Trooper Stouten requested permission to speak to the commanding officer.

Captain Elam Kurbishaw was a tall, cool, desperate man. A competent field commander, he was also a man ready to listen to just such a proposal as Stouten had to offer.

Within the hour the commandant of the village was arrested, his quarters ransacked, and the old report of the interrogation of the prisoners found. With it was a single gold piece ... kept as evidence that what was recorded there had, indeed, transpired.

The old commandant was dead. The report and the gold piece had been found when the present man took over. A long search had been carried on, covering miles of the coast. Nothing had been found.

The commandant was released; and as he walked away, Elam Kurbishaw, who left nothing to chance, turned and shot him.

A coldly meticulous man, Elam Kurbishaw was fiercely proud of his family, and its background, but well aware that the family fortune, after some years of mismanagement, was dwindling away. He and his two brothers were determined to renew those fortunes, and they had no scruples about how it was to be done.

Alone in his tent, he got out his map case and found a map of the shore line. Military activities concerned inland areas, and his map of the coast was not very detailed. But, studying the map, Kurbishaw was sure he could find the spot from the trooper's description. Laguna de Barril, he was sure, would be the place. But, as was the case of LaFitte's men, he placed the shipwreck too far north.

One other thing Kurbishaw did not know: his bullet had struck through the commandant, felling him, but not killing him. A tough man himself, he survived.

In the quiet of Jonas Locklear's study I heard the story unfold. How little, after all, had I known of my father! How much had even my mother known? That he had gone from the mountains I knew; how long I had never known. Now I learned he had sailed from Charleston in a square-rigger, had been an officer for a time on a river boat at Mobile, and then on the Rio Grande, when Taylor needed river men so desperately.

"Elam never had a chance to look," Jonas explained. "His command was shipped south to General Miles. The way I get it, the trooper remembered the offhand way Kurbishaw had shot the commandant, and again and again he saw Kurbishaw's ruthless way, and he began to regret telling him what he had, and that gave him the idea of deserting. But first he meant to kill Captain Kurbishaw, to let what Elam knew die with him."

After all, why did he need Kurbishaw?

Eric Stouten was a good hand with a boat, a fine swimmer and diver, and the vessel lay in relatively shallow water.

The night before Chapultepec he took his knife and slipped into Kurbishaw's tent. He was lifting the knife when a voice stopped him.

He turned his head, to see two Kurbishaws staring at him ... another lay on the bed.

He cried out, lost his grip on his knife, and started to turn for the door, and the two men shot him.

"How do you know they didn't find the gold themselves?" I asked Locklear.

"They didn't know where to look. The Laguna de Barril is only one of many coves and inlets along that coast.

"The difficulty was, that young trooper had talked far too much. He had, among other things, told of the other man who was still around, the other pirate who had escaped ... and who, he was sure, was now on one of the river boats on the Rio Grande.

"If they could not immediately find the gold, they would fix it so nobody else would, and they tried to murder old Duval. That brought your father into the fight, and his first run-in with the Kurbishaws. I don't know the circumstances, but when they tried to kill Duval, Falcon Sackett put a bullet into one of them, and then Duval told Falcon his story."

Bit by bit the story emerged, and bit by bit our own plans came into being. After that hot night in Jonas' cabin none of them ever gave up going back, and after my father disappeared, the Tinker hunted for him, and Jonas, too. Neither had any luck until Will Caffrey began to spend pa's gold, and Tinker followed the trail of that Spanish gold from Charleston to the mountains.

The Kurbishaws also traced the gold, and decided to kill me for fear I might go after it.

"Cortina has controlled that area off and on for years," Jonas said, "and many of his subordinates have been thieves or worse; however, nobody wants to see that much gold slipping through their fingers.

"After that talk in the cabin of my steamboat," he continued, "we waited until the time was right, and then slipped down there to look.

"The water in many places was shallow, there were many sand bars, and their location changed with each heavy blow. Twice we went aground, several times we were fired upon. Then the war ended and we had no further excuse to be in the vicinity; and the local authorities, knowing something was hidden there, suspected everybody.

"Your father actually found the wreck and got away with some of the gold--got away, I might add, because he was uncommonly agile and gifted with nerve. And he tried to find us."

The Tinker glanced at me. "Had it been me I doubt I should have tried to find anybody, but it was Falcon Sackett, and he is a different man in every way."

Out of our talking a plan emerged. Jonas Locklear must, in any event, go to the ranch he owned on the Gulf coast. We would go with him, and then we would go to Mexico to buy cattle for a drive to Kansas, and to restock the ranch. This might call for several trips.

