'She's got more'n fifty cured beaver pelts tied to her back, and that's plenty to get me a fresh grubstake before the weather gets warm and the beavers start to lose their winter hair. You might say that's a winter's worth of work hangin' across her packsaddle.'
'Here they come,' Frank said, peering into the falling snow. 'Stay still.'
'No need for you to tell me what to do, Morgan. I know how to make it in this wilderness without being seen. Rest easy on that notion.'
Ned Pine rode at the front with Conrad, Pine's gun still pressed to Conrad's throat. Two more gunmen rode behind Ned and the boy. A fourth outlaw came from the cabin leading a loaded packhorse.
The last pair of outlaws stayed well behind the others with Winchester rifles resting on their thighs.
'Keepin' back a rear guard,' Tin Pan observed. 'If we get the chance, we might be able to jump 'em in this snow. It's hard to see real well.'
'I was thinking the same thing,' Frank said. 'One way or another, I've got to get rid of Pine's men before I take him on man-to-man.'
'You'll need to pick the right spot, and the right time,' Tin Pan reminded him.
'I'm a pretty good hand at that,' Frank told him, moving back into the trees as Pine and his men rode out of the canyon with Conrad as their prisoner.
Snowflakes swirled around the men as they left the canyon and turned east, away from the badlands. Frank was surprised at the direction they took.
* * * *
Barnaby Jones parked his rented buggy in Cortez. His drive down from Denver had been brutal and he was sure he'd almost frozen to death. Had it not been for three bottles of imported French sherry, he was certain he wouldn't have made it through this wilderness in a blizzard.
He stopped in front of the sheriff's office and took a wool blanket off his lap before he climbed down from the seat. He removed his gloves. Cortez was a mere spot in the road, a dot on the map he'd bought in Denver after he got off the train.
'The things I do to get a story,' he mumbled, wondering if his editor at _Harper's Magazine_ would appreciate the difficulty he'd gone through.
He entered the sheriff's door without knocking, enjoying the warmth from a cast-iron stove in a corner of the tiny room. A jail cell sat at the back of the place.
A man with a gray handlebar mustache looked up at him with a question on his face. He was seated at a battered rolltop desk with a newspaper in his lap.
'Sheriff Jim Sikes?' Barnaby asked.
'That's me.' The lawman looked him up and down. 'Stranger, you ain't dressed for this climate. Didn't anybody tell you it gets cold in Colorado Territory?'
' Yessiree, they did,' Barnaby replied, offering his hand. 'I am Barnaby Jones from _Harper's Magazine_ in New York. I'm wearing long underwear under my suit.'
'What brings you to Cortez?' the sheriff asked.
Barnaby pulled off his bowler hat. 'The United States marshal in Denver told me to look you up. I'm writing a story for my magazine about a retired gunfighter named Frank Morgan, and Marshal Williams said you would know if he's in this part of the country. One of our competitors, the _Boston Globe,_ has sent a reporter out here to interview this Mr. Morgan. I'd like to talk to him myself.'
'Morgan ain't in these parts, mister. Marshal Williams is wrong about that. If Morgan was around, I'd know about it. I'd have dead men stacked up here like cordwood.'
Barnaby edged over to the stove, warming his backside as best he could. 'I have other information. A writer by the name of Louis Pettigrew from the _Globe_ found out that Morgan is in southwestern Colorado Territory. I'm only a day or two behind Mr. Pettigrew.'
'You're both wrong.'
'How can you be so sure, Sheriff?'
'Like I said, no dead bodies. Maybe you ought to have the wax cleaned out of your ears. I said it real plain the first time.'
'But I _know_ he's somewhere close by. Pettigrew left the day before I did. He rented a horse in Denver and came down here. Something about Morgan's son being a prisoner of some outlaw gang.'
'We've got a few outlaws,' Sheriff Sikes said. 'Some of 'em are in town right now. Victor Vanbergen and his bunch of toughs are down at the Wagon Wheel, but they haven't caused any trouble. I think they're just passing through.'
'I never heard of Victor Vanbergen. Who is he?'
'A bank robber. A thief and a killer. But so long as he don't cause no trouble in my town, I'm leaving him and his boys alone.'
Barnaby reached inside his heavy wool coat, taking out a few papers. 'Who is Ned Pine?'
'A hired gun. Worse than Vanbergen. He heads up one of the oldest outlaw gangs in this part of the West, but the last I heard of him he was down south. Texas, I think.'
'Mr. Pettigrew of the _Boston Globe_ believes he's here, and that he has Frank Morgan's son as a hostage.'
'It's news to me,' Sheriff Sikes remarked. 'I'd have had something over the telegraph wire by now if Ned Pine and his men were close by.'
