Sackett

"Most times we haven't dared have a light," Rugger said. "They've been pot-shooting around here at night."

"Put the light out."

For a few minutes I sat there, scared to death. That old man looked bad off, mighty bad off. We hadn't been together long, but I'd come to be fond of him. He was a solid, true-blue old man.

"They ambushed him ... four, five of them. They shot him out of his saddle and then went hunting him like an animal. Only Cap was clear conscious and he let them come in close where he couldn't miss. He killed two and the rest took off like scared pole-cats."

"Where's he hit?"

"Missed the lung, I think. Took him high, but he lost a lot of blood before he got here. I didn't know of it until the next morning. Then I came right up.

"When they came to finish him off, I stopped them before they could get to the trees. Cap, he came out of it and managed to get off a shot . . . they think he's in better shape than he is."

I walked outside and stood under the trees. If that old man died I'd hunt every man-jack of them down and gut-shoot them.

By now they had seen Kitch and they knew I was back. If I knew that crowd over there, tonight they would argue, they would threaten, and they would make wartalk, but unless I was completely wrong, they wouldn't come down here in the dark. Not after what happened to Kitch. Tomorrow I could expect trouble.

However I would be ready, and if they wanted it tonight instead of tomorrow, they could have it.

Last thing I'd wanted was trouble, but they'd called the turn, and now they would get a bellyful of it. If they wanted to start the town with a line of graves in boot hill, it would be that way.

Joe Rugger came up behind me. "You want I should ride south for Orrin and Tyrel?"

"No, sir. No, I don't. This here is myself, and I don't think there's going to be enough of it to go around."

They could have forty-eight hours. Then I was riding down.

Chapter X

Morning broke with an overcast sky and a hint of rain, and rain worried me because down here rain could mean snow in the mountains where the gold was.

First off, I walked out to the edge of the timber that surrounded our camp and looked toward the town site. There were several tents, one building already up, and a couple more on the way.

Nobody seemed to be pulling out.

Joe Rugger was squatting over the fire with a long fork, working on some venison steaks. Ange was helping him, but when she looked at me her eyes were bleak and frightened.

Not that I could blame her. It must have come as a shock to come out of the peace of those hills and run into a gunfight . . . and my way of doing things must have been a shock. Folks who live sheltered or quiet lives, away from violent men, have no idea how they have to be dealt with. And I never was one to stand around and talk mean ... if there's fighting to be done the best thing is have at it and get it over with.

Those men at the town site had had their warning, and I gave them time to think about it. In any such number of men a few of them with nerve will stand up to trouble; they will be tough, resolute men. A few will be talkers willing to ride along with the crowd; a few will be camp-followers ready to pick up the leavings of stronger men. And of course, there is always the kind who is himself a tough man, if given leadership.

Such a warning as I had given was apt to thin their ranks somewhat. A few of the camp-followers would shy from trouble, and some of the talkers would make an excuse and ride out.

Cap was in bad shape. He had lost a lot of blood, like Rugger said, and he was a thin, tough old man without too much blood in him. He ran mostly to bone and sinew.

It scared me when I looked at him. His cheeks were sunken in and his eyes were hollow. He looked a sight

"Ange," I said, "will you see what you can do for him?"

"Yes."

"Ange, I'm sorry about last night."

"You didn't have to shoot those men. That was wicked! It was an awful thing!"

"They were mighty bad men. They came out there to kill me, Ange."

"I don't believe it. They were just talking."

"Ange, when men carry guns they don't just talk about killing. When a man mentions killing, and has in his hands or on his person the means to kill, then you have a right to believe he means to do what he says. I've helped bury a few men who tried to argue at times like that."

Ange wasn't doing any trading on that land of talk. She walked away from me and left me standing, and all that sort of nice feeling between us was gone.

Only girl I ever felt likely to care for, and she would have none of me.

And after I did what I would have to do, she was going to like me even less. But the fact of the matter is, no man can shape his life according to woman's thinking. Nor should any woman try to influence a man toward her way. There must be give and take between them, but when a man faces a man's problems he has to face them a man's way.

We had come up here asking trouble of no one. We had staked a claim, measured out a town site, and staked out building sites. We had cut timber and prepared to build; and then strangers came in, jumped our town site, and tried to jump our claim. They had shot Cap, and they had tried to kill me.

Nobody talked much over breakfast. After breakfast I taken Blackstone and sat down under a tree where I could watch that town site, and I read. Reading was not easy for me, but I hooked both spurs in the girth and settled down for a long ride, determined not to let it throw me. When words showed up that wore an unfamiliar brand, I passed them by and went on, but usually they made sense to me after some study.

After an hour I toted my book back to camp and, rounding up a pick and shovel, headed for the creek.

Cap had sunk a shaft to bedrock and started a cleanup. Going down into the shaft I widened it out a mite and got out some gravel. At the edge of the stream I went to work with the pan, filling it with gravel, dipping it into the water, and starting the water swirling to wash the sand over the edge. I found color, but not much.

Several times I walked to the edge of the woods. Noon came and I could see no sign of work around the town, so evidently they were drinking and talking. Cap was breathing easier, and Ange was feeding him when I came into camp, but she paid me no mind and I sat down to eat what there was.

If they made an all-out attack on us, we might be able to hold them off, but if we had to get out of there our only chance was up the mountain, and with a sick man on our hands we weren't likely to get far.

Taking an axe, I went out to check our defenses. I added a few logs, and rooted out some brush here and there to give us a better field of fire.

Joe Rugger was worried, I could see that, but there was no rabbit in him. He had come in with us and he planned to stick.

"What led you to throw in with us, Joe?" I asked him.

"Drifted in here with the wrong crowd before I measured them for calibre. Seemed to me you and Rountree were more my type. Fact was, I figured to try leasing that store from you. Back in Ohio I operated a small store for another man, but it seemed to me I'd get nowhere working for the other fellow, so I quit. I've done some mining, but a store is what I always wanted."

"Joe, you've just bought yourself a lease. Cap and me, we want to build a town that shapes up to something, and we would be proud to lease that store to you."

Thanks, Tell."

It made a body restless, wondering what they were cooking up down there in town. Same time, I never was one to keep a serious view of things. Time to time folks get the idea I'm slighting my problems because ofttimes they strike me as funny. Now I kept thinking of all those men down there, arguing and drinking and drinking and arguing, and working up a nerve to come after us. It struck me, a man might sort of wander down there of a nighttime and have himself some fun.

Rousting around in our gear I found about a hundred feet of rope Cap had packed along, on account of rope is always handy. Joe had some more, and I knotted the two together and went inside and got my field glasses and studied that town.

There were four tents--one large, like the saloon

tents at the end of the tracks in railroad towns, and the others small. A couple of horses were saddled, with packs behind the saddles . . . some men were in the street.

Something about it bothered me. If there actually were forty men around the town, where were they?

I took my Winchester and scouted around the edge of the trees, studying the bench, searching every possible approach. It scarcely seemed likely that they would try another attack with me here, when Cap and Joe had driven them off alone. But they might

Thinking of it worried me, with Ange Kerry at the camp, and Cap Rountree a sick man. Looked to me like I was going to have to go after them, after all.

Come evening time, Joe Rugger came out to Stand watch, and I went into camp for grub. Cap was conscious and he looked up at me. "You've got it all on your hands, Tell. I'll be no help to you."

"You've been a help." I squatted on my heels beside his pallet, nursing a cup of coffee in my hands. "Cap, I'm going to take it to them tonight." "You be careful."

"Else they'll come a-hunting. We can't have them shooting around with Ange here, and you laid up." "That's a fine girl."

"You should see that country up yonder. Blessed if I can see how she made it ... months up there, all alone."

I could see Cap was done up. He would need time and plenty of good food to get his strength back... it was lucky Ange was there.

She came in, bringing a cup of soup for Cap, but she kept her eyes away from me. What did she expect me to do? Stand still and get shot? Sure, I got the jump, but Kitch had warning. And when he came out of the trees like that he wasn't looking to play patty-cake.

She was mighty pretty. A little thing, slim and lovely. Though the only clothes she had were wore-out things, and she was not likely to have better until one of us could cut loose for Silverton or Del Norte.

Her face had taken on some color, and she had combed out that hair of hers and done it up like some of those fancy pictures I'd seen in Godey's Lady's Book. I declare, she was pretty!

"See you," I said, and stood up. "You take care."

There was a moment there I thought of talking with her, but what could I say? Seemed to me she didn't want any words from me, and I went away feeling mighty miserable inside. Walking out to the edge of the trees, I stood looking toward the two or three lights and thinking what a fool a man could be.

What was she, after all? Just a slim girl with a lot of red-gold hair... nothing to get upset about.

The humor of what I'd been thinking of doing there in town went out of me. I looked at that town and felt like walking over there and shooting it out.

Only there was no sure way I could win if I did that, and I had to win. Joe was a solid man, but he was no gunfighter. First time in my life I wished I could look up and see Tyrel coming down the pike.

Only Tyrel was miles away and days away, and whatever happened now was up to me. Anyway, it never does a man much good to be thinking of what he could do if he had help . . . better spend his time figuring a way of doing it himself.

Gathering up that rope, I taken it to my horse and saddled up.

"Joe," I said, "yon be careful. They may come a-winging it over this way. If they do, and if I'm able, I'll come a-smoking, but you stand 'em off until I get here."

Ange was standing with the fire behind her and I couldn't see her face. Only when I rode out, I lifted a hand. "See you," I said, and let the palouse soft-foot if off the bench and into the stream bed.

It was cool, with no wind. The clouds were low, making it especial dark. There was a smell of pine woods in the air, and a smell of wood smoke and of cooking, too.

Nigh the town site I drew up and got down, tying the appaloosa to some willows in the stream bed. I put my hand on his shoulder. "Now you stand steady, boy. I won't be gone long."

But I wondered if that was truth or not.

Maybe it would be just as well if I was to get the worst of them. That Ange, now--she had no use for me, and sure as shooting I was getting a case on her.

Not that it was likely she could ever see me. Girl that pretty had her choice of men. Nobody ever said much about me being good-looking--except Ma--and even Ma, with the best intentions in the world, looked kind of doubtful when she said it.

I didn't shape up to much except for size. Only thing I could do better than anybody else I knew was read sign ... and maybe shoot as good as most. Otherwise, all I had was a strong back.

That Blackstone, now. I'd been worrying that book like a dog worries a bone, trying to get at the marrow of it, but it was a thing took time. Days now I'd been at it, off and on, and everything took a sight of thinking out.

He said a lot of things that made a man study, although at the wind-up they made a lot of sense. If I could learn to read ... I would never get to be a lawyer like Orrin there, but...