In this cattle-buying I should have to take first place, for either Jonas or the Tinker might be recognized, and to stay over a few hours south of the border would invite disaster.

Arrangements could be made by letter for me to pick up the herd, and then I would start north, holding them near the coast. Jonas and the Tinker would join me as cowhands, riding with other cowhands. When we had the herd close by where the treasure was believed to be, we would camp ... and find our gold.

It was simple as that. Nobody, we believed, would suspect a cattleman of hunting for gold.

It was a good cover, and we could find no flaws in it. There was water for cattle in brackish pools, there was good grass, so the route was logical.

"Are you sure," the Tinker asked me, "that your father left nothing to guide you to the ship?

No map? No directions?"

"He gave me nothing when he left, and if there was a map he may have wanted it himself."

Jonas rose. "My brother-in-law may question you. You have hired to work on my ranch, that is all."

"It is settled then?" the Tinker asked.

"To Mexico?"

"How about it, Sackett?"

"Well," I said, "I never saw much gold, and always allowed as how I'd like to. This seems to be a likely chance." I shook hands with them.

"I only hope," I added, "that I'm half the man my father must have been."

Chapter Four.

We fetched up to the ranch house shy of sundown. We'd been riding quite a spell of days, and while never much on riding, I had been doing a fair country job of it by the time we hauled rein in front of that soddy.

For that was what it was, a sod house and no more.

Jonas Locklear had cut himself a cave out of a hillside and shored it up with squared timbers.

Then he had built a sod house right up against it, built in some bunks, and there it was.

Only Locklear had been gone for some time, and when we fetched up in front of that soddy the door opened and a man came out.

He was no taller than me, but black-jawed and sour-looking. He wore a tied-down gun, and some folks would have decided from that he was a gunman. Me, I'd seen a few gunfighters, and they wore their guns every which way.

"I'm Locklear. I own this place. Who are you?"

The man just looked at him, and then as a second man emerged, the first one said, "Says he owns this place. Shall we tell it to him quick?"

"Might's well."

"All right." His eyes went from Locklear to the Tinker, and he said, "You don't own this place no more, Mr. Locklear. We do. We found it abandoned, we moved in. It's ours, we're givin' you until full dark to get off the place. The ranch stretches for ten miles thataway, so you'd best make a fast start."

Before Jonas could make reply, I broke in. Something about this man got in my craw and stuck there, and so I said, "You heard Jonas Locklear speak. This here ranch is deeded and proper, and not open to squatters. You gave us till full dark. Well, we ain't givin' you that much time. You got just two minutes to make a start."

His gun showed up. I declare, he got that thing out before I could so much as have it in mind.

"You draw fast," I said, "but you still got to shoot it, and before you kill me dead, I'll have lead in you. I'll shoot some holes in you, believe me. Now you take Cullen. When he was teaching me, he said--"

"Who? Who did you say?"

"Cullen"--I kept my face bland--

"Cullen Baker. Now, when he was teaching me to draw, he said to--"

"Cullen Baker taught you to draw?" He looked around warily. "He ridin' with you?"

"He camps with us," I said. "What he does meanwhile I've no idea. Him an'

Longley an' Lee, they traipse around the country a good deal. Davis police, they've been hustling Cullen some, so he said to me, "South, that's the place. We'll go south."'"

This black-jawed man looked from me to the Tinker, and then he sort of backed up and said, "I'd no idea you was with Cullen Baker. I want no trouble with him, or any outfit he trails with."

"You've got a choice," I said, "Brownsville or Corpus Christi. When the rest of them get here, I figure to have coffee on. Cullen sets store by fresh black coffee."

They lit out, and after they had gone, the Tinker looked over at Jonas. "Did you ever see the like? Looks right down a gun barrel and talks them out of it."

"Cullen did camp with us," I said, "and there's no question that he liked our coffee."

Took us until midnight to clean that place out, but we did it. And then we turned in to sleep.

Sunup found us scouting around the range.

Seemed like there was grass everywhere but no cattle, and then we did come on some cows and bulls in a draw, maybe twenty-five or thirty of them lazing in the morning sun. These were wild cattle. Owned cattle, mind you, but they'd run wild all their lives and were of no mind to be trifled with.

A longhorn is like nothing else you ever saw.

