Zachary's Gold by Stan Krumm Page B

have, unless he was afraid of pursuit?
    The hoofprint I had seen led me to believe that they had turned back upstream, and logic told me that he would most likely have his base camp somewhere in the higher ground to the north of these lowlands, so I concentrated my search along that bank, thinking as well that he would probably not have doubled back too far.
    As it turned out, all three of my guesses were correct, but it still took me several hours to once again pick up their route. They left few signs of their passing, but to my good fortune, the mule once again proved his singular talent for defecation. Beside a scarcely visible game trail heading straight up the hillside, I was pleased to see a small brown cairn of organic matter.
    The trail from there was easily followed, albeit a bit steep and slippery with wet birch and poplar leaves, and I must admit that at that stage I was enjoying myself immensely. The feeling was something I had not felt for years. It was what I had hoped for years before when I had first joined Pinkerton’s detective agency—excitement, expectation, and a pleasant sense of danger. Alan Pinkerton, on the one occasion when I met the man, had commented that “Whenever you can find something everyone else considers lost, or catch up with someone that everyone else has given up on, you can expect to command a good reward.” I think that on that cool, sun-speckled autumn afternoon as I strolled through the mountain forest, my mind was more on the prospect of that reward than the situation at hand. As a matter of fact, I remember reprimanding myself for not asking Hec Simmonds about the express company reward, as if it were already my due.
    I followed the game trail farther than I would have expected, uphill and down, through poplar then pine forest, until I came out on a crest of land in a ravine that centred on a small stream flowing east, which would probably flow into the little lake I had been stopped by at noon. I stood there for a long moment, wondering whether I should turn left or right, upstream or down, when I suddenly noticed that the much-travelled mule was grazing unconcernedly in a clearing directly across from me. Fifty yards from him was a cabin, half hidden by trees.
    Mentally cursing myself, I dodged back out of sight and peered more carefully through the branches at the scene across the creek. There was no smoke coming from the little tin chimney, but that was normal for this season and time of day. The mule continued to graze as if he had not noticed me, but those beasts do not normally pay attention to anything they do not intend to eat or anyone who is not threatening them with a stick.
    I watched for about ten minutes, which seemed a very long time, and nothing stirred to indicate any life on the premises. A small window faced me, but at a hundred yards distance, it was only a black square. Ideas and plans tumbled through my mind three and four at a time, but nothing ideally suited to the moment stood out, except to try for a closer look at the little building.
    I circled carefully to my right through the bush, crossed the little creek several hundred yards upstream, and worked my way as close as I dared to the far side. There was not enough water in the creek flow to make sufficient noise to disguise my approach, and the ground was well scattered with leaves and debris, so I was slow in my progress and not altogether silent, but I was satisfied that I had not been heard or spotted by the time I was crouched in a thicket of willows on the far side of the cabin, watching the door.
    Again I waited while nothing happened.
    It is one thing to know that patience and care are advisable, but another matter completely to actually spend any amount of time staring at a static scene. One of my legs went to sleep. It wasn’t easy, trying to shake and flex some feeling into it without making any noise, and for a moment I recalled some of the frustrating aspects of my former