Bellows. A few years back there were a lot of murders over on the
Republican—buffalo-skinners murdered in camp … shot in the back. The camps
were robbed, and at first it was laid to Indians, but then it was figured to be
a well-organized gang.
“Semple was around about that time, and a man he traveled with was caught with a
rifle stolen off a murdered man. Semple disappeared—dropped clean out of sight.
Later, he was around Corinne. Back in those days it was a booming town on the
Lake. If you see him around, keep an eye on him.”
Joshua Teel left by the back door and cut around between the buildings. He stood
in the shadows and surveyed the street with care. He saw Semple almost at once,
a tall, slightly stooped man with drooping mustaches, a man who stood alone on
the street, or bent to peer into the windows of the closed shops.
Stepping out from the buildings, Teel loafed along in the shadows. He noted the
horse tied at the hitch rail, a tall, clean-limbed bay with a rifle in the
scabbard.
It was after midnight when Semple mounted up and rode out of town. Listening,
Teel heard no drum of hoofs on the bridge. Semple had gone down on the flat,
then. Teel returned to his own place and turned in.
Macon Fallon had found shelter for his horse among the boulders. Outside the
canyon mouth there was no movement. His horse had drunk, and was cropping at
some grass growing in the space between some of the higher boulders. Fallon
settled himself down for a long stay, and waited for the sun to go down.
Could the Utes get around behind him in any way? It was possible. His only way
out was down the canyon toward Red Horse, for they blocked the opening before
him. Yet suppose there was a way down from the cliffs above? Supposing even two
or three could circle around, slip down the cliff, and lie in wait for him?
The sun declined, seemed to hesitate, then vanished. It was twilight within the
canyon now, although still bright out on the basin. The Utes knew that when
darkness came he would ride away down the canyon to safety, yet they made no
further attempt to push the attack. That meant they were either waiting for
darkness to attack—which not many Indians liked to do—or they had gotten around
behind him and were not worried.
Suddenly, the black horse’s head came up. His head up, ears pricked, he looked
off down the canyon. Something was down there, behind him.
Carefully, Fallon replaced the fired cartridges in his Winchester, and waited.
When darkness came, he took a last drink at the water, then mounted up. Slipping
the Winchester into the scabbard, he drew his .44 pistol.
Riding out quietly from the boulders, he turned his horse back toward the valley
from which he had come. This, he hoped, they would not expect, for he would be
riding away from safety.
The sand made little sound as he walked the horse along. The end of the canyon
was like a gigantic door … beyond was the valley, the star-lit skies. He had
ridden sixty yards out of the canyon mouth before they discovered him.
He smelled smoke, and at the same time he saw an Indian rear up from the ground
and start toward him. Deliberately, he dropped the muzzle of his gun on the same
dark figures, and fired.
He saw the jerk of the Indian’s body as the bullet struck, and at the same
moment he touched the black with the spurs and was off, riding at a dead run
into the wide-open spaces of the valley.
Could he find the other trail? At night it would look different, but long ago he
had cultivated the habit of all wise travelers in wild country, of turning to
look back. Faced from the opposite direction, a trail can look vastly different,
and if compelled to retrace one’s trail such a precaution is essential.
He rode at a dead run for a quarter of a mile or so, then slowed and turned at
right angles, making for the valley’s eastern side. He found the gap, started
toward it, then recalled the steep trail, and mounted to the top of the cliffs
above the valley. Leaning forward, he peered above to his right, searching for
the notch in the rock, and hoping he could choose the right one.
Here, in the stifl, cool night, he could smell the dusty grass and the sage.
Behind him there would be pursuit, and they would be sure he had come toward
this trail, which he knew.
Fallon spoke softly to his horse. That horse was working overtime keeping him
out of trouble—keeping him alive, even; for a man without a horse in this
country was often as good as a dead man … that was the reason for hanging
horse thieves.
Fallon rode carefully, easing toward the trail he had come over that afternoon.
Suddenly, when almost past it, he saw what he believed was the notch he wanted.
Turning abruptly, he put his horse up the steep slope. Instinctively, it held to
the trail.
They climbed steeply, winding around boulders, and, suddenly emerging at the
top, he was among the pines. He sought a place among the trees and boulders not
far from the trail up which he climbed, and there he settled down for the night.
He slept fitfully, allowing the black horse to keep watch. With the dawn he was
awake, listening. But he heard no sound but the wind in the pines, the lazy
cropping of his horse. He sat still for some time, testing the morning with all
his senses. If Indians were about, he wanted to know it. While he waited, he ate
some pine nuts undiscovered by the birds.
After a while he got to his feet, saddled the horse, and led it to the trail. He
studied the ground with care and found no tracks or sign of any kind save that
of his own horse. Nevertheless, he hesitated to descend into what might well be
a trap. So far as he was aware, only two routes of escape were possible to him,
and perhaps the Indians knew it, too. They might be waiting somewhere below.
Mounting, he turned away from the trail by which he had reached the crest of the
mountain, and rode along the slope under the pines, his rifle ready for any
eventuality.
The morning was clear and bright, the air fresh and pleasantly cool. His horse
trod on pine needles, and pines were all about him. He followed a game trail
along the slope. Occasionally, through a break in the pines he could see in
front of him, off to the left, a towering dome of a mountain. It had a
distinctive shape and looked to be the highest anywhere around.
Suddenly the slope seemed to drop completely away, and he found himself on the
verge of a tremendous declivity where the mountain fell away some four thousand
feet to the valley below. This must be, had to be, the Big Smoky Valley.
A few minutes later he found a spring trickling from the rocks. Here he drank,
and allowed his horse to drink. The rocks around the spring were broken and
jagged, a wide vein of quartz intruding the sedimentary rock. As he knelt to
drink again he glimpsed tiny, gleaming fragments on the sand at the bottom.
Gold? It could be … or fool’s gold. He scooped some of the sand from the
bottom of the catch basin and, spreading it out, managed with a wet twig to
isolate several small flakes and grains.
The shade of trees bending over the spring seemed not to affect the gleam of the
particles. He tested several flakes with a knife blade, and found they could be
cut.
His guess was that they were gold. He had worked as a miner, but had had little
to do with gold except as money. Several mines in which he had worked had no
visible gold before the ore was milled.
If this was gold, he might get enough at the bottom of the small falls further
down the slope to salt one of his claims; but to return here would mean risking
another run-in with the Utes. While he stayed there in the shade beside.the
spring, he washed out a tiny stack of gold, which he carefully put away in an
old envelope he’d been carrying in his coat pocket. Returning, he decided, was
unnecessary. It was far easier to salt a claim with imagination than with gold.
After all, it was what a man imagined he would get from a claim that sold him,
not what he actually saw. Often it was easier to sell a man a worthless hole in
the ground than a good prospect.