Taggart by Louis L'Amour

Author:Louis L'Amour [L'Amour, Louis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Amazon.com, Usenet, C429, Kat, Exratorrents
Amazon: 0553254774
Publisher: Bantam
Published: 1959-01-02T08:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 8

AT DAYBREAK SWANTE Taggart, wearing moccasins, slipped out of the barn where he had slept and went up the canyon, easily finding the place of which Miriam had told him. He climbed out and from a vantage point behind a clump of cedar he studied the country with infinite care.

Shoyer had seen him go, but knew he was helping with the grub problem and he had seen that Taggart took no horse. And without a horse in this country a man just was not going anywhere at all. Had Shoyer known Taggart better he would not have felt so sure, for the rancher was a man who had grown up hunting on foot and, like an Apache, he could travel farther in a day on his feet than on a horse.

Stark believed the Apaches were still around, and Taggart was prepared to go along with Stark. Although not long in the west, Stark was an observant man, with an uncanny grasp and a feeling for the West and for Indians. Such a man was worth a dozen more experienced but less observing men.

Yet Stark had gone out that morning after originally planning to do nothing of the kind, and Taggart was both curious and worried about the older man.

Not even the girls knew the exact location of the mine, Taggart believed, or if they did they were saying nothing, but their very lack of knowledge had aroused Taggart’s curiosity, for Stark was a man who trusted his women folks, and if he had kept the site secret from them he did so for a reason.

Swante Taggart had been doing some thinking on his own, and from his conclusions it seemed likely that the mine was at least three miles and perhaps a little more from the canyon of the chapel . . . somewhere in the rugged country east of the Horseshoe Bend of the Salt.

For half an hour he studied the terrain, but he saw no movement or evidence of life. Then keeping to rock ledges, or stepping from stone to stone where possible, Taggart worked his way across country. That several canyons emptied into the Salt from the east and southeast he already knew from his observations north of the river before coming to the canyon.

He was more than two hours traveling less than four miles, for he had taken cover from time to time to check both his back trail and the country around.

Everywhere the rain had washed out tracks, washed the air clean, and left the country looking fresh and new. A snake had crossed a small sand bed . . . there were the tracks of a lizard, and a place where a covey of quail had raced along the ground in a wide group. Otherwise, he saw no tracks of any kind.

He heard the sound of a pick before he located Stark. When he heard the sound he took cover and looked about for the mine, but he saw nothing that even faintly resembled a working of any kind.

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