The Stolen Gold Affair

8 Quincannon

Like it or not, the time had come to report to James O’Hearn. The mine superintendent had demanded an early progress report, and Quincannon could not keep putting it off. After his shift ended on Friday, he contrived to remain in the mine yard after the other crewmen had departed by helping the night-shift topmen unload a shipment of board lumber and stack it in one of the long timber ricks. When he was sure all the night-shift miners had gone into the hole, he made his way to the mine office, where O’Hearn, by his own admission, could be found well into the evening.

Not this evening, however. A clerk informed him that Mr. O’Hearn had gone down to the stamp mill. The mill suited Quincannon’s purpose well enough, or would as long as O’Hearn was available for a private conversation in or near its confines.

A dynamite explosion deep inside the mine made the ground tremble as he descended a steep flight of stairs to the mill. When he entered he had no difficulty locating O’Hearn; together with an ox of a man, probably the mill foreman, he was inspecting one of the eccentrics that raised the stamps, shut down now and locked into place. Quincannon stayed where he was near the entrance, unconsciously fingering his mutilated ear and watching the machinery and the millhands at their work.

The iron-shod stamps, loosely held vertically in framed sets of five, were lifted by cams on a horizontal rotating shaft. As the cam moved from under the stamp, it dropped into the ore below and crushed the rock; the lifting process was then repeated at the next pass of the cam. Smaller pieces of ore that came tumbling down the chute went through a three-inch grizzly, or grating, into feed bins; anything larger was shunted into a jaw crusher. The dressed ore was fed automatically to the stamps.

Quincannon waited ten minutes in the lantern-lit enclosure, keeping out of the way of the sweating millhands, before O’Hearn and the foreman finished their inspection and the superintendent turned toward the entrance. His bearded face remained impassive when he spied Quincannon. He gestured that they go outside, where they could make themselves heard above the thunder of the stamps at work.

Once there and certain they were alone, he said through a glower, “Why haven’t you reported to me before this, Quincannon?”

“Nothing definite to report. And the only feasible place to meet is your office or elsewhere in the compound, a tricky proposition.”

“I suppose you’ve made no progress at all, then.”

“An incorrect supposition. I have made progress.”

“You know who’s doing the high-grading?”

“I have an idea who some of them are.”

“Well? Who?”

“I’d rather not say just yet.”

O’Hearn’s glower deepened. “Why the devil not?”

“I never make accusations until I have proof. I thought I made that clear to you and Mr. Hoxley.”

“Dammit, man, I don’t like being kept in the dark.”

“You won’t be for long, I promise you that.”

“What about that union agitator, Yost? Is he involved?”

“I’ll tell you this much,” Quincannon said. “Yost is no more a union recruiter than I am.”

“The hell you say. Are you sure of that?”

“Sure enough.”

“What is he, then?”

“That remains to be learned.”

“But he is mixed up in the high-grading?”

“That also remains to be learned.”

O’Hearn emitted one of his grizzly growls. “Trying to get straight answers out of you is like trying to eat soup with a fork. You had better not be giving me a runaround, Quincannon.”

“I’m not. Why would I?”

“For all I know you’ve sold out and thrown in with the gang—”

Quincannon’s hackles rose at that. “Bah! You’ll never meet a more honest man, or a better detective.”

“So you keep claiming. You’d damn well better prove it if you know what’s good for you.”

“I don’t take kindly to threats, Mr. O’Hearn, from anyone, including my employers and their minions. When you hear from me again, it will be with proof in hand.”

Quincannon turned on his heel and stomped back up the stairs without a backward glance.

Frank McClellan’s shack was larger and somewhat better built than the other miners’ dwellings staggered along the hillside above Patch Creek. Elderberry and chokecherry bushes crowded around it, giving it more privacy than most of its neighbors and making it easier for Quincannon to approach it without being seen.

It was a few minutes before midnight now, the cold mountain night moonless, the shadows a deep velvety black. Lamplight showed in a few of the other shacks, but none of those were close to McClellan’s. His was a completely dark, looming shape. The assistant foreman had been sharing a bottle of forty-rod whiskey with three others in the Golden Dollar when Quincannon left, and judging by their boisterous conversation, they intended to remain there for quite some time.