This was no time for dreaming. Pa, he always advised taking time for contemplating, but this was the wrong time.

Taking that rope and my Winchester, I edged in close. Working soft on moccasin feet, I ran my rope through the guy ropes of that big tent, up behind about four guy ropes, and then a loop clean around one of the smaller tents and around the guy ropes of another. Then I walked back to my horse and loosed him, mounting up and taking a dally around the pommel with the loose end.

Everything at the town seemed mighty peaceful.

Inside I could hear folks a-cutting up some touches, the clatter of glasses and poker chips. Seemed almost a shame to worry them.

Walking my horse alongside the building, I stood up on the saddle and pulled myself to the roof. I slid out of my shirt, and shoved it into the chimney. Then I stepped back to the eaves and, about time I touched saddle, all hell broke loose inside. The room had started to fill up with wood smoke and I heard folks a-swearing something awful and coughing.

Turning my horse, I taken a good hold on that rope, let out a wild Comanche yell, and slapped spurs to that palouse.

Those spurs surprised him. He taken out like a scared rabbit. Ripping down those guy ropes and collapsing the other tents, I lit out. When I'd done what I could that way, I rode back through between the tents at a dead run. As I came through, a gang of men rushed up and caught themselves in a loop of rope.

It tumbled the lot of them, and dragged some. I let go the rope and, leaning from the saddle, I wrenched loose a length of tent stake. I rode up on that bunch and rapped a skull here and there.

A man on the stoop of the store building grabbed his pistol. I tossed that stake at his face and said, "Catch!"

He jumped back, fell over the last step and half inside the door.

Riding by, I drew up in the shadow. I'd sure enough played hob. Two small tents had collapsed and folks were struggling under them. The big tent was leaning away over. There was a lot of shouting, and somebody yelled, "No, you don't! Drop that money!" A shot was fired.

I remembered Pa's advice then, and taken time to contemplate. Setting my horse there in the shadows, I watched that mess-up and enjoyed it.

There was swelling under those tents, everybody arguing and swearing. Nobody was making any kind of sense.

One tent flattened down as the men struggled from under it. I decided they needed light, so I taken a flaming stick from the outside fire and tossed it at that flattened-out tent.

Somebody saw me and yelled. I turned sharp and trotted my horse away just as he let go with a shotgun. Then that tent burst into flame and I had to move back further.

They wanted to settle on my town site without paying, did they? They wanted to shoot up my camp?

I happened to notice their corral on the edge of the wash. A couple of saddles, a rope . . . Shaking out a loop, I caught a comer post of the corral with my rope and rode off, pulling it down. Horses streamed by me.

Surely does beat all what a man can do when he sets his mind to being destructive.

One leg hooked around my saddlehorn, I spoke gentle to my horse to warn him of trouble to come, and then I turned my head to the sky.

"When I walked out on the streets of Laredo, when I--"

A bullet cut wind near me, and I taken off. Seemed like nobody liked my singing.

Chapter XI

"There was a faint lemon color edging the gray of the clouds when trolled out of my blankets. Joe Rugger had teased the fire into flame and put water on for coffee. Sticking my feet into my boots, stomped them into place and slung my gun belt around my hips. Expecting trouble, that was all I had taken off, except for my vest. I put on my vest and tucked another gun behind toy belt and then walked out to the edge of the woods. Oh, sure, I had my hat on--first thing a cow-boy does when he crawls out of bed in the morning is to put his hat on.

Looked to me like somebody was leaving over yonder.

Ange was up, her hair combed as pretty as might be, and sunlight catching the gold of it through a rift in the clouds. She brought me a cup of coffee.

"I suppose you're satisfied with what you've done," she said. Thank you, ma'am. . . . Satisfied? Well, now. Takes a lot to satisfy a man, takes a lot to please him if he's any account. But what I did, I did well ... yes, ma'am, I'm pleased."

"I thought you were a good man."

"Glad to hear you say so. It's an appearance I favor. Not that I've ever been sure what it was made a good man. Mostly I'd say a good man is one you can rely on, one who does his job and stands by what he believes."

"Do you believe in killing people?"

"No, ma'am, not as a practice. Trouble is, if a body gets trouble out here he can't call the sheriff . . . there isn't any sheriff. He can't have his case judged by the law, because there aren't any judges. He can't appeal to anybody or anything except his own sense of what's just and right.

"There's folks around believe they can do anything they're big enough to do, no matter how it tromples on other folks' rights. That I don't favor.

"Some people you can arbitrate with . . . you can reason a thing out and settle it fair and square. There's others will understand nothing but force.

"Joe Rugger now, there's a good man. Cap Rountree is another. They are trying to build something. Those others, they figure to profit by what other people do, and I don't aim to stand by in silence."

"You have no authority for such actions."

"Yes, ma'am, I do. The ideas I have are principles that men have had for many a year. I've been reading about that. When a man enters into society --that's living with other folks--he agrees to abide by the rules of that society, and when he crosses those rules he becomes liable to judgment, and if he continues to cross them, then he becomes an outlaw.

In wild country like this a man has no appeal but to that consideration, and when he fights against force and brutality, he must use the weapons he has.

"Take Joe Rugger now. He rode in here with a lot of mighty mean, shiftless folks. He broke with them and came over to us when we were short-handed. He knew when he made that choice that it might be the death of him.

"Ma'am, I'm not an educated man, but I'm trying to make up for it. Thing is, when folks started to live together, a long time ago, they worked out certain laws, like respecting the rights of others, giving folks the benefit of the doubt, sharing the work of the community ... that sort of thing. ' "Cap and me figured to start a town, and we wanted it to be a good town where there would someday be women-folks walking the streets to and where youngsters could play. And you know something? We've got our first citizen. We've got Joe Rugger."

"I never thought of it that way." She said it grudgingly, and she riled me.

No, ma'am, folks don't," I said with considerable "People who live in comfortable, settled towns with law-abiding citizens and a government to protect them, they never think of the men who came first, the ones who went through hell to build something.

"I tell you, ma'am, when my time comes to ride out, I want to see a school over there with a bell in the tower, and a church, and I want to see families dressed up of a Sunday, and a flag flying over there. And if I have to do it with a pistol, I will.

This time I riled her. She walked away stiff-like, and I could see that I'd said the wrong thing.

When I finished my coffee Joe came out to stand guard, and I went back and ate some venison and some sour-dough bread dipped in sorghum molasses.

Cap looked a sight better. His eyes were brighter, and there was color in his faded cheeks. 'Well, Cap," I said, "I never had any doubt. You're too mean and ornery to die like this. Way I figure, you'll die in a corner just snapping and grabbing and cutting around you. You'll die with your teeth in somebody if I know you right.

"Now you hurry up and get out of there. Joe and me are getting almighty tired of you laying up while we do all the work." "How are things?"

"Sober. Looks to me like those folks have started to settle down to think things out. Time I went over and had a talk with them. Time to make a little medicine." "You be careful."

"I'm a careful man. Time comes to run, I ain't afraid to run. When I ride down there this morning, I'm going for a showdown." "Wish I could go along."

"You set tight ... I think they'll stand for reasoning now. I plan to get them to sit down and contemplate. And if they can't cut the mustard that way, they'll get their walking papers." "All of them?"

"Shucks, there ain't no more than forty."

With my Winchester across my saddle, I rode down. They saw me coming, but I was walking

my horse in plain sight and they waited for me.

With the exception of that fat man who had come with Kitch to our camp, I saw nobody I knew until Ab Warren came outside. He was not wearing a gun.

"You men have moved into a town site staked and claimed by Cap Rountree and myself. You took it on yourselves to occupy building sites we had laid out. You taken our timber. Last night you found out a little of what trouble can be. Now I've come down here to arbitrate this matter, and I'm going to do it right here in my saddle.

"When Cap and me moved in here, we had an election. He became mayor and I became town marshal by popular acclamation. It was popular with both of us.

"As Cap is laid up, I'm acting mayor as well as marshal. I am also the town council and the vigilante committee, and any time during these proceedings that anybody wants to challenge my authority, he can have at it. We're going to have a town here. I think it's to be a rich town; but rich or poor, it's going to be law-abiding. Any who aren't ready to go for that had better saddle up, because until get some constituted authority (I wasn't real sure what "constituted" meant but it sounded mighty good), I am going to run it with a six-gun,"

"Whoever has occupied that building will move out, starting now. That is to be the general store, ; and Joe Rugger has a lease on it."

The fat man spoke up. "I'm in that building, and had it built."

"Who paid for the lumber?

He hesitated, then blustered. "That's no matter.

found it here and we--" "It belongs to Cap and me. We valued it at one thousand dollars. Pay for it here and now, or get out of the building. As for the work involved, you can charge that up to poor judgment on your part, and know better next time."

"You can't get away with that!"

"You've got ten minutes to start moving. After that I throw things out--you included."

Ignoring him, I looked the others over. They were a bunch of toughs for the most part, although here and there were some men that looked likely.

"We're going to need a saloon--a straight one. And we're going to need a hotel and an eating house. If any of you want to have a try at it, you'll get cooperation from us."

The fat man was the leader, I could see that, but he was red-faced and mad, not sure of how much backing he would get. Several had pulled out already. Kitch and his partner were dead. Ab Warren was here to tell them how that happened.

Suddenly a burly, unshaved man stepped out of the crowd. "I cooked for a railroad construction crew one time. I'd like to handle that eating house."

"All right, you trim that beard and wash your shirt, and you've got thirty days to prove you can cook grub fit to eat. If you can't, you get somebody who can."

A slim young fellow who looked pale around the gills, like he hadn't been west long, spoke up. "I'm a hotel man, and I can also run a saloon. I can run it honest."

"All right." With my left hand I took a paper from my shirt front. "Here's the plan Cap and me laid out. You two study that and choose your sites. When you get your plans made, you draw straws to see who builds first; the other helps, and turn about."

It was time to settle things with that fat man. Somebody was speaking low to him and I heard the fat man called Murchison.

"Murchison," I said, "you have about three minutes to get started. And this time I don't mean cleaning out that building. I mean down the road."

"Now, look here--"

My horse walked right up to him. "You came in here to ride rough-shod over what you thought was a helpless old man. You showed no respect for the rights of others or the rights of property. You'd be no help to a town. Get on your horse and start traveling."

Pushing my horse forward another step, I backed Murchison up. The appaloosa stepped right up on the stoop after him.

"I'll be back," Murchison said angrily. "The Bigelows are in Silverton."

"We'll hold a place for you," I said, "right along-side of Kitch."

Ab Warren stayed. Murchison rode from town that morning and about fifteen men rode with him.