If a man thinks he knows cattle, he should look over a longhorn first of all. The longhorn developed from cattle turned loose on the plains of Texas, growing up wild and caring for themselves; andforthe country they were in, no finer or fiercer creature ever lived. There were some tough old mossy-horns in that outfit that would weigh sixteen hundred pounds or better, and when they held their heads up they were taller than our horses. They were mean as all get out, and ready to take after you if they caught you afoot.

Believe me, a man needed a six-shooter and needed to get it into action fast if one of those big steers came for him.

Times had changed in Texas. When the Tinker and Locklear had been here before, cattle were worth about two dollars a head, and no takers, but now they were driving herds up the Shawnee Trail to the Kansas railheads and paying five and six dollars a head, selling them in Kansas at anywhere from eighteen to thirty dollars each. A trail drive was a money-making operation, if a man got through.

"Tinker," I said, "if we want to get rich in these western lands we should round up a few head and start to Kansas."

He grunted at me, that was all. Treasure was on his mind--bright, yellow gold with jewels and ivory and schlike. I'll not claim it didn't set me to dreaming myself, but I am a practical man and there's nothing more practical than beef on the hoof when folks are begging for it on the fire.

We rode down into a little draw and there was a jacal, a Mexican hut. Around it was fenced garden space and a corral. As we rode up, I sighted a rifle barrel looking at us over a window sill, and the man who appeared in the doorway wore a belt gun. He was a tall, wiry Mexican, handsome but for a scar on his jaw.

The instant his eyes touched Locklear he broke into a smile.

"Se@nor! Juana, the se@nor is back!"

The gun muzzle disappeared and a very pretty girl came to the door, shading her eyes at us.

"Tinker, Sackett ... this is Miguel," Locklear said. "We are old friends."

They shook hands, and when Miguel offered his to me I took it and looked into the eyes of a man.

I knew it would be good to have Miguel with us. There was pride and courage there, and something that told me that when trouble came, this man would stand.

This I respected, forof myself I was not sure.

Every man wishes to believe that when trouble appears he will stand up to it, yet no man knows it indeed before it happens.

When trouble came at the river's crossing, I had faced up to it with the Tinker beside me, but it had happened too quickly for me to be frightened. And what if I had been alone?

Jonas and the Tinker were impressed by the bluff I worked on the man at the sod house, but I was not. To talk is easy, but what would I have done if he had fired? Would I indeed have been able to draw and return the fire?

My uncertainty was growing as I looked upon the fierce men about me, tough, experienced men who must many times have faced trouble. They knew themselves and what they would do, and I did not.

Would I stand when trouble came? Would I fight, or would I freeze and do nothing? I had heard tales of men who did just that, men spoken ofwith contempt, and these very tales helped to temper me against the time of danger.

Another thing was in my mind when I was lying ready for sleep, or was otherwise alone.

After the meeting with the man at the sod house I had known, deep down within me, that I would never be fast with a gun--at least, not fast enough.

Despite all my practice, I had come to a point beyond which I could not seem to go.

This was something I could not and dared not speak of. But at night, or after we started the ride south for Matamoras, I tried to think it out.

Practice must continue, but now I must think always of just getting my gun level and getting off that first shot. That first shot must score, and I must shape my mind to accept the fact that I must fire looking into a blazing gun. I must return that fire even though I was hit.

South we rode, morning, noon, and night.

South down the Shawnee Trail in moonlight and in sun, and all along the trail were herds of cattle--a few hundred, a few thousand, moving north for Kansas with their dust clouds to mark the way. We heard the prairie wind and the cowboy yells, and at night the prairie wolves that sang the moon out of the sky.

We smelled the smoke of the fires, endured the heat of the crowded bodies of the herd, and often of a night we stopped and yarned with the cowboys, sharing their fires and their food and exchanging fragments of news, or of stories heard.

There were freight teams, too. These were jerk-line outfits with their oxen or horses stretched out ahead of them hauling freight from Mexico or taking it back.

And there were free riders, plenty of them.

Tough, hard-bitten men, armed and ready for trouble.

Cow outfits returning home from Kansas, bands of unreconstructed renegades left over from the war, occasional cow thieves and robbers.

Believe me, riding in Texas had taught me there was more to the West than just wagon trains and cattle drives. Folks were up to all sorts of things, legal and otherwise, and some of them forking the principle. That is, they sat astraddle of it, one foot on the legal side, the other on the illegal, and taking in money with both hands from both sides. Such business led to shooting sooner or later.

South we rode, toward the borderlands.

Our second day we overtook a fine coach and six elegant horses, with six outriders, tough men in sombreros, with Winchesters ready to use.

