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to south Texas to borrow money from friends for a smelter. I knew I couldn’t buy the smelter on my own, so I borrowed your share, laddie. I had to do it.” Pat hesitated. “What will you do now?”
    “I will get drunk again, and most likely destroy another saloon or two,” Hank said darkly.
    “All is not lost, laddie. You’ve had fair remarkable luck with the cards. You could double, triple your money easily that way.”
    “Or lose it all.”
    “There are other ways.”
    “I am through with stealing!” Hank growled.
    “No, no, I wasn’t going to suggest that. There was a big gold discovery down in New Mexico a few years back. Thousands of men have rushed to that new settlement, Elizabethtown.”
    “You think I should pan for gold?” Hank snapped. “I might as well wait for this mine to produce. Eitherway will take too long. My lands are there, and I burn for them. For years, I burn. I cannot wait any longer.”
    Pat grew uneasy again. “You always were hotheaded about your land. You never would listen to reason. You should have found out a long time ago just how much you would need to buy back your land. Did you ever consider that you might not have enough?”
    “I had enough—until you stole it.”
    “Now, laddie, you don’t know that for sure. You could have got down there and found out the owner wanted twice what you had, or even more. You just don’t know. Why don’t you find out now? ” Pat cried with sudden enthusiasm. “That’s what you can do! Go and find out exactly what you’ll need. Hell, by the time you get back, this mine of ours will be producing and you’ll have whatever you need. You said you don’t want to wait. Well, this way you won’t have to. You’ll be doin’ something now to get your land.”
    “What you suggest is a waste of time,” Hank said brusquely. “Yet, because of you, I have time to waste and nothing better to do. So be it.” Then he smiled, his eyes crinkling in the old familiar way. “But the money you have left, amigo— I will take that.”
     
    Hank left Denver the following day, riding directly south. He would be crossing most of the Colorado territory and the whole of New Mexico, a large area that was not at all safe for a lone traveler. But Hank was adept at avoiding people, including Indians. He had learned well after his escape from prison, learned how to hide in the mountains or on the plains. His senses, always keen, had been honed sharp after his escape and during his outlaw days.
    Hank had seven hundred miles of unfamiliar terrain to cross just to reach the Mexican border. Even at a grueling pace, it would take him more than a month, but he had already decided not to push himself. Not this time. There was no hurry, thanks to Pat. He wasfurious over the new delay, yet he could do nothing to hurry matters along except steal again—and Hank would not do that.
    Damn Pat and damn his silver mine!
    For the next few days, Hank brooded on his luckless life. By the fourth day, his mood was so dark that he became careless. He was riding the base of the Rocky mountain range, pushing his horse cruelly, trying to ride off his anger, when suddenly the horse floundered in a hole. Hank was thrown several feet. He twisted his ankle, but, worse, the horse had broken his foreleg and could go no farther. He had to be shot.
    Hank found himself without a horse, filled with remorse over the accident, and stranded a long way between towns.

Chapter 5
    I T was stuffy in the stagecoach. Two of the passengers, a woman and her young son, had left the coach in Castle Rock when the son got sick. No one had taken their places, so there were only four passengers in the coach. But there would be many more small towns and many stops before Elizabethtown, so the stage would undoubtedly fill up again.
    Even with the roomier arrangement, the coach was still warm and stuffy. Mr. Patch, riding with Samantha and the Allstons, insisted on keeping the window shades drawn shut because