There was a Texas Ranger one time who said that there's no stopping a man who knows he's in the right and keeps a-coming. Well, I've often been wrong, but this time I was right and they had to pay mind to me or bury me, and mine is a breed that dies hard.

In the days that followed, other folks began to drift in. The second week a rider came, and then two wagons. Claims were taken up along the creek and one man drove in about thirty head of sheep which he started feeding along the moutainside. Joe Rugger got his store going, Allison his hotel, which he started in the big gambling tent that had been abandoned. Briggs ran a good eating house. Nothing fancy, but simple food, mighty well-cooked. Aside from beef and beans, he served up bear meat, venison, and elk.

We saw nothing of the Bigelows, but we heard aplenty. Tom and Ira were the two we heard most about. They were suspected of holding up a stage near Silverton. Tom had killed a man in Denver City, and had been in a shooting in Leadville. Ira was a gambler, dividing his time between Silverton and some other boom camps.

They had made their brags about me. They would take care of me when they found time. I'd as soon they never found it.

Twice I made trips into the mountains and came back down with gold . . . two muleloads the last time.

Esteban Mendoza and Tina came over and built a cabin in town, near the foot of the mountain, and Esteban had two freight wagons working along the Silverton road.

Ange Kerry moved away from our camp and got a little place in town where she lived, and she worked with Joe Rugger in the store, which combined with the post office and Wells Fargo express. She had never been the same toward me since I killed Kitch and his partner.

She was prettier than ever, and mighty popular around town. Nearly everybody sort of protected her. Joe Rugger brought his wife out and they built a home on the back end of the store.

Cap took a long time mending, and he hadn't much energy when he was able to walk, so it was up to me to do what was done.

Of an evening I read what newspapers I could find, and kept hammering away at Blackstone.

Time to time somebody would drift into camp, stay a while, and drift out again, leaving books behind. I read whatever there was. But mostly I worked.

I built us a three-room log house high on the bench, with my old trail up the mountain right behind it, and the spring close by. I built a strong stable and corral against the coming winter, and I oat(?) a few tons of hay in the meadow.

There was snow on some of the peaks now where I hadn't seen it before. A time or two, early in the morning, there was frost in the bottom, and once ice slicked over a bucket of left-out water.

The old barricades I let lie, and I kept the brush trimmed off the mesa. Grass was growing high out there, and there was good grazing for our stock.

When I went to town now there were few whom I knew. Joe Rugger was acting mayor, Allison and Briggs were loyal men. Murchison had come back and started a small gambling house. There were about two hundred people in town, and she was running like a top.

The aspen began to turn yellow . . . seemed like I'd been here years, though it was only a few months.

There was little trouble. Two men killed each Other over a poker game in Murchison's joint, and there was a cutting down on the creek, some private affair over a woman.

One night Cap came in and sat down. "You stay at the books," he said, "and you'll ruin your eyes."

"I've got to learn, Cap."

"You take after those brothers of yours. As soon as they learned to read there was no holding them."

"They've done well."

"Yes, they have. Married, too."

I didn't answer right away, but finally I said, "Well, it takes two."

"You seen Ange lately?"

"You know I haven't."

"That's a mighty fine girl. She won't be around always. I hear that Ira Bigelow is paying her mind."

"Bigelow? Is he in town?"

"Rode in a few days ago while you were in the mountains. Only stayed a few hours, but he managed to meet Ange, and he talked it up to her. He's a handsome man."

Didn't cut much ice, reading about ethics and all. Inside, I could feel myself getting mean. The thought of any of those Bigelows around Ange . . . well, sir, a thing like that could make me mean as an old bear.

Of an evening I would walk outside and look toward the town lights, but I didn't often go down to the street. And it was time for me to make my last trip of the season into the high peaks. I wanted one more load out of there before snow fell. Not that there hadn't been snow up that high, but I had a hunch there was time for one trip. With the new route in, and no need to go by way of the chute, I might make it in and back.

"Going up the mine tomorrow," I told Cap. I stood there a moment. "You know, Ange should come in for a share of that. Her grandpa was hunting it when he died up there ... he had him a map, and one of those dead Spanish men must have been a relative of his ... or one of the live ones."

"I was thinking that. Wondered if you'd get around to it."

Picking up my hat, I said, "I think I'll go talk to her."

"You do that," Cap said. "You surely do it"

Anyway, it was time I bought me an outfit--new clothes, and the like. I had money now.

Turning to leave, I stopped. Esteban Mendoza was in the doorway. "Senor Tell? I must speak with you."

He came on into the room. "I was working at my freight wagons fixing some harness, and it became very dark while I sat there, and when I am through I put out the lantern and then sit for a while, enjoying the coolness.

"Beyond the wagon are several men, and they are talking. They do not know I am there, and so I keep very still, for one of them speaks of you. He says you have gold that is not placer gold, but from quartz, from a lode. They believe the mine is in the mountains."

"Who were the men?"

"One is named Tuthill. . . they call him Meester. Another is called Boyd."

Cap looked over at me. "The banker and that gambler from Las Vegas."

"How about the others?"

He shrugged. "I do not know. But I think they plan to follow you into the mountains if you go again."

"Thanks, 'Steban. Thanks very much."

After he left I gave it some thought. It was important to make one more trip up there. I not only wanted to get enough gold to start buying my ranch, but I wanted to cover up the work I'd done at the mine in case somebody found the way up to the valley. The trip was a risk I would have to take.

Cap was getting around pretty good now, better than before, and Esteban would look in on him from time to time. He was well enough to care for himself, and he had friends in the town.

"You going down to see Ange?" Cap asked suddenly. "It's getting late."

I got into my saddle and started for town. The lights seemed brighter than before, and there was excitement in me.

Ange....

A shadow stirred in the brush and I waited a moment before riding on. It was a man all right, and he was watching our camp.

Esteban had been right.

Chapter XII

Late as it was, the store was crowded. Joe waved 'a hand to me from where he stood waiting on a customer, and I glanced toward the other counter where Ange was. If she had noticed me, she gave no sign of it.

Most of the people in the store seemed like newcomers, although there were a couple of familiar faces.

"Mr. Sackett, I believe."

Turning around, I faced Tuthill. He was a handsome man, no question of it, tall and well-dressed in storebought clothes.

"How are your I asked. "I wasn't expecting to see you this far from home. What happened to the bank?

"I left it in good hands."

Glancing toward Ange, I saw she was no longer busy, so I excused myself and walked over to her. "Ange," I said, "I want to buy some clothes."

Her eyes met mine for the merest instant. "All (sectin missing)

So I gave her my order, aware that Tuthill was watching from a short distance away. She brought me some shirts, jeans, socks, and a sheepskin coat.

"... And two boxes of .44's," I said.

Her eyes lifted to mine and her face stiffened. Abruptly, she turned and walked to the ammunition shelf and took down two boxes and came back, placing them on the counter before me.

"Ange," I said, "I've got to talk to you."

"You brought me out of the mountains and I'm very grateful,'' she said, "but I don't think--"

"Ange, part of that gold belongs to you. Your grandpa was hunting it, and it was probably some ancestor of his who found it first. So you should have a share."

"Whatever you think is right. There's no need for talk."

She turned away from me with my money and made change.

"Ange," I said, "I had to shoot those men."

"Did you? It was the most brutal, the most callous thing I ever saw! And I thought you were so gentle, so nice--"

She broke off and walked away from me. A moment I stood there. When I turned around, Tuthill was beside me. "I didn't know you knew Ange Kerry," he said.

"You make a habit of listening in when folks are talking?" I was mad. "Look, Tuthill, I think you're no gentleman. I also think you're a thief, and that you travel with thieves. You keep that Boyd out of my sight--do you hear? If I see him, I'll come looking for you both."

Brushing past him, I started for the door. Rugger was there. "Something wrong, Tell?"

Ange was looking at me with something mighty close to horror in her eyes. She could not know about Will Boyd following me down that street in Las Vegas, or about his connection with Tuthill, or what Esteban had overheard. All she knew was what she heard now -- that I had made what looked like an unprovoked attack on an innocent and respectable man.

"Nothing, Joe." My voice lowered. "Only Tuthill's curious about me and that claim of mine. So are the people with him. He followed me here from Las Vegas."

Getting back to the claim, I made up my mind. I would head for the high hills now, before day-Break, get a lead on anybody who might try to follow me, and keep it. Once I came down with the gold, I would head south to Mora or somewhere and buy myself a ranch. Ange could do what she had a mind to.

Every time I came to be near her something happened to make me look worse than I had before.

She probably had never seen anyone killed before that night I shot Kitch.

Back at camp, Cap could see I was mad, and he no comment when I threw a pack together brought out pack saddles. I was taking two pack horses, and the appaloosa. There was no need to take much gear ... I would be gone only two days. Yet, just on chance, I took enough food for a week, and four boxes of .44's, aside from what was in my belt. It was an hour short of day when I mounted up to ride out. "You be careful," Cap warned. "I saw Tuthill," I told him. "He smells gold. some bank, or Wells Fargo, or something, he's had a smell of that gold . . . and he knows it isn't placer gold."

Holding close against the wall of the mountain, I rode north, weaving among the scattered trees on the bench. It was still overcast and there was a smell of dampness in the air.

Where Rock Creek entered the Vallecitos I turned southeast, riding in the creek bed. By daylight that water would have washed away what tracks I made.

The sun was painting the sky with a lavish brush when I topped out on a rise in the trees and looked back. Far below, several miles back, I saw movement. Sun gleamed for an instant on a rifle barrel.

No use taking a chance on leading them to the mine. So, turning off to my left I went up a rocky ridge, using several switchbacks, and rode over the saddle to the east. About a half-mile off I saw a lake, larger than the one in the high valley. Riding swiftly in that direction, I held to a good pace. Near the shore of that lake I bedded down for the night, and made camp without a fire.

Awakening to a patter of rain on the leaves overhead, I crawled out on the ground, put on my hat and boots, slung on my gun belt and then rolled my bed.

Without even waiting for coffee, I saddled up and left the woods at a fast trot. Working my way around a dozen small lakes and ponds, I topped out on a ridge overlooking miles upon miles of the most magnificent country under heaven.

Nothing moved through the gray veil of the rain. I rode down into my valley. The mine was as I left it. But the trail along the chute was two feet deep in water, and the rain would soon make it impassable. The other route would have to be my way out.

Picketing my horses, I went into the mine and went to work with my pick. The gold was richer than ever, and the quartz so rotten that it crumbled tinder my boots.

The rain continued ... a steady, persistent downfall that could easily turn to snow.

No time to think of Ange . . . nor of Cap, or anything but getting the gold out and down the mountains.

