Dorchester drummed his fingers on the helmet of the suit of armor for a moment as he studied Hawke.
“Do you really think you can get the herd here?”
“Yes,” Hawke said. “I’ll need a few men to help me, but if you would pay a bonus to anyone who volunteers, I will get the herd to you.”
Dorchester smiled broadly. “Then, by Jove, let’s do it.”
Dorchester returned to the parlor. “Mrs. Hilliard, I am prepared to pay you $12,500 for your herd,” he said.
“What?” Cindy gasped in surprise.
“I don’t want to cheat you. You do understand, don’t you, that you could get more for them if you delivered them to the railhead?”
“Yes, I understand that, but I don’t understand why you would make such an offer. I told you, I no longer have a herd.”
“Not according to Hawke.”
“What?”
“Tell her, Hawke.”
“According to the paper that was served you, Mrs. Hilliard, that herd still belongs to you. It is on confiscated land, but it is still your herd.”
“I thought he said twenty-four hours.”
“Twenty-four hours for you to leave. That has nothing to do with your herd.”
“That may be true,” Cindy said. She sighed. “But true or false, the effect is the same. Thank you for offering to buy my herd, Mr. Dorchester, but I still have the same problem. I have no way of getting them to you.”
“You let me worry about that,” Dorchester said. “If you are agreeable to the deal, we’ll go down to the bank and I’ll write out a draft for the sale and buy them where they stand.”
“I…I…Mr. Dorchester, I don’t know how to thank you,” she stammered.
“Don’t thank just me,” Dorchester said. “Mr. Hawke is the one who discovered the loophole in the contract. And he is the one who is going to deliver your herd to me.”
“Oh!” Pamela gasped, putting her hand to her mouth. “But won’t that be very risky?”
“Life is risky,” Hawke said.
“Father, no. Don’t let him go,” Pamela pleaded.
“My dear, you have already observed this stalwart fellow in action. Do you think for one moment I could stop him from doing anything once he sets his mind to it?”
“No, I suppose not,” Pamela agreed. She looked at Hawke. “But please, Hawke. Be careful.”
Win Woodruff and Eddie Taylor had been cowboys at Northumbria for three years, but four weeks ago they quit their jobs. Buying picks, shovels, pans, and other supplies they might need for prospecting, they went up to the Sweetwater Mountains to try their luck.
So far their luck had been bad.
It was late in the day and the two men were exhausted, having spent the last three days breaking large rocks into smaller rocks, looking for any sign of gold. At the moment, Win was sitting on an old log smoking his pipe, while Eddie was a few yards away, near the campfire he’d made.
“Ha!” Eddie said aloud. “You shoulda seen that, Win.”
“I shoulda seen what?”
“I pissed this here grasshopper clean off a weed.”
“If it’s all the same to you, Eddie, I’d just as soon not watch you take a piss.”
“Well, it was just funny, that’s all,” Eddie said, buttoning his pants as he came back over to the log. “I mean that little grasshopper wrapped his arms and legs around that weed and was hangin’ on for dear life.”
“Grasshoppers don’t have arms.”
“Uh-huh. This’n here did,” Eddie insisted. Getting his own pipe out, he began filling the bowl with tobacco.
“Eddie, you think Mr. Dorchester would take us back?” Win asked.
“I don’t know,” Eddie answered. He looked up from his pipe. “Why? Are you thinkin’ about askin’ ’im to take you back?”
“Yeah, I am,” Win admitted.
Eddie reached down to pick up a twig, then stuck it in the fire and lit it. Using the burning twig, he lit his pipe. “How long—” he started to ask, then took a couple of puffs until the tobacco in the bowl caught. “How long you been thinkin’ about this?”
“I don’t know. At least for a week now.”
“You don’t say.”
“Come on, Eddie. You can’t tell me you ain’t thought of it a few times your ownself,” Win said.
Eddie sighed. “Yeah,” he agreed. “I admit that I have thought of it.”
“Well, what do you think? Do you think he’ll take us back?”
“I don’t know. But if I was a bettin’man, I’d say I reckon he probably would. He’s a good man, even if he does talk funny.”
“Well, I’ll tell you the truth, I’m about ready to go back. I don’t think there’s any gold at all up here.”
“Well, come on, Win, you know there has to be some gold, somewhere,” Eddie said. “Hell, somebody found gold else there wouldn’t be so many folks up here.”
“Can you tell me one person who has found gold?”
“Luke Rawlings has found gold.”
“I mean somebody other than Luke Rawlings and Percy Sheridan. And they don’t count, ’cause they’re the ones that found it in the first place.”
“I know,” Eddie said. “But they keep finding it regular. Sheridan come out the other day with a nugget that was as big as a walnut.”
“Yeah, I know people say that, but—”
“I seen it, Win,” Eddie said. “I mean, I seen that nugget with my own eyes.”
“If they’re findin’ all that gold, how come they ain’t up here all the time?” Win asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I just mean that most of the time they’re gone,” Win said. “Don’t that strike you as peculiar?”
“I don’t know. I guess I just never thought about it,” Eddie said.
“So, you want to stay up here and keep looking, or what?” Win asked.
Eddie looked over at the pile of rubble that represented the rocks they had broken up in the last week.
“We sure ain’t been broke out with luck, have we?” Eddie asked.
“So far we’ve ’bout broke our backs and we ain’t come up with so much as one ounce,” Win said, continuing to make his case. “We’re runnin’ low on food. Fact is, we ain’t got nothin’ left now but some jerky and a little coffee. And what are we going to do come winter if we ain’t found nothin’? You may recall, Mr. Dorchester kept us on all last winter, even though there wasn’t that much work to do. We had three hots and a cot. This tent’s okay for the summer. But it won’t do much for keepin’ us warm in the winter.”
“Yeah,” Eddie finally said. “Yeah, you’re right. As far as I’m concerned, we’re just wastin’ our time here. I say we go back and see if we can get our old jobs back.”
“Good. I was hopin’ you would come around to my way of thinkin’. Hey, how much money have we got left?”
“Fourteen dollars,” Eddie answered. “Why?”
“Fourteen dollars is enough,” he said. “What do you say that, before we go back and start punchin’ cows again, we go down here to the Golden Cage and have us a little fun?”
“Doin’ what?”
“Doin’ what?” Win laughed. “I tell you what, don’t worry about it. I’m willin’ to bet you’ll figure out what to do when we get there.”
The Golden Cage had been put up in only six days, and it was clearly the most impressive establishment in South Pass City. That was the case even though a couple other wooden structures were now being erected. The Golden Cage was two stories high, with a second-story balcony that ran all the way across the front of the building. Below the balcony, at street level, was a fine wooden porch with a swing and a couple of rocking chairs.
For the first week after it was built, business was so good that Dupree thought he was going to have to bring in some more girls. But for the last couple of weeks business had been getting slower and slower.