The Desperate Deputy of Cougar Hill by Louis Trimble Page A

beside the envelope and stared down thoughtfully.
    The flannel was plainly a pocket front. It was from a dark red shirt that needed washing badly. And, Tod thought, it shouldn’t be too hard to trace. But it was the fool’s gold that excited him. He knew there were no pyrites close to town. When he had been younger, he made quite a collection of the mineral, carrying it in a poke the way the miners carried their gold, pretending he had made a big strike.
    He recalled now that the only two good sources for fool’s gold were the mines on the benchland back of Cameron’s spread, and some long abandoned tunnels up in the high-mountain country that blocked off the south end of the valley. And the finest place of all had been that mine in the box canyon a short way up from Rafe Arker’s place — the one where the Dondee brothers were working now.
    Fool’s gold and pricklebush leaves — both from the hill country where Rafe Arker and the Dondees lived! And just as the pricklebush leaves had attached themselves to a horse, so could the fool’s gold have worked into men’s boots and dropped off there in the alley.
    Not Rafe, Tod decided. He had seen Joe Farley pack the big man into a buckboard and haul him home as much dead as alive that night of his fight with Cameron. The Dondees then? He shook his head. He knew too little about them to say. Come daylight, he’d get the flannel and the envelope to Cameron and let him decide what they meant.
    The day man showed up late, and by the time Tod got to Doctor Draper’s house, the town was beginning to stir with life. His knock brought the doctor himself to the door.
    “I got to see Roy,” Tod said earnestly. “It’s real important.”
    “Come back about this time tomorrow,” the doctor said. “He might be awake by then.” He frowned. “The rap on the head he took hurt him worse than I thought last night.”
    His words jolted Tod. Somehow he had come to think of Roy Cameron as indestructible. He walked slowly away, trying to understand what this meant. He was crossing the main street, going toward Jenny’s café, when he saw Sax Larabee step from the hotel lobby and stroll south toward the livery barn. “Business on Sunday too?” he thought wonderingly. Stopping, he watched Larabee.
    Larabee disappeared into the livery barn. Moments later he appeared on the bay horse he had come to favor. He walked the horse slowly south.
    Tod hurried into the café to find Jenny getting ready for the morning customers. She served him pie and coffee and while he gulped it down, he told her what he had learned.
    “The doctor said Roy would be all right in a few days — a few days!” Jenny exclaimed. “Why should anyone beat him so badly? And especially those Dondee brothers — if they were the ones.”
    Tod showed her the pyrites. “It sure looks like they was the ones in the alley.” He frowned. “That stranger, Larabee, was there too — lucky for Roy. But I sure don’t trust him much more’n I do the Dondees. He went riding south this morning again. I’d like to know why he always goes to the same place if he’s so interested in looking at mining properties.”
    “There are lots of mines on the bench,” Jenny pointed out.
    “There ain’t many places where pricklebush leaves grow,” Tod argued. “And every time Larabee comes back, he brings some with him.” He stopped eating and talking long enough to scribble a note on a leaf from Jenny’s account pad. He put the pyrites and the flannel and the note in the envelope and pushed it across the counter. “I’m going to ride after that Larabee right now and see where he goes,” he said. “If Roy comes to before I get back, give him these and tell him what I said.”
    “I don’t think …” Jenny began, and stopped. Tod’s expression told her that nothing she could say would change his plans. She turned away and began to wrap some food for him.
    “Just be careful, Tod. If the Dondees did ambush Roy last night,