When next I came out the rain had ceased, but there was an odd lightness to the air that left me uneasy, and it bothered the horses also.

Several deer and an elk were feeding in the meadow across the valley, and that might mean a Storm was coming. They usually came out about sundown. The valley was quiet, the clouds pressing low down over the peaks. The rain started again, scarcely more than a mist.

Returning to the mine, I worked hard for another and then built a fire and made coffee. My head ached a little from not eating, and it was hard to settle down, with that feeling in the air.

But part of my uneasiness was the fear of being (missing section -- snowed in?)

Beside my fire I worked long into the night, pounding up the quartz. Maybe the gold I'd come was only a pocket. Maybe the quartz would harder farther own into the rock, or the gold change its character and require milling to get it out. Of such things I knew next to nothing. When night came I brought the horses in close cave, built a fire deeper inside, and mixed batch of sourdough bread. I made a good meal turned in.

Middle of the night I woke up.

It was cold. I mean, it was really cold. It was colder than I'd ever believed it could be. The horses were crowded together, heads down. I stepped out of the cave into a strange, weird world of ice.

Ice ... crystal ice in the moonlight that fell through torn clouds. Ice on the trees, ice on the rocks, gleaming ice on the meadow grass. Ice on the willows, making them like a forest of slim glass sticks.

It was strange, and it was beautiful, and it had the shine of death.

Nobody would be traveling any trail in the mountains until that ice was gone. Those eyebrow trails . . . those brink-of-the-precipice trails, those rocky crossings, those sheets of rock--all would be sheets of ice now, where no horse could maintain its footing, where even a man in moccasins would scarcely dare to move.

The thought of the trail into the valley where Ange had been made my hair stand on end.

If the sun came out it would melt fast enough. But it was late in the season ... suppose it snowed first? Any step might start an avalanche.

Going back inside I built my fire bigger, and then I came out with a piece of sacking and commenced to clean off the horses. Ice was on their winter coats, and it crackled when I broke it free. They knew I was trying to help them and they stood very still, their eyes helpless and frightened.

It was the worst sleet storm I'd ever seen, worse even than the pogonips in Nevada. A lot of tree branches had broken under the weight of the ice. It was a white, crystalline world . . . like glass, everywhere.

Food ... I would need food the worst way.

With the intense cold I would need more than usual to keep warm, and there was no telling how long I'd be stuck here. Maybe all winter.

There was no sense wasting time. Every step, even on the flat, would be taken at the risk of a broken leg. The trails were out of the question now, the gold itself was unimportant. From now on, it would be a fight to survive.

It was still a couple of hours until daylight, but I got my axe, went outside, and cut a couple of good chunks from a log that I'd dragged up, and built a fire that would last.

The horses stood stiff-legged, afraid to move on the slick ground, so with a shovel I went around and broke up the ice and shoveled some of the waste rock from my mine over the ice. Then I went to the woods, knocked the ice loose from a tree trunk, cut off the heavier limbs, and packed them back to the cave. The moonlight was gone. I added fuel to my fire, put on the coffeepot; and commenced to study out the situation. There might be some way of getting out that I'd overlooked.

With daylight, the first thing would be to find and kill a deer or two. As long as the cold held I'd not have to worry about the meat spoiling. 'Dawn came under a sky of cold gray clouds. I went out and started to hunt for a deer. The appaloosa moved to the edge of the ice that sparkled the grass and began to paw at it to get at the grass. He was a Montana horse and used to such.

Shortly before noon I found a buck.

nightfall it was colder, if anything. I'd butchered my deer and hung the meat up. I'd skinned properly and saved the hide. If I was here for the winter I was going to need as many such hides as I could get. And all the game I would have a chance at was right there in the valley now.

Huddled in my blankets, I sat over the fire all night long. I was going to have to wall up the mouth of that cave. The wind crept in there, fluttered my fire, and brought the cold with it. The morning broke with the flat gray clouds still shielding the sun, the wind knife-edged and raw, the glassy branches shaking slightly, clashing one against the other like skeleton arms.

The horses tugged woefully at the frozen grass, and the ice cut their lips until they came to me, whimpering. Down by the stream where the grass grew taller, I shattered the ice and cut the grass to take back to them.

This could not go on. Somehow I was going to have to get down the mountain. I wanted to take the horses with me if it could be done. Yet I knew it could not. ... And without me in this high valley they would die.

That night I broiled a venison steak, and ate it, hunched over the fire, cutting it in strips to handle it better.

Snow fell that night, and when day came one of my pack horses was down with a broken leg. The shot that killed him echoed down the ice-choked valley.

Through lightly falling snow, I went down the valley to the chute. The stream was frozen over, and the chute was a solid mass of ice. The water had risen still more, and the ledge down which the trail wound was now under several feet of water. To get out by that route was out of the question. Ange had lasted out a winter up here with her grandfather. How had they done it?

Their cave was bigger and better sheltered, and there was a lifetime of firewood in the huge old logs that lay among the boulders . . . but could I get down the trail to the bottom?

Could I even get to the canyon? Up where the bristlecone pines grew the wind had a full sweep, and it would be even colder than here. The trail, if I could reach it, was five hundred feet down a sheer face that was probably sheeted in ice.

That would be a last resort. For the time being I would remain where I was and try to last out the storm.

Taking the shovel, I went out and knocked more ice from the grass to give the horses a fighting chance. They knew how to get at it themselves, but the ice roughed up their lips and bloodied

their hocks. The snow kept falling, covering the ice with a mantle, making the ice all the more dangerous. Suddenly the appaloosa's head came up sharply and his ears pricked.

I got out my Winchester. Nothing moved within the limited area I could see through the drifting snow. Listening, I could hear nothing.

Walking with extreme care, I went to the willows at the edge of the creek and cut several long slender lengths which I carried back to the cave and placed on the floor not too close to the fire.

Always, on the range, I carried with me a bundle of rawhide strips, most of them "piggin strings" for tying the legs of cattle when branding. Every cowhand carried some for emergencies on the range. And I was going to have a use for them now. 1 The horses showed no tendency to wander, but remained close to the cave. All through the morning and into the afternoon I kept busy reducing the rest of the quartz to gold I could pack out.

When the willow strips were pliable again, I took each of them and bent them into an oval and tied them, selecting the two best ovals to keep. Then with the rawhide strips tied across them, I made rough snowshoes.

Before nightfall I took the rifle, strapped on the snowshoes, and went out to give them a test run. They were not the first pair I had made, and they worked well. Trailing down the valley toward the chute, I saw it was rapidly choking with snow over the ice. Escape by that route was completely out of the question.

I circled around, and ventured toward the valley of Ange's cave. When almost to the bare shoulder where the bristle-cone pines grew, I turned back to reach my cave before dark. It was at that moment that I heard the shot.

Stunned with the shock, I stood stock-still listening to the echo of it racketing against the solemn hills.

The echo lost itself against the snow-clad hillsides and I remained still, shivering a little in the cold, alone in a vast world of sky and snow, scarcely willing to accept what my ears had heard.

A shot... here!

It had come from the canyon below. Someone was down there! Someone was at or near Ange's cave.

Here? In this place?

Chapter XIII

A sudden crack of ice . . . the breaking of a tree laden with snow? . . . No. This had been a , clear, sharp, unmistakable.

said, you ain't... aren't... alone. Who knew of the cave below? Or of the valley? Ange, so far as I knew. Cap knew what I'd told him, but Cap couldn't have made it up there if I'd given exact directions, which I hadn't. His hold on life was still too weak.

-Ange . . . ? That was mighty foolish to consider. She had no reason for coming up. Whoever had been following me down below? Could they have found some way into that valley? that seemed the most likely.

If I started for the canyon now it would be full dark before I got there, and I'd see nothing anyway. The thing to do would be to go back to the mine and hole up there until daybreak. One thing was a copper-riveted cinch. If those were in the canyon they were snowed in like I was, and, unless I was much mistaken, they were a lot less able to cope with it.

We Sacketts had never had much to do with, and back in the mountains we learned to make out on mighty little, but we learned how to rustle. There wasn't one of us boys who hadn't traveled miles by himself and lived off the country before he was sixteen.

Since then I'd had very little but rough time, what with soldiering and all. A Montana-from-Texas cattle drive is not exactly a place for softening up, and it seemed like I'd spent half my life getting along on less than nothing.

Hardship was a way of life to me, and there were few times when I wasn't hungry, cold, or fighting rough country for a living. Being snowed in up here in these mountains wasn't a pleasant thing, but somehow I'd survive. But those others now ... ?

When I got back to camp the horses were close around the cave. I brought them inside and wiped them off. Mostly I fussed over them to keep their spirits up. They were smart enough to know we were in trouble, but being cared for made them confident that all was well.

I wished I could be so sure myself.

When I had my fire going I took off my sheepskin coat and shed my vest before putting the coat back on. I always try to have a little something extra to put on when out in cold weather. Main thing a man has to avoid is sweating. When he stops moving that sweat can freeze into an icy sheet inside the clothes.

I fixed myself some grub, and sat by the fire with Blackstone open. Time to time, I'd squint in the firelight to make something out.

These last few months, after I went to bed, sometimes I'd lie awake into the night, a-contem-plating things I'd read, or trying to say things, using the words taken from that book. By the time spring came I had hoped my talking would be better.

And, time to time, I had thought of Ange. . . . About the time I was doing for her and she was half-dead from starvation and exhaustion, when I thought maybe this was my woman. I spent a sight of time daydreaming around, just contemplating her, and all about her.

But there wasn't much left to think about She'd made that plain the other night in the store. Might have been better to let Batch shoot me. Only I didn't believe that. I've heard of men killing themselves over a woman -- most fool thing I ever heard

Women are practical. They get right down to bedrock about things, and no woman is going to waste much time remembering a man who was fool enough to kill himself. Thing to do is live for love,

Though most women-folks would a sight rather see a man dead than with another woman.

Only that evening alone, with the fire bright in .the cave, I got something all bunched up in my throaty Just a-wishing and a-dreaming over Ange and that red-gold hair.

After I'd eaten, I packed a bait of grub for morning, fixed over my snowshoes a mite, and settled down for the night, stowing the book away in my saddlebag.

A good hour before suntime I rolled out of my soogan and stowed it away. I fixed myself some breakfast and went down to the creek with the horses. Breaking a hole with my axe, I watered them there, I knocked some grass free of snow and ice, but it wasn't enough . . . the day wasn't long enough to get enough.

Strapping on the snowshoes and slinging a pack, I took a length of rope and my Winchester and started out. It was shy of daybreak when I reached the trail into the canyon.