"Only one man would have such a carriage,"

Jonas said. "It will be Captain Richard King, owner of the ranch on Santa Gertrudis."

An outrider recognized Jonas and called out to him, and when King saw Jonas he had the carriage draw up. It was a hot, still morning and the trailing dust cloud slowly closed in and sifted fine red dust over us all.

"Jonas," King said, "my wife, Henrietta. Henrietta, this is Jonas Locklear."

Richard King was a square-shouldered, strongly built man with a determined face. It was a good face, the face of a man who had no doubts. I envied him.

"King was a steamboat captain on the Rio Grande," the Tinker explained to me in a low voice, "and after the Mexican War he bought land from Mexicans who now lived south of the border and could no longer ranch north of the line."

Later the Tinker told me more: how King had bought land from others who saw no value in grassland where Indians and outlaws roamed. One piece he bought was fifteen thousand acres, at two cents an acre.

Instead of squatting on land like most of them were doing, King had cleared title to every piece he bought. There was a lot of land to be had for cash, but you had to be ready to fight for anything you claimed, and not many wanted to chance it.

Brownsville was the place where we were to separate. At that time it was a town of maybe three thousand people, but busy as all get out. From here Miguel and I would go on alone.

Looking across toward Mexico, I asked myself what sort of fool thing I was getting into.

Everybody who had anything to do with that gold had come to grief.

Nevertheless, I was going. Pa had a better claim to that gold than any man, and I aimed to have a try at it. And while I was going primed for trouble, I wasn't hunting it.

First off, I'd bought a new black suit and hat, as well as rougher clothes for riding. I picked out a pair of fringed shotgun chaps and a dark blue shirt. Then I bought shells for a new Henry rifle. The rifle itself cost me $43, and I bought a thousand rounds of .44's for $21.

That same place I picked up a box of .36-31liber bullets for my pistol at $1.20 per hundred.

That Henry was a proud rifle. I mean it could really shoot. Men I'd swear by said it was accurate at one thousand yards, and I believed them. It carried eighteen bullets fully loaded.

My mare I'd left back at Miguel's place. Her time was close and she would need care.

Miguel's woman was knowing thataway, so the mare was in good hands.

About noontime Miguel and me shook hands with the Tinker and Jonas, and then we crossed over the river and went into Matamoras.

My horse was a line-back dun, tough and trail wise. Miguel was riding a sorrel, and we led one pack horse, a bald-faced bay.

We put up at a livery stable and I started up the street after arranging to meet Miguel at a cantina near the stable.

One thing I hadn't found to suit me was a good belt knife, and the Tinker wasn't about to part with one of his. I went into a store and started looking over some Bowie knives, and finally found one to please me--not that it was up to what the Tinker could do.

I paid for the knife, and then ran my belt through the loop on the scabbard and hitched it into place.

A moment there, I paused in the doorway. And that pause kept me from walking right into trouble.

Standing not ten feet away, on the edge of the boardwalk, was Duncan Caffrey!

He was facing away from me and I could see only the side of his face and his back, but I'd not soon forget that nose. I had fixed it the way it was.

No sooner had I looked at him than my eyes went to the man he spoke with, and I felt a little chill go down my spine. I was looking right into a pair of the blackest, meanest, cruelest eyes I ever did see.

The man wore a stovepipe hat and a black coat. His face was long, narrow, and deep-lined.

He wore a dirty white shirt and a black tie that looked greasy, even at the distance.

Stepping outside, I walked slowly away in the opposite direction, my skin crawling because I felt they were looking at me. Yet when I reached the corner and looked back, they were still talking, paying me no mind.

Never before had I seen that man in the stovepipe hat, but I knew who he was.

The Bishop.

It had to be him. He had been described to me more than once, and he'd been mentioned by Caffrey that night when the Tinker and me listened from the brush.

Now, nobody needed to tell me that there's such a thing as accident, or coincidence, as some call it. I've had those things happen to me, time to time, but right at that moment I wouldn't buy that as a reason for Dun and the Bishop being in Matamoras. Whatever they were here for was connected with me. That much I was sure of and nothing would shake it.

Right there I had an idea of going back to Brownsville and telling the Tinker and Jonas.

Trouble was, they'd think I was imagining things, or scaring out, or something like that.

What I did do was head for the cantina where I dropped into a chair across the table from Miguel and said, "Enjoy that drink, because we're pulling out--tn."

"Tonight?"

"Soon as ever we can make it without drawing eyes to us."

