Read from the Listening Hills (Ss) (2004) for Free Online Page A

anything! But it isn't that this time: he's interested in this fellow, I can see it. He was watching him like a cat all the time."
    "I wonder why?" Bly remarked absently. He was thinking of how he would look in the parade with this girl beside him. Old Curly Bell's only child--not a bad idea, marrying her.
    "I don't know," Carol said, "but Uncle Tim's funny. He used to be a United States marshal, you know. Over in Nevada."
    Bly turned abruptly. "In Nevada, you say?" He caught himself. "You'd never suspect it. He seems so quiet."
    "I know, but he's that way. He's still angry, and has been for the past three years over that gold shipment robbery."
    "Oh, yes! I recall something about it, I think. The bandits held up a train and got away with two hundred thousand dollars in freshly minted gold, wasn't that it?"
    "I guess so. Uncle Tim believes that gold is still intact and has never been used, that it is cached somewhere."
    "But he's not even an officer anymore, is he?"
    "No, but that doesn't matter to Uncle Tim. In fact, I've heard him say more than once that he believed the thieves would come back, that the gold was hidden someplace not too far from here, in the mountains."
    "You think that's why he's interested in this Murphy kid? One of the bandits was supposed to be no more than a boy. He was the one who killed the messenger."
    "Oh, no!" The protest was sharp, dismayed. For some reason the idea frightened and disturbed Carol. It had not occurred to her before that such might be the reason for her uncle's interest in Deke Murphy.
    Carol Bell would not have admitted her interest in Deke Murphy even to herself. In fact, she was scarcely aware of that interest, yet she remembered what he had practically told her uncle, that Deke had not wanted to be shown up as being broke in front of her.
    She was a thoroughly aware young lady, and had seen his eyes follow her from place to place, and his interest pleased her. Moreover, hecould ride. She had seen him ride, and she was enough of a rider herself to know that he would compare favorably with many of the contest hands.
    IN THE OFFICE, after calling his wire through to the telegraph office, Tim Carson turned to Tack Hobson. "Hobby," he said, "you know that Shadow horse? How many shows has he been in and where were they?"
    "Funny you should ask that," Hobson remarked, "but he's never been ridden by anybody, an' he's shown in just four rodeos...all of them in prisons."
    "I see. Was the Highbinder in any of these shows?"
    "One of them. He was ridden once by a convict." Hobson stoked his pipe. "Reason I said it was funny you should ask is that you're the second man who asked that question. Bill Bly was in here, just a few minutes ago. He wanted to know the same thing."
    DEKE MURPHY HAD no idea just how he was to find his man, or exactly what he would do when he found him. From the moment he had been released from prison that had been his one idea. He had been framed and framed badly, and had done two years for a crime in which he had no part.
    It had been a dark night when he had ridden up from his last camp near Singing Mountain, a tough and lonely kid, eager only to escape from his home in the Robber's Roost country and to find an honest job. Riding since he could first remember, he had lived a lonely life back in the breaks with his mother and his stepfather.
    His stepfather had been a kindly man around home, and despite the fact that he was a rustler, had been a good father and a good husband, yet Deke's mother had reared him to be an honest man, and had made him promise that when he was old enough he would leave the Roost behind and start out on his own. His mother had died of pneumonia, alone and unattended except by himself, and his stepfather had been killed in a gunfight shortly after. Deke, true to his promise, had left the Roost behind.
    He rode for a ranch in Utah, then one in Nevada, and started down the country looking to get himself as far from the Roost as possible.