The first thing I saw was a smear on the snow of the trail, almost halfway down. Something had fallen on the trail.

Carefully, using hand-holds on the rock wall where I could find them, I started down the trail, and when I got to the smear I could see a little snow had already blown over it. So it must have happened during the night. And whatever it was had fallen over the edge.

I edged close to the rim. Here and there the wind had piled the snow until it had built up a cornice. If a man should rest his weight on it, down he would go. Leaning over, I looked down.

It was Ange.

She was lying on a ledge maybe twenty feet down. Snow had blown over her. That red-gold hair lay like a flame on the snow, caught in the first light that filtered through the dawn clouds.

Putting my rifle down, I hunted around, till I found a mess of bristle-cone roots exposed by a slide. I knotted my rope to them and went over the side, landing beside her in a shower of snow. The ledge on which she lay was deep in snow and not over six or seven feet across, and maybe three times that long.

She was not dead.

I picked her up in my arms and held her close, trying to get her warm, and whispered all sorts of nonsense to her.

I tied a bowline around her body under her arms, snug enough so she couldn't slip through. Then, hand over hand, clambering for foot-holds in the rock, I pulled myself back up to the trail. When I had caught my breath, I hoisted her up.

By the time I had her on the trail it was day and there was plenty of light Unknotting the bowline, I coiled my rope, strapped on my snowshoes, and picked her up. She had a bad knot on her head, but the thickness of her hair and the snow had probably cushioned the blow, so I doubted if she was hurt much.

I hadn't taken two steps before I heard a shout, far below, and a rifle shot that must have been very low, because it came nowhere near me. I turned, and saw several black figures against the snow of the canyon, far below. Ange stirred, and opened her eyes. Quickly, pulling back as far as I could against the cliff wall, I put her down on her feet.

Tell? Tell, is it really you? I thought--"

"You all right?"

I fell... I thought I fell over the edge."

"You did." Rifle in one hand, and her hand in the Other, I eased along the trail, hugging the rocks. Another shot put a bullet close to me, and I could see men running for the trail's end. One of them fell, but the others did not stop.

"Who is it down there?"

It's Mr. Tuthill and those others. Ira Bigelow and Tom. That man named Boyd and two others I don't know. One of them they call Ben."

Ben obes?

"They made me bring them, Tell. They threatened me. Besides . . . you hadn't come back and I was afraid."

It was growing colder. The clouds were breaking and the wind was mounting. It was slow going because of the ice beneath the snow. At the top of the trail, I got out of the snowshoes and tied them on Ange.

I thought back to the men who by now were making their way up the trail. There were six men down there, and they wanted the gold; but most of all, they wanted to kill me. Under the circumstances, they must kill Ange, too.

"Who knows you came with them?"

"Nobody does. Mr. Tuthill heard us talking, and he must have known about the gold already. But from what I said to you, he could tell that I knew about it too. He came to my cabin and offered to become my partner and get all the gold for us. I refused.

"He went away, and then when it was dark he came back with those other men. He told me to get dressed, and to dress warmly. He said he would kill me if I didn't... and he meant it.

"I had no idea what he intended to do until we were outside. And then I found out what had happened. They tried to follow you, and you got away from them, so they came back after me.

The only way I knew was back the way we came out, and I was not very sure of that. When we got in the mountains it was turning colder and the rain was falling. We got to the cave, and by that time, they were half-frozen and arguing among themselves.

"Boyd stayed on watch, but he fell asleep and I slipped out. I knew you were up here somewhere."

We struggled through the snow, with her talking fast, nervous and scared. "Tell, they mean to kill you. I was wrong. Tell! I didn't understand what kind of men they were!"

The fire was down to the merest coals when we got to the cave. From my stacked fuel I built up the fire to warm the place, and put some snow on to melt for coffee water.

When I looked up from the fire, Ange was standing there looking at me. "Tell, I'm sorry. I didn't understand."

"What could you think? I just up and shot those men. Of course, they were hunting it. They figured to kill me. I'm sorry you had to see it."

* I walked to the opening and looked out. The

sky was bright, the air was sharp with cold, but

was no sign of Tuthill and the others. "Back east," I said, "folks still have duels now again, only they arrange them . . . everything out pretty and conducted like a ceremony, difference is that out here we don't bother fixing it up proper. Back where most everyone is known, it's different. Out here most of us are strangers and nobody knows if the man he has A difficulty with is a gentleman, or not. So he just ups and shoots."

"That's what Joe told me. I ... I wouldn't listen at first. It seemed so ... so brutal." "Yes, ma'am. It is brutal. Only I never could see sense in having folks look at your tombstone and say, "He was a man who didn't believe in violence. He's a good man... and dead.'"

I paused, peering at the trees opposite. "No, Ange, if the folks who believe in law, justice, and a decent life for folks are to be shot down by those who believe in violence, nothing makes much sense. I believe in justice, I believe in being tolerating of other folks, but I pack a big pistol, ma'am, and will use it when needed."

There was no sign of those men yet. Either they were having trouble on the trail, or they were In-juning up on me and would settle down to shooting most any time. The snow and ice had covered the piles of waste rock thrown out of the tunnel so it wasn't likely they would guess first off that this was where the mine was.

Ange saw my Blackstone and picked it up. "Are you studying this?" She looked up at me curiously.

"Yes, ma'am. It's books like that which make a man proud of being a man."

"Are you going to be a lawyer?"

"No ... my brother Orrin made himself into one, but Orrin always was a talker. He had the gift, the Welsh tongue. I don't have any gift, ma'am, I'm just a man tries to do the right thing as well as he knows. Only, the way I figure, no man has the right to be ignorant. In a country like this, ignorance is a crime. If a man is going to vote, if he's going to take part in his country and its government, then it's up to him to understand.

"I had no schooling, ma'am, so I'm making out with this book and a few others. Some day"--I felt myself getting red around the gills--"I hope to have children and they'll have schooling, and I don't aim they should be ashamed of their Pa."

"How could they be?" Ange demanded. "You're good, you're brave, and--"

"Here they come," I said, and settled down behind the woodpile.

We could hear their boots crunching through the snow. There were five of them. Tuthill I recognized at once, and the two men beside him were probably the Bigelows. Will Boyd looked done up from the climbing and the cold. Behind him was Ben Hobes. The only one missing was that white-haired youngster with the guns.

I watched them come, chewing on a bit of stick, my Winchester in my hands. They were playing the fool, for at that distance...

"Come on out, Sackett! We want to talk."

"I can hear you."

"Come on out here."

"And leave this warm fire? I'm comfortable."

They started arguing among themselves. Then Tuthill started toward the cave, so I put a bullet into the snow at his feet and he stopped so quick he almost fell.

"You boys have got bigger problems than me," I commented, conversationally. "A sight of snow fell since you came into the mountains. How do you plan to get out?"

"Look here, Sackett," Tuthill said, "we know you're sitting on a rich claim. Well, all we want is a piece of it. Why be foolish? There's enough for us

"Why share it? I've got it, and all you boys have

a chance to die in the snow." I eased my position a little. Tuthill, you don't to understand. When you came in here you came into a trap. The passes are closed, and we're all going to spend the winter. I hope you brought grub for five or six months."

"If you don't come out, Sackett," Tuthill threatened, "we're coming in." "If I shoot again, Tuthill, I'll shoot to kill." It was cold. Knowing this kind of country as I did, I knew what we could expect. It had cleared It was cold now--at least ten below. In a few it might drop to fifty below.

"Ben," I called, "you're no pilgrim. Tell them how cold it can get at ten or eleven thousand feet on a still night. We are all stuck for the winter, and you might as well get used to the idea.

You're going to need shelter, fuel, and food. The game won't stay this high, it will all head for lower ground. If you make a run for it, you might still get out."

The pile of fire-wood covered half the tunnel mouth to a height of more than four feet, and made a crude windbreak and shelter from gunfire. The tunnel, in following the vein, had taken a slight bend--enough to shelter one person--and I whispered to Ange to get back behind it.

While partly open, the walls of rock acted as reflectors and threw heat back upon us. Moreover, in our struggle to live, I would have three priceless assets not available to them--the pick, shovel, and axe.

They had come to take a mine away from me. I had come to work the mine.

I knew there were at least two things they could do that would be terribly dangerous to us. They could direct a heavy fire at the walls and roof of the tunnel, causing the bullets to ricochet within the small space. Such bullets tear like the jagged pieces of hot metal they are.

And they could kill the horses.

Killing them in the tunnel mouth could obscure our vision, and might even block escape. It might be they were doomed to die anyway, but I was going to get them out if I could.

Somewhere up on the slope a tree branch cracked in the cold. It was very still ... an icy stillness.

Boyd stamped his feet and complained. Boyd would be the first to go. He simply hadn't the guts for the long pull. Of them all, Ben Hobes was the one to last.

Suddenly, they turned around and started for trees. / should nail one of them, I thought. it was too late, and they were under three large trees and behind some brush where I could hear branches breaking as they built a fire. They would need more than a fire. Where was the kid?

There had been six ... one had tripped and fallen down below. That whole lower canyon was of boulders and logs, covered now with snow.

The bullet hit the butt end of a cut log just an instant before the report racketed against the hills. I reached over for the coffeepot and filled my cup. Nursing it in my hands to keep my fingers warm, I sat tight. A volley of shots came next, and one of them struck above the entrance, showering the woodpile with chipped rock.

back there, Ange. Don't move unless you have to."

"Tell? Are we going to get out of this?"

"Ange, I could lie to you, but I don't know. If any of us get out, we'll be lucky."

For several minutes they kept up a hammering and I let them shoot, holding my cup in my and waiting. Finally, they stopped, and we could hear them arguing.

Would they believe us dead? That was what I hoped.

Tuthill called out, but I made no sound. A couple searching shots came then, one striking the rock the opening again, the other hitting just inside the

Again Tuthill yelled, and I finished my coffee, peering through openings in the woodpile.

Another shot. This one struck deep into the cave with an angry smack.

There was more arguing. The voices could be heard, but not the words. Then the bushes parted and Tom Bigelow was coming toward the cave, a pistol in his hand.

He slowed as he came nearer, worried by what he was doing. He paused, threw up his pistol, and fired. It was a quick, testing shot, and it struck the rock at the side of the opening.

Bigelow hesitated, then came on, walking fast. He was within a dozen steps when I spoke out "All right, Bigelow. Drop that gun!"

He pulled up sharp, starting to tilt the gun.

"Drop it!"

He could see the rifle muzzle now. At that distance even a child couldn't miss with a Winchester. He dropped the gun.

"Your brother was killed because he tried to bottom deal on me, and I told him he'd better not grab iron. He tried it. I didn't want to kill him."

