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

my eyes with daybreak, the thought was still in my mind but had gotten nowhere.
    After washing up a mite and brushing my clothes as much as I could, I combed my hair slick and went down to the lobby. All was quiet and there was nobody around, so I stepped over to the desk and turned that register around and looked at it.
    There was my name, and above it—the only one who had checked in during the last three days—was the name Felix Yant. It was a name that meant nothing to me, and I had an idea it was a name the man had assumed. Yet what was his purpose?
    The restaurant was empty, but there was a rustle of sound from the kitchen and an occasional rattle of dishes. I pulled back a chair, rather noisily, and sat down. I wanted to eat and get out.
    The girl with the freckles looked in and then came quickly over. “You’re early. Not much is ready, but we can make you some flapjacks.”
    “Fine. How about some eggs?”
    “I’ll see.” She hesitated. “Did you know that man who sat with you?”
    “Never saw him before.” I looked up at her. “Do you know him?”
    “No, but he told my aunt he was looking for mining properties. He rides out a good deal.”
    “In this weather? Seems a bad time to look for a mine, when the ground’s covered with snow and you can’t even see how it lays or what the formations are.”
    “We thought so, too.”
    She brought coffee and, after a little while, a stack of hot-cakes and maple syrup. “We’ve got some eggs. My aunt says you can have them.” She hesitated again. “She likes you.”
    “Well, that’s a help. Maybe I should stick around.”
    “There isn’t much work.” She lingered. “This is mostly mining around here, and some lumbering. Over the mountain and to the south there’s cattle. Are you a cowboy?”
    “I’m whatever I need to be to get a job,” I said, “but I’ve put by a little.”
    She looked at me thoughtfully, for it was a rare man in those days who thought of tomorrow while punching cows. I didn’t feel it necessary to explain that it wasn’t my saving that had provided the money. Still, come to think of it, it had been my capital. Thinking of that made me feel better, and for the first time it seemed maybe I was entitled to that money.
    “I’m Teresa,” she said. “Sometimes they call me Terry.”
    “My name’s McRaven. Kearney McRaven. And sometimes they call me just anything they can think of.” I grinned at her. “I ain’t seen such a pretty girl in a long time.”
    She flushed up a mite but she liked it, too. I was no hand at making talk with womenfolks, but pa, he’d always had a friendly way about him. “Say something nice to them,” he told me once, “and particularly waitresses and such people. You’ve got to remember they put in a long, hard day, and many people grumble a lot. It does no harm to speak a friendly word.”
    Well, I was willing. Fact is, I could have been more than friendly with that there Teresa if I knowed how to go about it.
    “He ever talk much?”
    She knew who I meant, all right. “No…scarcely at all. But he watches. Nothing that happens around him happens without his seeing it.” And just at that minute he came in.
    “Good morning,” he said cheerfully enough. “You rise early.”
    “On a cow ranch you’re up before the sun,” I said. “I was never no hand to lie abed, anyway.”
    Felix Yant was what his name was? Should that mean anything to me? I hadn’t heard the name before, so far as I could recall, and my recall was pretty good, yet the man worried me. I felt he knew more about me than he had any use for, and I didn’t like it. Gave me a feeling of being watched.
    He seemed friendly enough, and began to talk of the mountains, the trees, then got to comparing these mountains with those back east. I listened mighty sharp, wanting to pick up a clue.
    He had hands like a gambler. They were slender and white, beautiful hands, actually. I suspect he was what is called a gentleman, but I