Keeping to clots of shadow, Quincannon eased up to the shack. He had armed himself tonight with the hideout weapon he favored for undercover work such as this Monarch business, and that he’d kept secreted in a pouch inside his war bag — a Remington double-barrel.41-caliber rimfire derringer. Not that he expected to need it, but he felt more secure with it close to hand.

He paused at the door to listen; the only sounds came from a distance, wind-carried snatches of saloon piano music and the distant throb of the stamps. There was a large padlock on the door latch, fairly new by the feel of it and its staple, but it presented no problem. He had come prepared with his burglar’s set of lock picks, which he’d also kept secreted in his war bag. It took him less than five minutes to breach the lock.

He left it hanging open in its hasp, parted the door from the jamb, eased himself inside, and shut it quickly behind him. The sharp odors of unwashed clothing, wood smoke, and alcohol set him to breathing through his mouth. The darkness was stygian; he struck a match to orient himself, shielding its flame with his hand. One large room, slightly less monastic than a monk’s cell. Sheet-iron stove, puncheon table, wall bench, pole bunk with a thick mattress and woolen blankets. The only window was covered by a thick muslin curtain. He crossed to it, made sure the curtain fit tight to the frame by propping the shack’s only chair against its lower edge.

From his coat pocket he took the other item he’d brought with him, a miner’s candle appropriated from the mine stores. Searching by candlelight was no easy chore, but it was the only method open to him; his oil-wick cap lamp cast too bright a light even with the window curtain secured. He struck a match to light the candle’s wick. In its glow he spied a tin dish on the wall bench; a residue of wax identified it as a candleholder. He wax-anchored the candle in the dish, then set quickly to business.

Two items were wedged beneath the bunk, McClellan’s duffel and a small leather case. He examined the case first. Its only contents were three identical dark brown bottles; the label on one he lifted out bore a steel-engraved photograph of a healthy-looking, muscle-flexing gent and the words “Perry Davis’ Pain Killer.” Quincannon was familiar with the product — a patent medicine that claimed to have great thaumaturgic powers, good for man and beast, but whose main ingredient was pure alcohol. It was more potent, in fact, than most lawfully manufactured whiskeys. McClellan evidently did as much private drinking here as he did publicly in the Golden Dollar.

Quincannon turned his attention to the duffel and its contents. Wads of soiled shirts, socks, and union suits. A new, sealed deck of playing cards. A torn dime novel featuring the exploits of a Wild West character named Deadwood Dick. And a leather drawstring pouch. But the pouch turned out to be a disappointment. All it contained was a collar button, a woman’s corset stay, two Indian Head pennies, the nib of a pen, and half a dozen other odds and ends of value only to the assistant foreman.

Quincannon replaced the pouch and the rest of the items, pushed the duffel and the case of Pain Killer back under the bunk. He searched the bunk itself, feeling under the mattress; all he found was the desiccated remains of a large moth. The wall bench yielded nothing, either; nor did the stove’s ash box and flue. The woodbox beside the stove was partially full; he lifted out the sticks of firewood, to no avail. Then he moved the empty box aside to probe underneath.

Ah! A foot-long section of floorboard there was loose.

He pried it up with the aid of his pocket knife. Tucked into the narrow opening beneath was a drawstring pouch similar to the one in the duffel. This one, however, contained paydirt — literally. McClellan’s private stash. Quincannon emptied a little of the gold dust into the palm of his hand, where it glittered wickedly in the candle flame. After a moment he sifted it back inside, then hefted the pouch. Perhaps two troy ounces, he judged.

He returned the pouch to the hidey-hole, covered it with the loose board, covered that with the woodbox, and restacked the cordwood inside. Then he removed the candle from the tin dish, set the dish back on the bench where he’d found it, and slid the propped chair away from the window curtain. A quick glance around assured him that everything was now as it had been when he entered. He blew out the candle flame, cracked the door open, peeked out. A night owl had the area to itself, and flew off hooting when Quincannon emerged and slipped away downhill among the shadows, feeling well pleased with the night’s effort.

Two troy ounces of gold were worth less than $50 total. Not enough to prove conclusively that McClellan was one of the high-graders, but enough to satisfy himself of the man’s complicity. What other reasonable explanation could there be for a mine official paid in greenbacks and coins to possess a hidden stash of pure gold dust?