Tom Bigelow said nothing.

"Unloose your gun belt," I said.

He unfastened the belt and let it fall.

"All right, I'm letting you go back. But before you go, you might tell me what you boys are going to do for something to eat. Your passes are closed. You can't take our grub, and if you could, there isn't enough to last out a week."

"We can get back."

"Ask Ben Hobes. Ask him about Al Packer."

"Who's he?"

"He started across the mountains in the winter with a party. They ran out of grub. He ate all five of the others. These same mountains. Are you ready for that, Bigelow?"

"You're lyin'!"

"All right, go on back."

One less gun they had, and maybe eighteen to twenty less ca'tridges. Come night time they would try and close in on me. Of course, on the white snow...

"Did they bring any pack horses?" I asked Ange.

"No," she said, "they planned to go right back."

They would be short of grub then. Whatever they did, they must do at once.

Suddenly, as Bigelow disappeared into the trees, I levered three fast, searching shots over there, waited an instant, then fired again, holding the rifle a little lower.

Shivering, I added fuel to the fire. The hungry flames crept slowly along the branches, then finding a piece of pitch pine, blazed up. A shot struck the roof, ricocheted down, and scattered fire. I brushed the sparks from my clothing and the bed, and felt a sharp tug at my sleeve as a second bullet came, striking just beyond the fire.

Through the trees I could see their fire. Lying prone on the cold floor, and taking my time, I drew a careful bead on a dark spot at the edge. It might be a log or a stump. It might also be a man.

For a moment I relaxed. Then, taking a long breath, I gathered trigger-slack, let the breath out slowly, and squeezed off the shot.

The cry was hoarse, choking . . . followed by a horrible retching sound such as I had never heard from anything, animal or human.

There was a volley in reply. I fired four more shots that covered an area about four feet back from the fire, and then a final shot across the fire itself.

"Ange," I said, "you'll find some cold flour in my pack. Take it and some of that meat and cook them up together. When it gets dark, we're going to get out."

"Can we?"

"We can try."

Worried as I was about what Tuthill and the rest of them might do, I was more worried about the cold.

Somehow we had to escape. We had to try. We had to try while we had our strength.

Ange was in no condition to attempt a winter in the mountains. We lacked the food for it, lacked the proper clothing and equipment. Yet bad off as we were, those others must be suffering more by now. For his own sake, I hoped the man I shot was dead.

Frightened by the firing, the horses had drawn away from the cave mouth. Now they started back, but before they could reach us, two quick shots put them down. The pack horse first, then the appaloosa.

For the first time in months I swore. Pa was never strong on cussing, and Ma was dead set against it, so we boys kind of grew up without doing much of that, but I said some words this time. They were good horses, and they had done no harm to anyone. But I knew why they were killed. Those men over there, they were realizing how much they needed grub . . . and horse meat was still meat, and not bad eating at that.

Night came. Stars appeared, wind came flowing like icy water over the rim of the mountain. The moon was not visible to us yet, but shone white upon the mountain tops. Twice I dusted the woods with gunfire; and then Ange and me, we ate what we could. What was left of the jerked meat I stowed away in a pack, and made another pack of our blankets and the ammunition.

With a long pole I'd used a couple of times for fishing, I reached out and snagged Tom Bigelow's gun belt, then the pistol. I shucked the shells from the gun belt, and used them to fill empty loops in my own belt. Emptying the shells into my hand from the cylinder, I took my axe and smashed the firing pin.

Then I made a loop on my pack from which to hang the axe, and covered over the shovel and pick with rock waste from the floor of the tunnel. They would probably find them, but I had no intention of making anything easy.

Occasionally a shot hit the back wall or struck into the woodpile. Only at long intervals I returned their fire ... I wanted them to become accustomed to long waiting.

There was every chance they would try an attack under cover of darkness, although their dark figures would be visible on the snow for a time. However if they managed to cross far down the valley and worked toward us along the wall...

"Be ready to move," I whispered to Ange. "I think they will try something now, and after that we're pulling out."

Getting up from behind the stacked wood, I moved outside and eased along the rock wall until I could look both ways. Nothing at first . . . then a faint whisper of coarse cloth brushing on branches. Waiting until I detected a movement, I lifted the rifle, located the movement again, and fired.

There was a grunt, a heavy fall, and a bullet struck rock near my face. I ducked and half fell back into the tunnel. Outside there was cursing, and several shots. Catching up the packs, I slung one on my back. Ange already had the small one. An instant we paused. I levered a shot at a stab of flame from the trees, and then we slipped out.

The area around the tunnel lay in heavy darkness. We went swiftly along the wall and, when well away from the tunnel, turned up through the trees.

We had to go down the trail up which they had come, and go down it in darkness. Then we had to go up the opposite side, climb that steep talus slope to the bare, icy ridge that overlooked the Vallecitos. Whether Ange could make this, I did not know.

Once into the trees and moving, working away from the valley of the mine, we slowed down, holding to a steady pace. The snow had frozen, and we moved now across a good surface where there was no need for snowshoes.

The crude pair had been abandoned, as they were in bad shape anyway after the rough usage they had. As long as the cold held the snow would remain solid, but when it began to get warmer the ice beneath the snow, left from the sleet storm, would melt. Once that happened, travel would become impossible. At the lightest step, snow might slide, bringing down all the snow upon an entire mountainside in one gigantic avalanche. The cold was a blessing, severe as it was.

We traveled steadily. Nobody would be too anxious to investigate the mine, even when they began to believe we had escaped. And when they did investigate, they would start at once to seek for gold. Most of that in sight had been taken by me, and they were going to have to do some digging to get at the rest.

And before long they would have other things on their minds.

Time to time I stopped to give Ange a chance to catch her breath and ease her muscles. She didn't complain, and seemed to be holding up.

The moon was bright on the canyon wall when we came to the path down. Ange caught my sleeve. "Tell? Do we have to?"

"We have to."

I tried a foot on the trail. The frozen snow might make it a lot easier going down than loose snow over that sleet. Moving carefully, like a man walking on eggs, I started down.

Wind bit at exposed flesh, stiffening our muscles. The canyon below was a great open mouth of darkness. Above us the ridges and peaks towered pure, white, and glittering with wild beauty in the moonlight. It's rare in a man's Me to see such a sight, and I stopped for a minute, just taking it in. Ange was standing close behind, her hands on my back.

"I wish Ma could see that," I said. "She favors lovely things."

The wind gnawed at our faces with icy teeth, as we moved along. Snow crunched as we put our feet down, each step a lifetime of risk and doubt.

The path was scarce three feet wide, widening to four at the most but looking broader in spots because of the cornices of snow that hung over the lip. It was a steep path where every step had to be separate, the foot put carefully down, the weight rested gradually, and then the other foot lifted.

The sky above was amazingly bright; the moon made the hills and peaks like day. High above, on a frosty ridge where I hoped to be by daylight, the snow blew, throwing a brief veil across the sky. The snow hanging on the slopes above the trail made me mighty uneasy. Snow like that can start to slide on the slightest provocation, and with daylight it would become worse.

When we were halfway down, we stopped again, and Ange came up beside me. "You ready for it?" I asked her. They'll be coming soon, Ange."

"How long has it been?"

"Couple of hours ..."

We hit bottom with our knees shaking, and headed for the cave. By daylight they would realize we were gone. With the fire out, they would soon guess that we'd lit a shuck, and they would come a-helling after us.

We were almost to the cave before we smelled smoke. Catching a whiff of it, I pulled up short. Somebody was in the cave.

Stepping into the opening, gun up and ready, I found myself looking into the muzzle of a .44 gun. That gun muzzle looked as great as the cave mouth, as black as death itself.

"Mister," I said, "you put down that .44 gun. If you don't, I'm sure going to kill you."

And all the while he had the drop on me.

Chapter XIV

Newton was holding that pistol--that white headed kid I'd talked out of trouble back down the line.

He was lying on his back, looking sick, and the gun in his hand was shaky. A blanket was pulled over him, and I could see from the fire that he had been feeding sticks into it without getting up.

"What's the matter, Kid? You in trouble?"

He kept the gun on me. Could I swing that Winchester up in time to nail him? I was hoping I wouldn't have to try.

"Busted my leg."

"And they left you? That ain't hardly decent, Kid." Using up all the nerve I had in store, I put my rifle down. "Kid, put that gun away and let me look at your leg."

"You got no cause to help me," he said, but I could see he wanted help more than anybody I'd ever seen.

"You're hurt, that's cause enough. Maybe when you get well I'll have cause to shoot you, but right now I wouldn't leave no man in your kind of trouble."

I said to Ange, "You stay in the opening and keep a lookout. We may have to shoot our way out of here yet."

Taking the pistol from his hand, I pulled back the blanket. He had made a try at splinting his leg, but the splints had come loose. The leg was swollen and looked a fright.

I cut a split in his pants leg, and cut his boot to get it off. No cowhand likes to have a good pair of boots ruined, but there was no other way about it. Looked like a clean break a few inches below the knee, but those splints had been a lousy job. I cut some fresh ones, then I made a try at doing something to ease him.

I heated some water, and put hot cloths on that leg. To tell the truth, I wasn't sure how much good they'd do, but they would make him think he was being helped, a comfort to a man that's been lying alone, half-froze to death in a lonely cave.

"You drag yourself here?"

"They left me."

"That's a rawhide outfit, Kid. They aren't worth shootin'. You ought to cut loose from them and line up with a real bunch."

Breaking some sticks, I built up the fire, and all the time I was thinking what a pickle we were in. We had it bad enough, Ange and me, trying to take out over that ridge. And as if we weren't in trouble enough, we were now saddled with a man with a broke ... broken leg.

Folks might say it was none of my business, that my first duty was to get Ange out of here, and myself. It was nip and tuck whether we would make it or not--I'd say we were on the short end of the odds. The Kid had come with men who intended to rob me, probably murder me. And before that he had tried to pick a fight with me. Someday, somebody was going to have to shoot him, more than likely.

But left here, he would freeze to death before he could starve. There was no two ways about that. And none of that gold-hungry crowd would lift a hand to help.

Taking the axe, I walked down to the trees. The moon was gone now, but day was not too far off. Searching through a bunch of second-growth timber, stuff that had grown up after a slide had ripped it down, I found in a thick cluster of aspen just what I wanted, and cut two slim poles about eight feet long.

I carried them back to the cave, after trimming the branches off, and then took the axe and smoothed off one side. My axe was sharp and I'd split enough rails for fences back in Tennessee to know how to trim up a young tree. On the bottom end I made a bevel, curving the end upward a mite.

