Read The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume 1 for Free Online Page A

rushed at the horse and stripped off the pack of gold. He started to take his rifle, then shrugged. It would only be in the way.
    Shouldering the gold, he walked to the cliff ’s edge. There was no way over at that point. He turned, then stopped abruptly. One hundred yards away was Speke. The prospector held a Winchester cradled in his arm.
    Speke said nothing. He just stood there, silent, still, alone.
    Floren touched his lips with his tongue. He held the gold sack in his right hand. Anyway, at that range … a pistol … he looked toward his rifle. Too far away.
    Speke shot from the hip, and the sack jerked in Floren’s hand. Another shot. Speke moved a step forward and Floren dropped the sack and drew. He fired quickly, hastily. He missed.…
    Speke fired again and Floren felt the bullet tug at his shirt. He took a hasty step back, then fired again himself. The bullet struck far to the left. Speke swung his rifle and fired. Rock fragments stung Floren’s cheek. He jerked his head back up.
    Speke said nothing. He worked the lever on his rifle and waited. Floren started forward, and a bullet kicked up sand ahead of him. He took a hasty step back.
    The edge … could not be far behind. He glanced back and Speke fired swiftly, three shots. They scattered rock around his feet and a ricochet burned Floren’s face. He was no more than six feet from the edge.
    â€œYou ain’t goin’ to make me jump!” he shouted angrily. He threw up his gun and fired.
    Speke waited a minute, then walked swiftly forward and picked up the gold. He backed away, then dropped the sack and fired. His Winchester ’73 carried eleven bullets and he was counting them.
    The shot whipped by Floren’s face, so close it drew blood.
    Floren was frightened now. His face was drawn and white. He stared with wide eyes and haggard mouth. Speke picked up the gold again and backed to his horse. Lashing it behind the saddle, he swung into the leather.
    As he did so, he dropped the lead rope of one of the Indian ponies. “Help yourself,” he said, and rode slowly away.
    Floren started after him, shouting. Tom Speke did not turn his head or glance back. He merely rode on, remembering Tucson and the Shoo Fly. He would enjoy a meal like that now. Maybe, in a week or so …
    He had lots of time … now.

Desperate Men
    They were four desperate men, made hard by life, cruel by nature, and driven to desperation by imprisonment. Yet the walls of Yuma Prison were strong and the rifle skill of the guards unquestioned, so the prison held many desperate men besides these four. And when prison walls and rifles failed, there was the desert, and the desert never failed.
    Fate, however, delivered these four a chance to test the desert. In the early dawn the land had rolled and tumbled like an ocean storm. The rocky promontory over the river had shifted and cracked in an earthquake that drove fear into the hearts of the toughest and most wicked men in Arizona. For a minute or two the ground had groaned and roared, dust rained down from cracks in the roofs of the cells, and in one place the perimeter wall had broken and slid off, down the hillside. It was as if God or the Devil had shown them a way.
    Two nights later, Otteson leaned his shaven head closer to the bars. “If you’re yellow, say so! I say we can make it! If Isager says we can make it through the desert, I say we go!”
    â€œWe’ll need money for the boatmen.” Rodelo’s voice was low. “Without money we will die down there on the shores of the gulf.”
    All were silent, three awaiting a word from the fourth. Rydberg knew where the army payroll was buried. The government did not know, the guards did not know, only Rydberg. And Otteson, Isager, and Rodelo knew he knew.
    He was a thin, scrawny man with a buzzard’s neck and a buzzard’s beak for a nose. His bright, predatory eyes indicated his