him. 'You don't even know which cabin they're at.'
'I'll find it. You said it's the north shore of Lake Tahoe. Now kindly step out of my path.'
Pettibone shook his head. 'Tell me, Deputy Long, have you always been so headstrong and impetuous?'
'I'm not one for planning and jawin' a whole hell of a lot, if that's what you mean.'
'That's exactly what I mean.'
'Are you coming or not?'
'I'm coming,' Pettibone said, 'though I'm half afraid that you're bound to make my wife a widow.'
'You can stay if you want,' Longarm told the man. 'I'll not hold it against you.'
'That's mighty kind, but I wouldn't miss this roundup for anything.'
'How can we get there the quickest?'
'By not taking off these snowshoes.'
Longarm nodded. 'I've got a rifle back at your depot and if you have a shotgun or something, that might help.'
'I do have one.'
'Are you any good in a gunfight?'
Pettibone expelled a deep, frosty breath. 'I honestly do not know. I'm pretty good with my fists.'
'You'll do,' Longarm decided, working on intuition and professional judgment. 'Now let's find that cabin!'
CHAPTER 17
Longarm had never spent such a miserable afternoon as he did that day trying to keep up with Bruce Pettibone on snowshoes. The railroad detective was inexhaustible, and seemed intent on driving Longarm until he dropped. Fortunately, the air was crisp and the trail already broken and mostly leading downhill. They skirted Bald and Lookout Mountains to the southwest and crossed any number of frozen creeks as they hurried through the heavy pine forests.
When the sun began to slide behind the mountains and Longarm still could not see Lake Tahoe, he shouted, 'Hold up there, dammit!'
'What's wrong?' Pettibone asked, his breath coming in short, frosty bursts.
'What's wrong is that you're about to kill me!'
'But this is all downhill!'
'Uphill or downhill, I'm bushed!' Longarm adjusted his Winchester, which he had rigged on a sling and thrown over his shoulder. 'I don't figure I want to go much farther today. Pettibone, what do you say we make a camp and get an early start in the morning?'
'You mean sleep in this damned snow?' Pettibone looked appalled.
'We can make a dry camp if we start preparing it before dark. Maybe cut some pine boughs and-'
'Listen,' Pettibone said. 'Storms up here come fast and frequent in the winter. Now, even if I had enough blankets--which I don't--I wouldn't even consider spending the night out here.'
'Then what can we consider, being as how I'm about to collapse from fatigue?'
Pettibone looked up at the dying sun. 'I say we have just another three miles to the lake. Their cabin is at Agate Bay and we could be there soon after dark.'
'Yeah, but what is the damned hurry?'
Pettibone looked disgusted. 'It's just that, since you decided we should do this, I'd like to get it done.'
'There's no sense in charging into all those men half-cocked,' Longarm said. 'In any case, I'm too damned cold and tired to be any good in a fight.'
Pettibone swore under his breath. 'All right,' he finally said. 'A friend of mine has a summer cabin just up ahead. We can stay there for the night and leave early in the morning.'
'Fine.'
Longarm followed the railroad man on down the hill, and they struggled on for about another half hour before they came to the cabin. It wasn't much, and Pettibone had to break a window to get inside. But there was some food and blankets and even chopped firewood.
Much later, fed and warmed by the fire, Longarm smoked a cheroot and said, 'I rode with a nice fella up from Reno in the train's mail car.'
'That'd be Liam. Did he offer you a drink of that Irish whiskey?'
'He did,' Longarm said.
'Then that's why you ran out of steam. Strong spirits rob a man of his vitality, you know.'
'Are you a Mormon?'
'No, but I am a teetotaler. I swore off the stuff when I saw what it did to my father. It turned him into a raving maniac. He finally shot himself when I was about sixteen.'
'I'm sorry to hear that.'
'Don't be. It was the best thing he could have done for the family. It also taught me never to forget how fast
