“I even have some building plans if you would like to see them.”
“I’ve no wish for something grand. I want to build a one-room cabin.”
“How large?”
“It need not be too large,” Duff said.
“We have plans for one that is fifteen by twenty feet. That will give you three hundred square feet of living space. How does that sound to you?”
“It sounds just right,” Duff said.
“Good, then we’ll start gathering up what you need. Where will you be building this cabin?”
“On my ranch, or what is going to be my ranch,” Duff said. “It is ten miles south of town at the junction between the Bear and the Little Bear creeks.”
Guthrie looked surprised. “Did you say at the junction of the Bear and Little Bear? You are really going to try and settle there, are you?”
“Try? What do you mean by try?”
“Nothing, nothing at all,” Guthrie said. “That’s really quite a nice piece of land out there. It’s just that . . .”
“Just that what?”
“Well, sir, that’s where the Little Horse mine was.”
“Little Horse mine?”
“Yes, it is an old, abandoned gold mine that was dug by the Spanish more’n a hunnert years ago. There was stories told about it. Some Cheyenne Injuns brought in some gold nuggets to a trading post that they say had been in the tribe for a long time. It was supposed to have been played out, but about ten, maybe fifteen years ago it is said that a man named Elmer Gleason found gold in the mine. He showed up in Denver with a bagful of gold nuggets tryin’ to sell the mine, but he didn’t have no proof that he had got the gold at the Little Horse Mine. There’s all kinds of stories as to where he might have got the gold; some say he picked it up in the Black Hills, some say he got it California during the gold rush of forty-nine. At any rate, nobody bought the mine and Gleason never come back. There don’t nobody know if he is dead or alive, ’cause there ain’t nobody heard anything from or about him since that time. But most folks think maybe he come back to the mine and died. They never found him, but they found a mule, its bones picked clean by buzzards and such. They figure he was kilt, and the critters dragged his bones off.”
“Killed? By who?” Duff asked.
“Don’t nobody know that,” Guthrie said. “And that’s part of the mystery, ’cause you see, there was a couple of fellas, Lonnie Post and Sam Hodges, who went out there to see if there was any gold to be found, and the next thing you know, both of them turned up dead.
“By that time folks was gettin’ just plumb skittish about goin’ out there, gold mine or no gold mine. But Arnold Brown said the whole thing was foolish, and if there was some gold out there, he intended to go find it.”
“Don’t tell me,” Duff said. “Mr. Brown turned up dead as well.”
“Don’t nobody know. Didn’t find a skeleton or nothin’ like that, but ain’t nobody ever heard from him since then. And there ain’t nobody gone out there since. They say the place is hainted. ’Course, I ain’t sayin’ that I believe in haints, you understand. But that is what they say. Some say it wasn’t the Spanish, that it was Injuns that first found the gold, but they was all kilt off by white men who wanted the gold for themselves. But what happened is, after the Injuns was all kilt, they become ghosts, and now they haint the mine and they kill any white man who comes around tryin’ to find the gold. Now, mind, I don’t believe none of that. I’m just tellin’ you what folks says about it.”
“Where is this mine, anyway? We didn’t see anything that looked like a mine,” Falcon said.
“Didn’t you say you was betwixt the Bear and the Little Bear creeks?” Guthrie asked.
“Yes.”
“Well, sir, that mine is just south of the Bear in a butte that you see there. The butte is called Little Horse Butte. It ain’t all that high, a hunnert feet or so, and it’s flat as a table on top.”
“Aye, I remember seeing that,” Duff said.
“The mine is dug into the west end of that butte. You can’t see it from a distance I’m told, but if you get right up close, you can see it real clear.”
“That’s quite an interesting tale,” Duff said.
“But it ain’t goin’ to stop you from goin’ out there, is it?” Guthrie asked.
“No, sir.”
Guthrie chuckled. “I didn’t think it would scare you away. I heard how you handled Pig Iron, and then how he come back in blazin’ away with his shotgun. And I heard how you kilt him, Mr. MacCallister,” he said to Falcon.
“I’m afraid I had no choice,” Falcon said.
“Don’t get me wrong, Mr. MacCallister. I sure ain’t puttin’ no blame on you. They ain’t likely to be nobody that’ll blame you for it. Truth to tell, and near ’bout ever’one will say this, Chugwater Valley is a heap better off without him. But, I know you didn’t come in here for all this palaverin’,” Guthrie said. “You decided what you want to do, Mr. MacCallister?”
“How much will it cost me to buy enough material to build a cabin?” Duff asked.
“You’re wantin’ the one that’s fifteen by twenty?”
“Yes.”
“Would you be wantin’ a front porch to it? And roof over it, so’s you can sit in the afternoon out of the hot