Going to the woodpile, I cut some crosspieces, notched the poles to take four of them, and then fitted them into the notches.

"What you fixin'?"

"You set quiet. Can't pack you out of here on my back, so I'm fixing a toboggan . . . such as it is."

"You'd take me out of here?" The Kid was not expecting any favors, seemed like.

"Can't let you lie here and freeze," I told him irritably. "Best thing you can do is stay quiet. If we get out at all, you'll be with us, but don't get your hopes up. Our chances are mighty poor."

For several minutes, while I wove some rawhide around the crosspieces, Kid Newton had nothing to say. Finally, he eased his leg a mite. "Sackett, you and that girl better take out. I mean, I'm no account. Why, I was fixin' to kill you back along the trail."

"Kid, you'd never have cleared leather. I wasn't hunting trouble, but I cut my teeth on a six-shooter."

"You can make it, you two. You're never going to get me over any trail on that sled."

"We aren't going by trail." I sat back on my heels. "Kid, if you get out of this alive you can sure tell folks you've been up the creek and over the mountain, because that's where we're going."

He didn't get it. And reason enough he couldn't. No man in his right mind would try what I figured to do.

Some of the trails by which we had come into the mountains would by now be a dozen feet under the snow. What I figured to do was go over the ridge ... to go right down the steep side of the mountain into camp.

Crazy? Sure . . . but the chute was choked with snow and ice, the upper valley was full by now, and the other trails, the one by which Ange came in ... the passes would be choked with snow there.

We had all come in on horseback, but no horse could get out. In places the snow might carry the weight of a man alone, but never the weight of men and horses. We might make it out, but it was a risk scarcely worth thinking about.

It is one thing to ride a horse through unknown country; it is another to go back afoot. It would take twice, maybe three times as long. The gang up there had figured to come in and go right out...

"What do you mean?" The Kid was looking at me now like he was afraid he did know.

Pausing in my work, I gestured at the mountain opposite, "The one above us is higher, and we're going over it."

He knew I was crazy now. One lone man taking a girl and a wounded man over that mountain!

The sky was gray overhead when we started out of there, me towing that crude toboggan behind me. The slope of talus was steep, but easier going with the snow on it, for the rock did not slide under me. Still, it was a struggle to get up to the foot of that chimney.

Ange looked up at it, and her eyes were mighty big when she turned back to me. 'Tell," she whispered, "you can't do it. It's impossible."

To tell the truth, I didn't feel very good about it myself. That was a high mountain, and that climb was going to be something. Slinging my rifle around my shoulders and hanging a coil of rope to my belt, I told Ange to come on.

The Kid, he was tied onto that sled, and he laid there looking at me. "You going to leave me, Sackett? I don't blame you. Unless you can fly, you ain't going up there."

I made one end of the rope fast to the head of the toboggan, and got ready to climb. The rope was made fast by taking a round turn on each runner, then tying the end of the rope to the standing part, so the sled would hang straight when I started to pull it.

Going up ahead, I cut a few toe-holds in the ice, and found a couple I'd used before where no ice had collected. When at last I climbed the chimney, I guided Ange.

She was little, but mighty lithe and strong when it came right down to it, and she made easier work of that climb up the chimney than I had.

The old, gnarled bristle-cone was standing there where I'd remembered it, atop that chimney and rooted deep in the rock. Taking a turn around that old tree, I dug my heels in and started to hand over hand that rope. Like I said, I'm a big man with a lot of beef in my shoulders and arms, but when I took the strain of that full weight, I surely knew I was in trouble.

Getting him clear of the ground was only part of it. He had to fend himself off the rocky face with his hands. A time or two, I could feel him helping me where he could get a hand-hold.

Ange stood behind me and cleared the rope around the trunk of the pine so we could hold what we had got. My hands were stiff, and I didn't think I'd ever get my fingers unwound from about that rope. But I hauled away.

Stopping to rest myself, with the Kid hanging there like a papoose slung on a pack board, I looked off across the valley.

Somebody was coming down the trail. How far? Maybe a quarter of a mile, a bit more or less. There were only four of them, the man behind was making a slow thing of it.

One of them jerked up his rifle and we heard the sound of a shot. What happened to that bullet I never could say, but it came nowhere near us. Judging distance across a canyon like that, when the target is higher than you--that's quite a stunt. Why, I've missed a few shots like that my own self.

Digging in my heels, I took hold of that rope. My arms ached and I was fighting for breath. Those high-up ridges surely took a man's wind. But I got him up a couple of feet farther, beat my hands to warm them, and started at it again.

There was no time to look across the canyon. There was only time to haul away. Heave, and heave again . . . catch a breath, and heave again.

Then the toboggan brought up against something and stuck.

"Ange," I said, straightening up, "I'm going down. When I ,clear the sled, you get as much rope around that pine as can be."

"Tell?"

Turning around, I looked at her. She was looking right at me. "Why are you doing this? Is it because of the way I acted?"

Well, I declare! I hadn't thought of that. "No, Ange, I never gave thought to that. No man can abide much by what a woman thinks, at times like this. He does what it's his nature to do. That man down there ... we had words one time. He was figuring to shoot me, and I was planning to beat him to it.

That there's one thing, this here's another. That's a helpless man, and when I get him up here and get him safe, then maybe 'hell come a-gunning for me. So I'll have to shoot him."

I started down the slope, then stopped and looked back. "Seems a lot of trouble to go to, doesn't it?"

Well, I cleared him, and we hoisted him out on top of the ridge, using the same route I'd found on that day when I left Ange in the cave.

Down below was Cap, our log house, and our claim -- down there in those trees. And up here the wind was blowing a gale, and a man could scarcely stand erect. One thing I knew: we had to get off that mountain, and fast. It was clouding up again--great banks of gray, solid cloud. That could mean more snow. That canyon could be twenty feet deep in snow before the week was out.

Camp was a half-mile as the crow flies, but a good five thousand feet down. Looking north to where I'd spotted what looked like a way down, I could still see it, despite the snow. Once into the trees, we could make it all right, although it would be work.

This ridge was about thirteen thousand feet up, and the wind was roaring along it All the gray granite was swept dean, although there were flurries of snow in the air from time to time. Leaning into the wind, we started on, towing the sled. Finally we got down over the edge of the ridge. Right away, the wind seemed to let up.

My face was raw from the wind, my hands were numb. My fingers in their gloves felt stiff, and I was afraid that the Kid, held immovable the way he was, would freeze to death.

Lowering the sled away ahead of us, we made it down. One time the wind came around a shoulder of the mountain and lifted the sled, man and all, like it was a leaf, but set it down again before the rope tore from my hands. We both heard the Kid scream when the drop jolted his broken leg.

Bracing myself on great shattered rocks, I lowered him. Climbing after, lowering Ange, I lost all sense of time, and could not remember when it ever had been warm.

Below us was a huge old tree, ripped from the rock by its roots. It sprawled like a great spider, petrified in the moment of death, legs writhing. A little below it were some wind-tortured trees, and then the forest We could see the tops of the trees and, far off below, a white, white world of snow, with here and there a faint feather of smoke rising from some house.

Hugging that wind-torn mountainside, and looking down into those treetops, I could hardly believe there was a house with a fire burning in it, or Ma a-rocking in her old rocker, or Orrin a-singing. It was a world far away from the wind, the cold, and snow that drove at your face like sand.

But, easing the sled down a little farther, we got into the trees. From there to the bottom it was mostly a matter of guiding the sled, belaying the rope around a tree here and there to ease it, and working our way through. One time Ange almost dropped, and my own knees were buckling most of the way.

By the time we reached the path I'd cut to build a little fort above the camp, I had fallen down a couple of times, and I was so numb with cold and so exhausted I could scarce think. The draw rope over my shoulder, and one arm around Ange, I started through the tall pines toward the house.

The snow was deep under the trees, but there was a slow lift of smoke from the chimney, and a light in the window. Seemed like only a short time ago it was coming daylight, and now it was night-time again.

Then I fell, face down in the snow. Seemed to me I tried to get up ... seemed to get my hands under me and push. I could see that light in the window and I could hear myself talking. I hauled away and got to the door, where I couldn't make my fingers work the latch.

The door opened of a sudden and Cap was standing there with a six-gun in his hand, looking like he was the old Cap and ready to start shooting.

"It ain't worth the trouble, Cap. I think I'm dead already."

Joe Rugger was there, and between them they got Kid Newton off the sled and into the house. Ange, she just sat down and started to cry, and I knelt on the floor and put my arm around her and kept telling her everything was all right.

Kid Newton caught my sleeve. "By God," he said, "today I seen a man! I thought--"

"Get some sleep," I said. "Joe's going for the doctor."

"I seen a man," the Kid repeated. "Why, when I hung those guns on me I thought I was something, I thought--"

"Shut up," I said. And I reached my hands toward the fire a distance off. I could feel the million tiny needles starting to dance in my fingers as the cold began to leave them.

"Speaking of men"--I looked over at Newton-- "if you ever get down to Mora, I've got two brothers down there, Tyrel and Orrin. Now there's a couple of men!

"Always figured to make something of myself," I said, "but I guess I just ain't got in me."

Sitting on the edge of the bed, I just let the heat soak into me, every muscle feeling stretched out and useless. Ange had quit her crying and dropped off to sleep there beside me, her face drawn, dark hollows under her eyes.

"You been through it," Cap said. He looked at Newton. "What did you bring him back for?"

"I got no better sense, Cap. I brought him down off that mountain because there was nobody else to do it."

"But he wanted to kill you!"

"Sure ... he had him a notion, that was all. I reckon since then he's had time to contemplate." Cap Rountree took his pipe out of his teeth and dumped coffee in the pot. "Then you take time to contemplate about this,"

he said, "There's another Bigelow down in town.

He's asking for you."

Chapter XV

It wasn't in me to lie abed. Come daylight, I was on my feet, but I wasn't up to much. What I really got up for was vittles. Seemed like I hadn't been so hungry in years.

Ange was still sleeping in the other room, and Joe Rugger and his wife, just out from Ohio, had come out to the place.

That Bigelow worries me," Rugger said. "He's a man hunting trouble like you never saw."

Those Bigelows," I said, "they remind me of those little animals a Swede told me about one time. Called them lemmings or something like that. Seems as if all of a sudden they take out for the ocean . . . millions of them, and they run right into the ocean and drown. Those Bigelows seem bound and determined to get themselves killed just as fast as they can manage."

"Don't take him lightly, Tell," Rugger warned me. "He killed a man in Denver City, and another in Tascosa. Benson Bigelow, he's the oldest, biggest, and toughest of all of them."

"Heard of him," Cap said. "I didn't know he was kin."

