“In a manner of speaking,” Falcon said. “What is it, Ingraham? What are you not telling us?”
“On the night I learned that Buffalo Bill was to come here on a mission for General Miles, I sent a telegram to Washington, D.C., where I have some, shall we say, friends in high places? I now have authority to accompany him from no less a dignitary than General Sherman himself, Commanding General of the United States Army.”
“Do you know that Colonel MacCallister is going with me?” Cody asked.
A broad smile spread across Ingraham’s face. “No! Really? Why, that is wonderful!”
“What is so wonderful about it?” Falcon asked.
“Well, think about it, Colonel MacCallister. I have written novels about Buffalo Bill, and I have written novels about Falcon MacCallister. Now, I will be able to write a nonfiction book that will include both of you.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Don Kelly and his brother Al were knee-deep in the rapid-running stream of Thoroughfare Creek. The water was white foam where it broke over the rocks, but otherwise crystal clear, and they could see all the way to the bottom as they dipped their pans into the rocks and sand. Slowly sloshing the water around, they gradually emptied the pan of the water, sand, and lighter gravel. Then they studied the residue remaining in the bottom of the pan. They had been doing this for the better part of an hour when Al suddenly let out a whoop of joy.
“Don! Don, get over here! Look at this!”
Al turned his pan slightly, and Don could see, in the bottom of the pan, bright flashes.
“That’s gold!” Al said. “There’s bound to be more here.”
“All right!” Don said. “Now we’re getting somewhere!”
Don joined his brother in the part of the river he was working, and with his very first pan came up with gold of his own.
“If we keep this up, we’ll take seventy-five to a hundred dollars out of here just today,” Al said.
As the two men continued to pan the river, they spread out a cloth on the bank and piled their gold there. Some of the gold was coming in nuggets as large as kernels of corn, and within two hours they had accumulated several ounces.
“Seventy-five dollars my hind leg,” Don said. “We’ve got two, maybe three hundred dollars here if we have a dime.”
The town of DeMaris Springs was in the shadows of Cedar Mountain, bordered on the south by Stinking Water River, and on the north by the hot springs that gave the town its name. The Mountain Saloon was made of rip- sawed wide, unpainted boards, though it did have a false front with the name of the saloon rendered in black outlined in red. It was the center of activity in a little town of under two hundred people, and it had the distinction of having one of only two pianos in the town, the other being in Mme. Mouchette’s House for Discriminating Gentlemen.
Excitement was keen in the saloon because Don and Al Kelly had just come in with news of their gold find.
“There ain’t no tellin’ how much gold there is up there,” Don said, holding court among all the other saloon patrons.
“Where’d you find it?”
“Huh, uh, I ain’t a-goin’ to tell you that,” Don said. “You’re goin’ to have to look for yourself to find your own gold.”
“But it’s up there,” Al said. “If we was able to find what we did, why my guess is that it’s all over the valley.”
“I’m goin’ up there,” someone said.
“Yeah, me too!” another added, and within moments, nearly every patron in the saloon had stated his intention to go up into the Big Horn Basin to try his luck at gold hunting.
Two of the patrons of the saloon were Sam Davis and Lee Regret.
Davis was a man of medium height and size. Clean-shaven, his most distinguishing feature was a pockmarked face and a drooping left eye. The droop was the result of an old wound, suffered in a knife fight the first time Davis was ever in jail.
Regret was relatively small and so dark that he was often mistaken for a Mexican. He had a full beard that was as dark as his long black hair.
Unlike the others, Davis and Regret weren’t crowding around the two brothers trying to get more information. They already had the information they needed.
“Bellefontaine ain’t goin’ to like this,” Regret said. “They’s too many prospectors up there already, this is just goin’ to bring a lot more.”
“No, he ain’t goin’ to like it at all,” Davis agreed.
“We’re goin’ to have to tell him,” Regret said.
“Not yet.”
“What do you mean, not yet? He’s goin’ to find out sooner or later, then he’ll be mad at us for not tellin’ him.”
“We’re goin’ to tell him,” Davis said. “But not until after we have took care of the problem.”
“Took care of the problem? How we goin’ to do that?”
