“You’ll see.”
When Don and Al left the Mountain Saloon, they were so excited by their discovery that they didn’t notice the two men following them. Their only thought was to get back to the creek where they had first made their discovery, and start panning again. It took two hours of riding before they returned to the spot where they had discovered gold, and within a few moments after they started panning, they were bringing up more color.
Sam Davis and Lee Regret watched the two men for a few moments, and saw with their own eyes the success the Kelly brothers were having.
“They wasn’t lyin’,” Davis said. “They really did discover gold. They just got started, and look at the gold they done got piled up alongside ’em there.”
“Yeah,” Regret said. “I see it.”
“That sure is somethin’,” Davis said.
“What are we goin’ to do now?” Regret asked.
“Like I said when we started out, we’re goin’ to take care of the problem,” Davis replied. He pulled his pistol, and Regret pulled his as well.
With pistols in hand, the two rode up to the goldpanning brothers. Not until they were right upon the two brothers did Don notice them.
“What are you doing here? What did you do, follow us?” Don asked. “We told you people back in town to find your own place. This is ours.”
Davis and Regret aimed their pistols at the two brothers.
“What? No, wait!” Don said. “You don’t need no guns, you can have this spot! Me ’n my brother will find someplace else.”
“There is no place else for you,” Davis said. “This whole valley belongs to Mr. Bellefontaine.”
“Bellefontaine? He might own the town, but he don’t own this valley,” Al said. “This is public land!”
“No it ain’t public land. This land and ever’ thing on it belongs to Mr. Bellefontaine,” Davis said. “So, what I’m going to ask you to do is hand over the gold, pack up your belongings, and leave.”
“Hand over the gold? Are you crazy, Mister?” Al replied. “Me ’n my brother been workin’ out here for near a month and this here is the first color we’ve turned up, so we ain’t givin’ it away. Besides which, there ain’t nobody said nothin’ to us ’bout this bein’ private property. Seein’ as you got guns and are makin’ us do it, we’ll go somewhere else, but we ain’t handin’ over the gold we done found here.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way,” Davis said. He pulled the trigger and his bullet plowed into Al’s chest.
“Al!” Don called, shocked at seeing his brother shot before his very eyes. “You bastard! You shot my brother!” Don shouted angrily at Davis. Grabbing a pickaxe from the ground, he started toward Davis.
“Yeah, I did, didn’t I?” Davis said. He fired again, this bullet hitting Don in the stomach.
Don went down as well, and now both brothers were lying facedown in the water. Swirls of blood, caught up by the swift current, began flowing downstream.
Davis got down from his horse and, drawing his knife, proceeded to scalp both of the prospectors.
“Get the gold, Regret,” Davis said calmly as he went about the grizzly process of lifting the two scalps.
Regret dismounted, then walked over to fold the cloth over and scoop up the gold.
“We goin’ to tell Bellfontaine about the gold?” Regret asked.
“We got to,” Davis replied as he stuck his hands into the swiftly flowing water to wash away the blood.
“Why? How’s anyone goin’ to find out?”
“What would we do with the gold, even if we did keep it?” Davis asked. “Bellefontaine owns the bank. Soon as we tried to cash it, he’d find out. Then we’d be in a lot of trouble. We got easy jobs that pay good, why get greedy just over a few dollars in gold?”
“Yeah,” Regret said. “I reckon you’re right.”
Pierre Bellefontaine owned Bellefontaine Mineral Asset Development Company, a large mining company operating in the public land area throughout the Big Horn Basin. One of the largest mining operations of its kind, it employed prospectors, geologists, engineers, and miners, men who willingly gave up the uncertainty of merely looking for gold for the certainty of a paycheck by working for someone else who was willing to take the risk.
Bellefontaine was willing to take risks because he could afford them. In addition to the Bellefontaine Mineral Asset Development Company, he also owned the Bank of DeMaris Springs, the DeMaris Springs Mercantile, the Bellefontaine Freight Line, and the stagecoach line that connected DeMaris Springs with Sheridan, Wyoming Territory, and Billings, Montana Territory, Billings being the closest railhead. Bellefontaine often made the remark, and with some justification, that he owned the town of DeMaris Springs. Located in the Stinking Water Valley, DeMaris Springs was the only town between Green River, Wyoming Territory and Virginia City, Montana Territory, and between Buffalo, Wyoming Territory, and Yellowstone National Park.
He also knew what many others did not know. The “real” gold of the Big Horn Basin wasn’t gold at all. It was coal. The gold finds had been few and far between, but his mining engineers had told him that there was a vein of coal that rivaled that of any other coal-producing area in the entire country. And with steam engines transitioning from wood to coal, this find would be worth a fortune.
But he had two problems. One problem was the number of gold prospectors who continued to work the valley in their quest of the yellow metal, and the other was the increasing number of ranchers and farmers who were moving into and settling the valley. In order for his dream of a coal empire to work, he would need uninhibited access to the entire valley.
At the moment, Bellefontaine was dealing with two of his employees, Lee Regret and Sam Davis. They had brought him information about their encounter with the Kelly brothers, and Bellefontaine drummed his fingers on his
