Gold miners -- Fiction; Mystery fiction; Robbery -- Fiction; Short stories; Western stories
Yard by yard he followed the telltale trail until he had worked it out
thoroughly in his own mind that the unknown man had been restless and
moved about somewhat aimlessly as if his wait and watch had lasted for
some time. Then came another discovery, that the man had seated himself
or crouched down behind a heavy clump of brush and remained there for
some time, occasionally with restless movements as if intensely
interested in observing something while at the same time taking
precautions to remain in hiding. David had put himself into the same
position and found that he could look through small openings in the
brush which had been made larger by hands twisting off one or two of the
branches, and that he had an exact bird’s-eye view of the spot in the
road where the stage robbery had taken place. On making this discovery
David once more uttered a tiny whistle and mused, “Uh-huh! That’s the
way, eh? There were two of them in it instead of one, as Bill, the
driver, and the deputy sheriffs think. Maybe the one up here had a rifle
beaded down on the stage all the time so that if it came to any sort of
a show-down he could pot Bill or bring down a horse to make the game
certain.”
He devoted some time to seeking the marks where a rifle butt might have
been rested and was disappointed because he could find nothing to bear
out his reasoning. He still hoped to find some such indication, as he
had made a complete detour and picked up the trails where the watcher
had come and gone. They led away to the road below at a long angle and,
proving that patience with keenness has its reward, David now made
another most important find. It was nothing less than a coin watch charm
with the few links connecting it to the chain from which it had been
broken, at sight of which David’s eyes widened as if he had found
something unbelievable.
“Lord! Who’d of thought it! Wish Goliath or Hank was here with me so
that if it comes to a show-down I could have a witness to prove that I
did find this thing, and that it was here that I found it,” he muttered
aloud, and at the sound of his own voice looked around as if startled,
then after putting the charm and piece of chain in his pocketbook,
carefully marked the spot where he had found them by notching the bottom
of some brush with his pocketknife. He resumed the trail which led him
down into the main road where still another cause for conjecture was
exposed. This was that the trail had debouched almost exactly at a point
where a smaller road branched off into the hills. This road David
recognized as a private one that led to the Calora Mine, distant about
two miles. The trail was lost, but David, now as keen as a bloodhound on
a chase, turned off into the private road and followed it for some
distance in the hope of again finding imprints of the crooked boot heel,
but without success. He finally gave this up and was returning to the
main road when he made another discovery and brightened eagerly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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