Case of the Drowsy Mosquito by Erle Stanley Gardner

Author:Erle Stanley Gardner
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 1943-09-19T16:39:13+00:00

Chapter 16

DELLA STREET spread the afternoon newspaper on Mason’s desk. “Look at our friend, Paul Drake,” she said.

Mason regarded the picture with an approving eye—a photograph of Paul Drake clad in tattered shirt, patched overalls, wearing a big battered Stetson, leading a burro that had on its back a canvas-covered pack. A pick, shovel and gold pan were roped to the outside of the pack. The entire picture carried an air of authenticity. Paul Drake had managed to get just the proper expression of good-natured sincerity on his face. In the photograph he seemed lean and brown and hard, toughened by years of clean living in the desert. His extended right hand held a buckskin sack.

Underneath the photograph was the caption: “P. C. Drake, Who Claims To Have Rediscovered Famous Lost Mine. In the photo Drake is shown handing a sack of gold nuggets to Harvey Brady, wealthy Las Alisas cattleman. Story on page six.”

The newspaper account was in a position of prominence on page six. Headlines read: “PROSPECTOR LOCATES LOST BONANZA. Southern California cattle king shares clue with penniless prospector.”

Mason read the story with a great deal of interest. Harvey Brady, prominent cattleman of Las Alisas had, it seemed, always wanted to be a prospector, but Fate decreed that he should go into the cattle business on a small scale, make money, invest in more cattle, and then become one of the Southland’s leading cattle barons. But always in the back of his mind was the desire to prospect.

Because his extensive business interests prevented his going into the desert personally, Brady began reading about mines and mining, and, in particular, about the famous lost mines of the Southwest. Painstakingly, laboriously, he devoured every scrap of information that was available, gradually built up one of the most complete reference libraries in the Southwest.

Fearing ridicule, Brady kept his hobby from even his closest friends and associates. Men who had known the cattle king for years never entertained the slightest suspicion that he was interested in lost mines and through intensive research work had developed certain theories by which some of these lost mines might be relocated.

So it was that when some six months ago Brady was motoring through the desert, Fate, which had decreed that Brady should become a cattle king instead of a prospector, apparently decided to reward Brady for his continued interest. At the exact moment when Harvey Brady was driving across the desert to Las Vegas, Nevada, to attend an important livestock conference, P. C. Drake, a typical desert prospector, was sadly shuffling along the hot stretch of desert pavement between Yermo and Windmill Station, lamenting the fact that his burro had died in the desert, and that the only part of his worldly belongings Drake could salvage were the things he could carry on his own back.

Drake, plodding along the highway, heard the sound of brakes and looked up to see the friendly grin of the cattleman. A few moments later Drake, with his heavy pack thrown

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