Sitting there at the table, I drank a glass of beer and told him why. Even down here they had heard of the Bishop, so Miguel was ready enough.

"One thing," he said, "we must ride with great care, for there was ^w that a prisoner escaped from prison and is at large to the south of here. They believe he will come to the border, and the soldiers search for him."

It was past midnight when we walked through the circle of lemon light under the livery-stable lantern. The hostler sat asleep against the wall, his serape about his shoulders. Music tinkled from the cantina ... there was a smell of hay, andof fresh manure, of leather harness, andof horses.

As we walked our horses from the stable I leaned over and dropped a peso in the lap of the hostler.

Riding past the cantina, I glanced back.

I thought I saw, in a dark doorway next to the cantina, the boot-toes and the tip of a hat belonging to a very tall man. I could have been mistaken.

We rode swiftly from the town. The night was quiet except for the insects that sang in the brush. A long ride lay before us. The cattle about which we had inquired were at a ranch southwest of Santa Teresa ... the gold lay somewhere off the coast we would parallel.

So far as we knew, pa was the only man who knew exactly where that sunken ship lay. The Kurbishaws had killed the man who told them of it, thinking they could find it from the description.

Captain Elam Kurbishaw's only map that showed the coast was vague, and had indicated only one inlet on that stretch of coast, where actually there were several. More to the point, there was a long stretch of coast that lay behind an outlying sand bar.

If the ship had succeeded in getting through one of the openings in the shore line, it would be lost in a maze of inlets, channels, and bays. Looking for it would be like looking for one cow that bawled in a herd of five thousand.

"Soldiers may stop us," Miguel warned. "It is well to give them no displeasure, for the soldiers can be worse than bandidos."

As we rode along, my mind kept thinking back to Gin Locklear and that snippy little Marsha.

Marsha was fourteen ... she'd be up to marrying in maybe two years, and I pitied the man who got her. As for Gin, she was older than me, but she was a woman to take a man's eye, and to talk a man's tongue, too. It was no wonder Jonas set such store by her.

It lacked only a little of daybreak when we turned off the trail into the brush. We went maybe half a mile off the traveled way before we found a hollow where there was grass and a trickle of water. We staked out the horses and bedded down for sleep. Miguel took no time about it, but sleep was long in coming to me.

Thoughts kept going round in my mind, and pa was in the middle of them. I thought how pa was always teaching me things. Had he maybe taught me where that gold was, and me not knowing?

And then my mind was sorting out memories and feeling the sadness they brought.

Ma was gone. ... Pa? Who could ever know about pa? Those were bad days for travelers and folks who went a-yondering. Chances were the Bald Knobbers had got him ... or somebody from ambush.

I'd never believe it was the Kurbishaws.

Chapter Five.

We saw no more of the Bishop or the Kurbishaws on the trail in the next few days.

We found Santa Teresa a sleepy, pleasant Mexican village, with hens scratching in the street, and the best tortillas I'd eaten up to then, or for a long time after.

The hacienda where I bargained forand bought three hundred head of cattle was another pleasant place, and when we started the cattle back toward the border they loaned me three vaqueros to help until my own hands joined us--they were to meet us in camp just north of Santa Teresa.

The range from which we bought our cattle had been overstocked and the cattle were thin, but they showed an immediate liking for the grass of the coast land and its plentiful salt. We were four days driving from the hacienda to the camp north of Santa Teresa, but when we reached the camp there was no one there.

Here the vaqueros were to leave us, and here we must hold our stock until help came from the north. Five men could handle three hundred head without too much trouble when they were intent upon stuff+ their lean bellies with good grass, but from there on it would be more difficult.

Scarcely were we camped, with a fire going, when we heard a rush of horses and suddenly our camp was surrounded by soldiers, their rifles leveled on us.

Their officer was a lean and savage man. He rode around the herd, inspecting the brands, then he wheeled up to the fire.

"Who is in charge here?" he asked in Spanish.

Miguel gestured to me. "The Americano.

We have bought the cattle from Se@nor Ulloa.

We drive them to Texas."

"You are lying!"

"No, se@nor," one of the vaqueros spoke up quickly. "I am of the hacienda of Ulloa.

Three of us have ridden with the cattle to this point.

Here their own riders join them. It is of truth, se@nor."

The officer looked at me, his eyes cold and unfriendly. "Your name?"

"Orlando, se@nor." It seemed possible he might have heard the name Sackett, although it would have been long ago.

He studied me without pleasure. "Do you know Se@nor King?"

"We spoke with him two days ago. He was driving to Brownsville with the se@nora."

