Even though they weren’t as hot as they had been earlier, the meals were still very good. Bo and Scratch ate hungrily and enjoyed every bite. Sue Beth’s coffee was even better, strong and black just the way the Texans liked it. When they finally pushed their empty plates and cups away, Bo dug a couple of silver dollars out of his pocket and slid them across the counter to Sue Beth, who came along and scooped the coins up deftly, dropping them in a pocket in her apron.
“Thank you,” she said. “I hope you’ll come again.”
“As long as you’re servin’ up food like that, Miz Pendleton, I reckon you can count on it,” Scratch told her.
He and Bo left the cafe. Once they were outside, Scratch went on. “How much money do we have left now?”
“Enough to feed and stable our horses for a few nights.”
“How about feedin’ and stablin’
Bo grunted. “You may have to make up your mind whether you want them to have something to eat and a place to stay, or if we do.”
Scratch winced. “That bad, huh?”
Bo frowned in thought. “Yeah, but I may have an idea how to change that.”
“I hope you ain’t plannin’ on us robbin’ the bank. From the sound of it, there ain’t much in there.”
“No, we’re not going to turn outlaw. I had something else in mind.” Bo pointed to a building he had spotted down the street.
“What’s in there?” Scratch wanted to know.
“The offices of the Argosy Mining Company.”
CHAPTER 4
“Wait just a doggone minute,” Scratch said as he followed Bo toward the mining company office. “What’d you have in mind?”
“Maybe the Argosy will offer a reward for anybody who can find those outlaws and recover the gold they lost,” Bo suggested.
“You mean we’re gonna be bounty hunters?” Scratch shook his head. “We’ve tried that before, Bo. It never works out too good.”
“Always a first time for everything.”
“Yeah . . . like gettin’ our fool selves killed. I swear, Bo, sometimes it seems like you’re gettin’ even more reckless than I am in your old age. Folks look at you and think you’re the sober, responsible one, but they just don’t know.”
Bo just smiled.
The offices of the Argosy Mining Company were housed in a two-story building even more substantial-looking than the bank. For one thing, it was constructed of brick, one of several brick buildings that now stood along Deadwood’s Main Street and Sherman Street, the two principal thoroughfares. When the Texans had first visited the place, back in its mining camp days, Deadwood had consisted of tents, tarpaper shacks, and a few hastily thrown-together buildings of raw, splintery boards. The presence of brick buildings showed just how much it had changed, how respectable it had gotten.
But with the arrival of the Deadwood Devils, the same sort of wild lawlessness that had plagued the area back then had cropped up again. No wonder folks were upset. Nobody wanted to go back to the way things had been.
When Bo and Scratch went in, they found themselves in an outer office with a desk in front of a railing and two more desks behind it, along with a couple of doors. A man in a suit and a stiff collar sat at the desk with a number of papers in front of him. He looked up with an impatient glance at the Texans and said, “Yes? What can I do for you?”
“Is your boss around?” Bo asked.
The superior curl of the man’s lip came as no surprise. “If you’re looking for a job at the mine, you’ll have to ride out there and speak to the superintendent,” he said. “We don’t hire any laborers here.”
“We’re not looking to swing a pickax, sonny,” Bo said, keeping a tight rein on his temper. More and more, he and Scratch ran into these prissy, soft-handed types who would have been more at home back East somewhere, rather than out here on the frontier. But, as he had mentioned to Scratch as they were riding into Deadwood earlier, everybody had to be somewhere.
“Then what is your business with Mr. Nicholson?” the man wanted to know.
“He’s the owner of the Argosy Mining Company?”
“He’s the president,” the clerk replied with barely suppressed annoyance. “And he’s not accustomed to dealing with the likes of you.”
Scratch grinned, but it wasn’t a very pleasant expression as he leaned over the desk and placed his hands flat down. “You’re kind of a snippy little cuss, ain’t you?” he asked.
The clerk drew back and paled, although he already had such a pallor it was hard to be sure he lost even more color. He looked like he realized his arrogance might have gone too far.
But before he could say anything, the door to one of the inner offices behind him opened, and a man stepped out. He stopped short at the sight of Bo and Scratch and said in a loud, rumbling voice, “You two again!”
Bo and Scratch found themselves staring in surprise at the massive Reese Bardwell, who they had tangled with in the Red Top Cafe. Scratch straightened from his pose leaning over the frightened clerk’s desk and said softly, “Well, this is an interestin’ turn of events, ain’t it, Bo?”
“Take it easy,” Bo advised his old friend. “One ruckus a day with a fella ought to be enough.”
