Novel 1978 - The Proving Trail (v5.0) by Louis L’Amour Read Free Book Online

durned cold to suit me.”
    I was itching to get away from him, but I had an idea he might just pick up and follow me. Yet I was curious, too, and wanted to know more about him. If he was some kin of pa’s, I might learn something about pa from him, or about pa’s family.
    Yet every instinct I had told me this man was dangerous, and more than that, he was evil. He had the look about his eyes and mouth of a man who was short-tempered and cruel. And I trust my instincts.
    His manners were those of a gentleman, but fine manners do not make a fine man, and I was alert for any clue as to what he planned, where he was from, or where he planned to go. He was no miner—that much I could see—nor was he a cowhand. A gambler? Well…maybe.
    The girl with the freckles was watching me, and she seemed bothered by something. After a bit I finished my coffee and pushed back my chair.
    “I’m almighty tired,” I said. “Good night.”
    I arose abruptly and, without so much as a glance back, I left the room. I had moved quickly, hoping to catch him kind of off balance, and that was just what I done. It hadn’t seemed like I was fixing to move, but looked like I was going to set for a spell, which was how I’d wanted it to look. I wasted no time in the lobby but went right upstairs to my room. Once inside, I shut the door and put a chair under the knob so’s it couldn’t be opened.
    It was in my mind to open the window, get out, and leave, taking out of there just as fast as I could travel, but it was a miserable night and I was bone-tired.
    The thought that come to me was almost as good. He didn’t know what horse I’d been riding, because he’d been in town for some time before I arrived and had no reason to be curious about me until I walked into that eating room and spoke to him.
    I’d been cold before and could be again, so I opened my window wide and then got into bed.
    The wind blew through that window, icy cold, and I done some shivering. Must have been an hour later somebody tried the door, turning the knob real slow and careful. The door didn’t give because I had that chair under the knob, and after a minute or two the knob was released and all was quiet. About that time he seemed to get the message of that cold wind comin’ from under the door, because of a sudden I heard a kind of an exclamation and then quickly retreating footsteps. After a minute I heard the sound of a horse ridden rapidly down the street. Cheerfully, I closed the window and got back into bed.
    There were two ways I could have gone if I’d left town by the trail, and he’d have to check them both out. Meanwhile I’d get some sleep.
    Lying there in bed, I studied about it. This man, whoever he was, had tried my door—leastwise, I could think of nobody else who might try it. He had seemed suspicious of me, and he resembled pa. Now, what did all that amount to?
    Exactly nothing, except that man had apparently ridden out of town trying to overtake me, thinking I’d flown the coop.
    Why?
    Pa was dead, murdered by somebody. Somebody who was either Judge Blazer or one of his friends, or who was somebody else. If it was somebody else, he hadn’t murdered pa to rob him, because Blazer did that, or tried to.
    Suppose Blazer hadn’t murdered pa, but just found him murdered and took advantage of the chance? That sounded more like Blazer.
    Then that implied somebody else had done it, somebody who didn’t even know pa had all that money, and from his looks and the state of his clothes, figured he hadn’t anything worth taking.
    If that was the case, it had to be somebody who had known pa before, somebody from out of his past.
    “That’s storybook stuff,” I said aloud. “You got no reason to think anything of the kind.”
    Why would anybody from pa’s past want him dead? Pa hadn’t been east in years (if that was where he come from), and so far as I knew, he’d had no letters from yonder.
    All of which left me nowhere but asleep. When I opened