King was well thought of on both sides of the border, and to know him seemed the wise thing.

He considered the situation a bit, then said:

"One thing, se@nor. A prisoner has escaped. We want him. If you should come upon him, seize him at once and send a rider for me. Anyone rendering assistance to him will be shot."

Without further ^ws, he wheeled his horse.

When they had ridden away, the vaquero turned to me, his expression grave. "Se@nor, that was Antonio Herrara--a very bad man.

Avoid him if you can."

They were packing to leave, and seemed more than anxious to get away, and I couldn't find it in my heart to go a-blaming them. Surely, this was no trouble of theirs.

After they had gone there was nothing we could do but ride herd on our cattle, and wait.

Sometimes a man is a fool, and I had a feeling that when I left my mare to go traipsing after gold money I'd been more of a fool than most. I'd sure enough be lying if I said I wasn't scared, for that Herrara shaped up like a mean man, and we were in his country where he was the law.

Miguel took the first ride around, bunching the cattle for night. They seemed willing enough to rest, being chock full of good grass like they were. Me, I kept looking up trail toward the border and a-hoping for those riders.

What if Jonas and the Tinker couldn't make it? What if Herrara spotted them as escaped prisoners themselves?

"Miguel," I said, when he stopped by on his circling, "come daybreak we're pushing on, riders or no riders. We're going to head for the border."

He nodded seriously. "It is wise, amigo. That Herrara, he is a bad man."

The place where we were was a meadow four, five miles out of Santa Teresa and on an arm of the sea. There was brush around, and some marshy land.

"That prisoner," Miguel said, "he will not be taken easily. He killed a guard in escaping, and he has been much tortured. It is said, se@nor"--Miguel paused expressively--?t he was believed to know something of a treasure."

"A treasure?" I asked mildly.

"Si, se@nor. It is a treasure much talked of, a treasure of the pirate, LaFitte. For thirty years and more men have sought it along the shore to the north. Most of all, Antonio Herrara and his father, the commandant of this area."

What could a man say to that? Only it made me itch all the more to get that herd moving.

"Miguel, an hour before daylight we will start the herd. Twenty miles tomorrow."

"It is a long drive, se@nor," he said doubtfully.

"Twenty miles--no less."

When the moon lifted, the cattle rose to stretch their legs and move around. Far off, there was a sound of coyotes, and closer by we could hear the rustle of the surf. The waters of the Laguna Madre were close by, the sea itself lay out beyond the bar, at least twenty-five miles away.

Miguel came in and, after coffee, turned in. Mounting the dun, I circled the cattle, singing softly to let them know that they were not alone, and that the shadow they saw moving was me. Nevertheless, there was a restlessness in them I could not explain, but I put it down to my ignorance of cattle.

With the first gray of dawn I stopped by to wake up Miguel.

He sat up and put on his hat, then pulled on his boots. He reached for the big, fire-blackened coffee pot, and shook it in surprise. "You drink much coffee, se@nor."

"One cup," I said. "I was afraid to stop for more. Something was bothering the cattle."

He emptied out the pot into his cup. "There were at least five cups in this, amigo. No less, certainly. I made the coffee myself, and know what we drank. It is a pot for ten men."

"Pack up," I said, "let's move 'em."

They seemed willing enough to go, and an old blue-roan steer moved out and took the lead, as he had done all the way from the hacienda.

As they moved, they fed; and we let them for the first two or three hours. Then we stepped up the speed a bit, because both of us wanted distance between us and last night's camp.

Most of the time I rode with a hand ready to grab a gun. From time to time I reached for that Walch Navy, and the butt had a mighty friendly feeling.

Nothing feels better when trouble shapes than the butt of a good pistol.

We kept scanning the trail ahead, hoping for a sign of our riders. Lucky for us the cattle seemed to want to get away from that place as much as we did.

There were no trees. Meadows of grass appeared here and there, and sometimes there'd be grass for miles, but between the trail and the sea there was a regular forest of brush. Here and there were signs that the sea had on occasion even come this far. The last time must have been the great hurricane of 1844.

If there had been another of such power since, we hadn't heard of it, but the one of #'dd was well known.

The cattle drifted steadily. The heat rising from their bunched bodies was as stifling as the dust.

Only once in a while did one of the steers cut loose and try to stray from the column. But for two riders it was too many cattle, and our horses would soon be worn to nothing.

Off to the right was the sea ... that was east. As far as we were from it, I turned again and again to look that way, for though we had been close a time or two, I had never yet seen the ocean. It gave a man an odd feeling to known all the miles upon miles of water that lay off there.

