The Gold Seekers by William Stuart Long

much a victim as them poor young fellers we just laid to rest, ain’t she?”
    Several voices were raised, offering suggestions.
    “We c’n take up a collection for the little girl.”
    “That skunk Morgan won’t come back of his own free will, Eph. But we could send someone to bring him back.”
    “Sure we could! An’ then put him on trial fer murder.”
    “We got to bring in a verdict against him. Put it to the vote, Eph.”
    Luke rose to his feet, knowing suddenly what he had to do, and they fell silent again, waiting for him to speak. He did so boldly, sensing the girl’s eyes on him. “I’ll go search for him and bring him back, Mr. Crocker. I owe my brother that. And Tom and Frankie Gardener were my partners, so if anyone goes, it ought to be me.”
    “I guess it ought,” Ephraim Crocker confirmed. He looked worried, but before he could voice any doubts, the men stamped their feet, demanding a vote. It was agreed unanimously that Jasper Morgan was charged with murder and required to stand trial, and in a second vote Luke was authorized, on behalf of the miners’ committee, to bring him back to Thayer’s Bend in order to answer the charges. A hat was passed, and the men contributed generously before hastening off, intent on making up for the time they had lost.
    “Take the little girl back to Morgan’s place, will you, Luke?” Crocker requested before following their example. “An” I’ll see you before you set off for “Frisco.”
    It was as they were riding back together, the girl on Luke’s saddlebow, that she made havoc of his plans.
    “I’m coming with you to “Frisco,” she said with quiet but unexpected firmness. Shocked, he started to argue, but she cut him short. “I’ve no place else to go. In Sacramento I … I was working in a saloon. That was where Jasper Morgan found me, and I won’t go back there. I wouldn’t even if I was starving. And I can’t stay here by myself.”
    Luke’s arms, which had been clasping her waist, loosened their grip instinctively. Then, ashamed of his reaction, he apologized.
    “But you’re—you’re a female. We can’t travel together. It wouldn’t be right. It wouldn’t be respectable.”
    “I shall not trouble you, Luke. And I was brought up to be respectable. My parents were God-fearing folk. But Captain Morgan …” Mercy, her head lowered, left the sentence uncompleted, with all its unhappy implications evoking Luke’s pity. She added, with a swift change of tone, “You’ll need me as a witness in San Francisco. If you go by yourself, it would be your word against his. And he—oh, Luke, you know him! Jasper Morgan would talk his way out, whatever the miners’ committee think.”
    She was right on that count, Luke was forced to concede. “I’d planned on killing him,” he admitted a trifle sullenly, “if he refused to come back here with me to stand his trial.”
    That notion, he realized, had been in the back of his mind ever since he had seen Dan’s body, but until now he had not put it into words, even in his thoughts. Vengeance, a life for a life—even the Scriptures held that to be no more than justice. And Jasper Morgan had robbed three men of their lives; he had planned to kill them from the moment he had set them working on the useless, unproductive mine that was to become their tomb… .
    Mercy Bancroft drew in her breath sharply. She turned to look at him over her shoulder, and Luke was taken aback by the naked pain he read in her eyes.
    “I could kill him also,” she said in a low, bitter voice, “for what he did to me. I did not know that any man could be capable of—of such cruelty.” Her tone changed again, became pleading. “Please, Luke, take me with you! We could travel as brother and sister, and I swear I’ll not be a burden or a trouble to you. And we will find him, truly we will!”
    Luke yielded. It went against the grain to do so, but she had a right. Morgan had robbed him of his brother and his two