"He's been asking questions about his brothers. They haven't come back out of the mountains, and he says you murdered them."

"Them and three more? That's quite a lot to take on. Believe me, they haven't come out of the mountains, and it will surprise me if they ever do."

The warmth of the room felt good and after a while I stretched out and slept some more.

When I opened my eyes Ange was fixing something at the stove. I got up and pulled on my boots. I spilled some water in the basin and washed my face and hands. The water felt good on my face, and I decided I needed a shave.

Cap was off somewhere, and just the two of us were there. The doctor had taken the Kid away. It was nice, shaving, with Ange fussing over something at the fire. Finally she called me to dinner and I was ready. Cap came in, stomping the snow from his boots on the stoop.

"Snowing," he said. "You were lucky. A few hours more, and you might never have made it."

Ange brought me a cup of coffee and I held it in my hands, thinking about those men up there. They brought it on themselves, and despite their ill feeling for me, I was wishing they would make it.

They never did.

Cap accepted coffee too, and he looked over at me. "That Benson Bigelow is telling it around that you're yellow, afraid to meet him."

Some folks are bound and determined to make fools of themselves.

All I wanted was a ranch of my own, some cattle, and a little land I could crop. Only when I looked up there at Ange I knew that wasn't all I wanted.

I had no idea how to put it, and hated to risk it, knowing how little I had to offer. Here I was a grown man, just learning to read proper, and although I'd found some gold there was no telling how deep that vein would run. In fact, it acted to me like a pocket. That was why as soon as spring came I was going to light out for Mora to see the boys.

I said as much to Cap.

"You needn't worry," he said. "Tyrel and Orrin, they're riding up here. Them and Ollie Shaddock."

Ollie was from the Cumberland too. Sheriff back there one time, and some kin of ours. He was the one who got Orrin into politics, although Tennessee boys take to politics like they do to coon hunting.

"When do you expect them?"

"Tonight or tomorrow, if all goes well. They heard you were fetching trouble and they sent word they were coming up."

They would ride into town and, unknown to them, that Bigelow would be there, and he might hear one of them called Sackett and just open up and start shooting.

If he faced them, I wasn't worried. Tyrel now, Tyrel was hell on wheels with a pistol.

I finished my coffee and got up. Then I took down my gun belt and slung it around my hips and took down my coat and hat. "Riding up to town," I said. "A little fresh air."

"Kind of stuffy in here," Cap Rountree said. "Mind if I ride along?"

Ange had turned from the fire with a big spoon in her hand.

"What about supper? After I've gone to all this trouble?"

"We'll be back," I said. "You keep it warm, Ange."

I shrugged into my coat and put on my hat. I was going to have to get me a coonskin for this weather. "Anyway," I said, "the way I figure, I shouldn't get used to your cooking, nohow. A man can form a habit."

She was looking me right in the eye, her face flushed a mite from the fire, looking pretty as all get-out.

"Trouble is, no woman in her right mind would marry a fool, and I'm certainly one."

"A lot you know about women!" she scoffed. "Did you ever see a fool who didn't have a wife?"

Come to that, I hadn't.

"Keep it warm," I said.

She didn't say a word about shooting or Benson Bigelow. She just said, "You come back, Tell Sackett, I won't have my supper wasted. Not after all this trouble."

It was cool in the outside air, and Cap led the horses out. He had them saddled. "Figured you wouldn't want the boys to come up against it, unexpected," he said.

The saloon was hot and crowded, and up at the bar a big man was standing. He had a broad, hard-boned face and it took only one look to see this was no ordinary Bigelow, this was the Old Man of the Woods, right from Bitter Creek, tough and mean and not all talk.

He turned around and looked at me and I walked over and leaned on the bar alongside him.

You never saw a saloon lose customers so fast. Must have been fifty, sixty men in there when I leaned on that bar, and a half-minute later there weren't but five or six, the kind who just have to stay and see what happens, men determined to be innocent bystanders.

This Bigelow sized me up and I looked back at him kind of mild and round-eyed, and I said, "Nice mustache you have there, Mr. Bigelow."

"What's wrong with my mustache?"

"Why, nothing ... exactly."

"What's that mean?"

"Buy you a drink?"

"What's wrong with my mustache? No, I'll buy my own drinks!"

For the first time he realized the crowd was gone. The skin under his eyes seemed to tighten.

Outside I thought I could hear horses coming. It was late for travel in this weather, which made me wonder if it wasn't Tyrel and Orrin.

Those brothers of mine . . . ride hundreds of miles--well, maybe a couple hundred--through rough country because they figured I was standing alone against trouble.

"Are you Tell Sackett?"

"That brother of yours, Wes, he never was no hand with cards. Nor a pistol, either."

"What happened to Tom and Ira?"

"You look long enough, you'll find them in the spring," I told him. "They had no more sense than to come chasing me back into the hills, with winter coming on and snow in the air."

"Did you see them?"

"They tried to kill me a couple of times. They weren't any better shots than Wes. Tom, he lost his gun up there."

Bigelow was quiet, and I could see him studying things out in his mind.

"Hear you came up here hunting me," I said mildly. "It's a long ride for the trouble."

He couldn't quite make me out. Nothing I had said showed I was troubled about anything, just talking like to any passer-by.

"You know something, Bigelow? You better just straddle your horse and ride out of here. What happened to your brothers was brought on them by their own actions."

"Maybe you're right," he said. I'll buy the drink."

So we had a drink together, and then I ordered one. When I got rid of that I drew back. "Well, I've got a good supper waiting for me. See you around, Bigelow."

Turning, I started for the door and then he said, "Sackett

His gun cocked when it cleared leather and a sound like that is plain to hear in an empty room. I drew as I turned and his first bullet whiffed by my ear. Steadying down, I shot him through the belly, and it slammed him against the bar. But he caught the edge with his left hand and pulled himself around. I did not hear the report, but I felt the slug take me low and hard. I braced myself and shot him again.

He did not go down ... .44 or not, you have to hit a man right through the heart, through the head, or on a big bone to stop him if he's mad, and Bigelow was killing mad. He was a big bear of a man and he looked tough as a winter on the cap-rock of west Texas.

For what seemed like minutes he stood there, and I could see the blood soaking his shirt front and pants, and then great red drops of it began to hit the floor between his feet.

He lifted his gun, taking his time, his left hand still clinging to the bar, and he took dead aim at me. He started to cock the gun, and I shot him again. He jolted the bar when he slammed against it. A bottle tipped over and rolled down the bar, spilling whiskey. He reached over and took up the bottle and drank out of it, holding it in his left hand, never taking his eyes off me.

He put the bottle down, and I said, "That drink was on me."

"I made a mistake," he said. "I guess you shot them honest."

"Only Wes ... the cold got the others."

"All right," he said, and turned his back on me. I could hear running outside.

For a long minute I stood there with my gun in my hand looking at his back, and then his knees began to sag and he fell slowly, his fingers clinging as long as they could to the bar. Then he let go and rolled over on the floor and he was dead.

He lay there face up in the sawdust, his eyes open to the lights, and there was sawdust in his beard.

There was a wet feeling inside my pants where the blood was running down. I thumbed shells into my gun, holstered it, and Cap came up to me.

"You're hit," he said.

"Seems like," I said, and caught hold of the wall.

The door opened and Tyrel came in, with Orrin right behind him, both of them ready for trouble.

"We'd better get back to the place," I said. "Supper will get cold."

They looked past me at Bigelow.

"Any more of them?" Tyrel asked.

"If there are, they won't have to shoot me. I'll shoot myself."

Cap pulled my shirt open and they could see the blood oozing from a hole in the flesh over my hip. The bullet had gat itself a place without hitting a bone or doing much harm. Tyrel took out a silk handkerchief and plugged it up, and we went outside.

"The doctor's here," Cap protested. "You'd better see him."

"Bring him along. There's a lady waiting dinner."

When I came in the door of the cabin, Ange stood with her back to it. I could see her shoulders hunch a mite as if she expected to be hit, and I said, "This fool ain't married."

She turned around and looked at me. "He will be," she said, and dropped her spoon on the floor and came across the room and right into my arms.

So I taken her in my arms and for the first time in my life I had something that was really mine.

Seems like even a long, tall man who ain't much for looks can find him a woman, too.

ABOUT LOUIS L'AMOUR

"I think of myself in the oral tradition--as a troubador, a village taleteller, the man in the shadows of the campfire. That's the way I'd like to be remembered--as a storyteller. A good storyteller."

It is doubtful that any author, could be as at home in the world re-created in his novels as Louis Dearborn L'Amour. Not only could he physically fill the boots of the rugged characters he writes about, but he literally has "walked the land my characters walk." His personal experiences as well as his lifelong devotion to historical research have combined to give Mr. L'Amour the Unique knowledge and understanding of the people, events, and challenge of the American frontier which have become the hallmarks of his popularity.

Of French-Irish descent, Mr. L'Amour can trace his own family in North America back to the early 1600s and follow their steady progression westward, "always on the frontier." As a boy growing up in Jamestown, North Dakota, he absorbed all he could about his family's frontier heritage, including the story of his great-grandfather who was scalped by Sioux warriors.

Spurred by an eager curiosity and desire to broaden his horizons, Mr. L'Amour left home at the age of fifteen and enjoyed a wide variety of jobs including seaman, lumberjack, elephant handler, skinner * of dead cattle, assessment miner, and officer on tank destroyers during World War Q. During Us "yondering days" he also circled the world on a freighter, sailed a dhow on die Red Sea, was shipwrecked in the West Indies and stranded in the Mojave Desert. He has won fifty-one of fifty-nine fights as a professional boxer and worked as a journalist and lecturer. A voracious reader and collector of rare books, Mr. L'Amour's personal library of some 10,000 volumes covers a broad range of scholarly disciplines including many personal papers, maps, and diaries of the pioneers.

Mr. L'Amour "wanted to write almost from the time I could walk.'* After developing a widespread following for his many adventure stories written for the fiction magazines, Mr. L'Amour published his first full-length novel, Hondo, in 1953. Mr. L'Amour is now one of the four bestselling living novelists in the world. Every one of his more than 85 novels is constantly in print and every one has sold more than one million copies, giving Hfm more million-copy bestsellers than any other living author. His books have been translated into more man a dozen languages, and more than thirty, of his novels and stories have been made into feature films and television movies.

The recipient of many great honors and awards, Mr. L'Amour in 1983 became the first novelist ever to be awarded a Special National Gold Medal by the United States Congress in honor of his life's work. In 1984 he was also awarded the Medal of Freedom by President Ronald Reagan.

Mr. L'Amour lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Kathy, and their two children, Beau and Angelique.