Somewhere out there, lying on the bottom close in to shore, was a ship loaded with gold and silver, with gems maybe, and schlike. Pa had found it and brought gold from it, and pa must have come back again after he left me. It would be like him to let on he was going for fur, then to trail south where the gold was. Why trap for skins, when the price of thousands of them lay off that coast in shallow water?

It set a man to sweating, just to think of that much gold. It had never really got to me until now.

And after all, that was what we'd come for. We hadn't really come for a few hundred scrawny Mexican steers. ... I wondered how long it would take that Herrara to figure that out.

Not that a few folks weren't buying Mexican stock. With the prices offered in the railhead towns, it was a caution what folks would do to lay hands on a few steers.

But this gold, now. LaFitte, he wasn't only a pirate and slave trader, he was a blacksmith in New Orleans with a shop where slaves did the work, and he and his brother ... now how did I know that?

Had the Tinker mentioned it? Or Jonas?

Jonas, probably, when we were talking. Yet the notion stayed with me that I'd heard it before.

Now I was imagining things. I couldn't call to mind any mention of Jean LaFitte--not before we came up to that plantation house after leaving San Augustine. Not before we met Jonas.

The dun was streaked with sweat and I could tell by the way he moved that he was all in. We hadn't come twenty miles, either. Not by a long shot.

Miguel dropped back beside me, and that horse of his looked worse than mine.

"Se@nor," he said, "we must stop."

"All right," I said, "but not for the night. We'll take ourselves a rest and then push on."

He looked at me, then shrugged. I knew what he was thinking. If we kept on like this we'd be driving those cattle afoot. We should have a remuda, and Jonas was supposed to be bringing one south. We weren't supposed to drive these cattle not even a foot after the vaqueros left us.

We turned the herd into a circle and stopped them where the grass was long and a trickle of water made a slow way, winding across the flatland toward the dunes that marked the lagoon's edge.

We found a few sticks and nursed a fire into boiling water for coffee. Miguel hadn't anything to say. Like me, he was dead beat. But I noticed something: like me, he had wiped his guns free of dust and checked the working mechanism.

"I ain't going to no prison," I said suddenly. "I just ain't a-honing for no cell.

That there Herrara wants me, he's got to get me the hard way."

"We have no chance," Miguel said.

"You call it then," I said. "Do we fight?"

"We try to run. We try to dodge. When we can no longer do either, we shoot." He grinned at me, and suddenly the coffee tasted better.

I don't know why I was so much on the shoot all to once, but lately I'd heard so many stories of what happened in those prisons that I just figured dying all to once would be better.

Besides, I didn't like that Herrara, and I might get him in my sights. Why, a man who could bark a squirrel could let wind through his skull.

That's what I told myself.

Besides, I hadn't shot that Henry .44 at anything. Nor the Walch Navy, as far as that went.

We lay by the trail for three, four hours.

We rubbed our horses down good, we led them to water, we let them eat that good grass. And afws we saddled again, and mounted up.

The steers were against it. They'd had enough for the day, and were showing no sign of wanting to go further. We cut this one and that one a slap with our riatas, and finally they lined out for Texas.

You don't take a herd nowhere in a hurry.

Not unless they take a notion to stampede. Maybe eight to ten miles is a good day, with a few running longer than that. We'd been dusting along since four o'clock in the morning and it was past four in the evening now. When they first started, they fed along the way, so we'd made slow time.

All I wanted was a little more distance. If we could get where I wanted to hold up, we'd be about twenty-five miles or so from the border.

If a difficulty developed, I figured I could run that far afoot with enough folks a-shooting after me. Anyway, I'd be ready to give it a try. I kept in mind that I'd no particular want to see the inside of one of Mr. Herrara's jail cells.

I was a lover, not a fighter. That's what I said to myself, though I'd no call to claim either.

I was only judging where my interest lay.

My thoughts went to Gin Locklear--what a woman! I'd blame no man setting his cap for her, although the way I figured, it would take some stand-up sort of man to lay a rope on her.

That Marsha now ... she was only a youngster, and a snippy one, but if she went on the way she'd started she might take after Gin ... and I could think of nothing in woman's clothes it would be better for a girl to take after.

Shy of midnight we held up near salt water, with high brush growing around, and not more than four miles or so off was the tiny village of Guadalupe. Right close was a long arm of the Gulf.

"We will camp here," I said. "There is fresh water from a spring near the knoll over there."

