Gunsmoke for McAllister by Matt Chisholm Read Free Book Online

nightmare, that climb, but he made it, arriving breathlessly at the top to find himself into a wild and rugged country, a chaotic jumble of scattered rocks and gargantuan boulders that seemed to compose a barren shelf of the mountain a mile wide before it rose to possibly more wild shelves as it climbed into the mighty sierra. It was not, he thought, the place to get lost in or set afoot in.
    Although it was an oppressive sight, he cheered considerably when he reached the rimrock of the canyon, for here he found sign in profusion. Here whoever used that trail considered themselves to be safe.
    He walked around, studying the ground and knew within a short time that many riders had been here many times over a fairly long period. There was an absolute jumble of sign. He mounted the canelo and rode slowly toward the frowning heights above, studying the ground, going in the general direction that all the riders who had used that trail had taken.
    Gradually, as he moved along he became aware of a sound. It seemed to creep gradually up on him, so that he did not know how long he had been listening to it before he became conscious that he was listening. It was as though the air around him and the earth beneath reverberated with it. He stopped, frowning, looking all around him, uncertain of its origin.
    When the truth finally came to him, many occurrences fell into place – the Indian attack, the men on the rimrock who had rescued him, maybe even Sam’s disappearance.
    Suddenly, he knew that he himself could be in acute danger.
    He swerved the canelo away to the right and in a moment was in the cover of rock, slipping from the saddle and tying the canelo to a large stone. Now, taking his rifle, he worked his way through and up the mass of boulders and brush that barred his way to the sound which now he was sure was coming from the east.
    It was a hard climb, not easy in his highheeled cowman’s boots, tough on his hands, but he made it to the peak and found himself at the summit of a steep wall of rock, looking down into what could best be described as a deep basin composed mostly of rock.
    He was looking down on a busy scene, one that seemed totally out of place in the vast solitude of this wilderness. To left and right were two cabins made of stone and wood. The one to the right had a handsome stone chimney from which smoke issued. In the centre of the basin was a sideless building from which the sounds he had heard came. There were men busy about it, stripped to the waist in the broiling sun. The roof hid from his view, he knew, a crushing mill. Nearer to him was another, similar but taller construction from which, even as he watched, came a second and more easily identifiable sound. The great thudding that issued from it seemed to shake the whole basin and its walls, so that he felt the vibrations through his body. This, he knew, was a stamping mill.
    He was looking down into a gold or silver mine. He did not know which because he knew so little about mining. It was something he had never cared for, grubbing about in the ground for riches.
    Raising his eyes, he saw the entrance of the mine beyond the crushing mill, a dark maw in the side of the hill, its wooden props visible, a scar freshly hacked out of the hillside. And even as he watched there came four men pushing a small car on wheels, something that looked like a tip-truck.
    It was these men who caught and held his attention with something like horror.
    They were chained hand and foot.
    Movement to his right caught his attention. A man had walked out of the crushing mill and was standing in the sun wiping sweat from his face and half-naked body. An emaciated, half-starved man, chained like the others hand and foot.
    His mind went at once back to the scene in town back there at the jail when he had made his escape – the men being chained by the light of the lamp under guard. Was it possible, he thought … it didn’t seem credible that the sheriff could