Novel 1978 - The Proving Trail (v5.0) Read Free

winter I’d used up most of the grub and the fuel as well.
    The wind blew cold off the peaks and the trickles of melt had stopped flowing, which meant it was freezing on top. The roan, tired as he was, stepped faster. From where the trail topped out, four or five miles shy of the high grass, I turned in my saddle to look back.
    Nothing in sight, nothing at all. But I knew they were back there, and I knew they were coming.
    How much money I had I didn’t know, but it was aplenty and Blazer figured to have that money. He wouldn’t be coming alone. He’d have however many he figured he needed, no matter what reason he gave them. He was a judge, probably no more than a justice of the peace, I thought. Still, he knew more about the law than me and he might be able to get himself appointed my guardian. He could even appoint himself and make a good story of how I was a wild kid who needed taking care of. Meanwhile he’d have his use of, and the spending of, my money.
    When I saw, far ahead, the dark shadow of the cabin, it was already coming on to snow. I pulled up, although the roan wanted to go on in. I sat in my saddle taking a long look at my hole card, and it didn’t shape up to very much.
    How did I know nobody knew of that place but me? Wasn’t I taking a lot for granted? That gold money rested heavy in my saddlebags and so did the paper. The gold might be just too much weight, going off the mountain in the deep snow. Besides, if they got me I didn’t want them to profit by it.
    It was then I thought of the cache.
     
    Chapter 2
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    I T WAS A crack in the rock, that was all, hidden in a niche of the wall. It was a crack not over six inches wide and maybe two feet deep about ten feet off the ground. I’d found it a handy place to cache a bite of lunch, time to time, or some extra ammunition and coffee in case the cabin burned down whilst I was with the cattle.
    The cabin was still a good two miles off, although I could see a kind of black blotch where it stood. Swinging the bronc over to the niche, I stood up in my stirrups and put the gold away back in that crack and then the bills and replaced the rock that closed the crack.
    Three hundred dollars in paper money I kept. I hid five twenties under the sweatband of my hat, another five in a slit in my belt, and the last five I wadded into a tight ball in the bottom of my holster. That last made my gun ride a little high, but the thong would still slip over it, although a snug fit. I was figuring on using my waist gun if I had to use any.
    Then I headed for the cabin, circling a little to come up on the back side through the aspen. Back there about fifty yards from the cabin and down over a little aspen and sprucecovered knoll there was another cabin. This one was built mighty strong of square-cut logs and was warmer than the stable near the cabin. I led the roan into it and dished out some corn I kept there for cold spells.
    Then I started for the cabin. There was a side of bacon there, some beans, flour, salt, sugar, and coffee. There was also some dried apples and odds and ends of grub. I had me a feeling I was going to need it.
    This here was springtime, but in the high country it wasn’t a dependable thing. I’d seen the spring come with flowers and all, and then off the mountains come a storm and there’d be another ten to fifty days of winter.
    The high mountain pasture which we called the plateau was actually no such thing, but rather a series of high mountain valleys above timberline or right at it, where grew the richest of grass. Most winters they were free of snow, and warmer than some lower-down country due to what pa called a local weather pattern—winds off the desert, I guess.
    Pa had known about this place and he had gone to Dingleberry with the suggestion that he’d graze a few hundred head of Big D cattle in the high country and I’d see to them, for so much a head and wages for me.
    How pa found this place or heard of it I never did know.