Miguel looked at me strangely. "How does it happen that you know this?" he asked.

"Se@nor Locklear said you had never been to Mexico."

"I--" I started to answer him, to say I know not what, perhaps to deny that I had been here or knew anything about it. Yet I did know.

Or did I? Supposing there was no spring there? How much had Locklear said?

The spring was there, and Locklear had said nothing about it. I knew that when I looked at the spring, for there, in a huge old timber that was down, there were initials carved. And carved in a way I'd seen only once before, that being in the mountains of Tennessee.

FSct Just like that ... carved there plain as day, like pa had carved them on that old pine near the house.

He had been here, all right. Miguel did not notice the initials, or if he did he paid them no mind. I doubt if he would have connected them with Falcon Sackett, and I was not sure how much had been told him. Something, of course ... but not all.

Believe me, those steers were ready to bed down.

We bunched them close for easy holding, and they scarcely took time to crop a bait of grass before they tucked their legs under them and went to chewing cud and sleeping.

Miguel wasn't much behind them. "Turn in,"

I said, "and catch yourself some shut-eye. I'll stand watch."

It wasn't in him to argue, he was that worn-out.

Me, I was perked up, and I knew why. Pa had told me of this place, and I'd forgotten.

Yet it had been lying back there in memory, and probably I'd been driving right for this place without giving it thought.

Now the necessary thing was to recollect just what it was pa had told me. He surely wouldn't tell me the part of it without he told me all.

When had he told me? Well, that went back a mite. Had to be before I was ten, the way I figured. He rode off when I was eleven and ma had been sick for some time before that, and he was doing mighty little talking to me aside from what was right up necessary.

It wasn't as if he'd told me one or two stories. He was forever yarning to me, and probably when he told me this one he'd stressed detail, he'd told it over and over again to make me remember. Somehow I was sure of that now.

Maybe I'd been plain tired out by the story.

Maybe it hadn't seemed to have much point, but the fact was that he must have told me where the treasure was, and all I had to do was let my memory take me there.

Thing was, suppose it didn't come to me right off? I'd have to stay, and I'd need explanation for that. The fast drive we'd made would help. I could let on I didn't know much about cattle; and if anybody who talked cows to me did so more than a few minutes, they'd know I didn't know anything about them.

So I'd let on like I'd driven the legs off the cattle, to say nothing of our horses, and we were laying up alongside this water to recuperate.

That much decided, the next thing was to get my memory to operating. But the difficulty with a memory is that it doesn't always operate the way a body wants. Seems contrary as all get out, and when you want to remember a particular thing, that idea is shunted off to one side.

Rousting around, I got some sticks, some dead brush, and a few pieces of driftwood left from storms, and I made a fire. Then I put water on for coffee.

All of a sudden I felt my skin prickle, and I looked over at the dun. Tired as he was, he had his head up and his ears pricked. His nostrils were spreading and narrowing as he tried the air to see what it was out there.

That old Walch Navy was right there in my belt, and I eased it out a mite so's it was ready to hand.

Something was out there.

Me, I never was one to believe in ha'nts.

Not very much, that is. Fact is, I never believed in them at all, only passing a graveyard like--well, I always walked pretty fast and felt like something was closing in on me.

No, I don't believe in ha'nts, but this here was a coast where dead men lay. Why, the crew of the gold ship must have been forty, fifty men, and all of them dead and gone.

Something was sure enough out there. That line-back dun knew it and I knew it. Trouble was, he had the best idea of what it was, and he wasn't talking. He was just scenting the air and trying to figure out for sure. Whatever it was, he didn't like it--I could tell that much. And I didn't either.

I felt like reaching over and shaking Miguel awake, only he'd think I was spooked. And you know something? I was.

This here was country where folks didn't come of a night, if at any time. It was a wild, lonely place, and there was nothing to call them.

I taken out that Walch Navy and, gripping it solid, I held it right there in my lap with the firelight shining on it. And you can just bet I felt better.

Out there beyond the fire I suddenly heard the sand scrooch. You know how sand goes under foot sometimes. Kind of a crunch, yet not quite that.

Heard it plain as day, and I lifted that .36 and waited.

Quite a spell passed by, and all of a sudden the dun, who'd gone back to feeding, upped with his head again. Only this time he was looking off toward the trail from the north, and he was all perked up like something interesting was coming. Not like before.

He had his ears up and all of a sudden he whinnied--and sure enough, from out of the darkness there came another whinny. And then I heard the sound of a horse coming, and Miguel, he sat up.