"TAGGART" - читать интересную книгу автора (L'Amour Louis)

sun would often change the looks of an area in a decided manner.
He should search, but he did not like the idea of leaving tracks around that might
be seen by either Apaches or Pete Shoyer.
More and more his attention was drawn back to Rockinstraw. The mountain loomed above
everything in a country that was almighty broken up. From its peak a man could get
quite a view, but he could also get himself shot at.
By now it was late afternoon. Within an hour or two, if anyone was around they would
be preparing something to eat, and that meant a fire, and a fire meant smoke. Very
little smoke if the fellow used dry wood, but smoke just the same. And smoke could
be smelled and seen.
Swante Taggart rolled a cigarette and lit up. He would wait ... he was sure he was
right. Somebody was hidden close by, and a hiding place that good would be good for
him also.
He would wait.
36
FOUR
T he Spanish fathers who had located the canyon of the lost mine had mistaken float
for an outcropping, and without
doubt there had been a lot of the float, and some large boulders included. Few of
the padres had any knowledge of mining or of the occurrence of ores, and what they
found had apparently been broken off from high up on the mountain, from which point
it had rolled or floated down and wedged among other rocks. Later, though realizing
their mistake, they had failed to discover the true source of the gold.
Adam Stark knew they had failed because he found evidence of their efforts and their
failure, but he had been more fortunate because he had known considerably more about
mining geology.
Whether the padres had given up and returned to.Mexico or had been murdered by Apaches
he had no idea, although he suspected the former. Certainly, there was no evidence
of any battle at the canyon of the chapel. There were no skulls, no human bones of
any kind, and no weapons lying about. If they had been killed it would have been
after leaving this place. At no time had he found any Indian remains in the canyon
itself.
Considering his own situation, Adam Stark knew that two months at the present rate
would leave him with more than a hundred thousand in free gold, all sacked up and
ready to take out ... if they lasted that long.
Neither Consuelo or Miriam had ever seen the source of the gold, and he had no intention
that they should. His excuse had been accepted without discussion or apparent curiosity:
the fewer tracks in the vicinity, the better.
32
37
TAGGART 33 The truth was that every instant he worked at the vein his
life was in danger, and not from Apaches, but from the nature of the rock itself.
He was undermining the base of a leaning touter of rock that might at any time come
down, burying him beneath a heap of rubble.
The ever-present risk of discovery by Apaches or by white outlaws occupied the minds
of the two women until all else seemed relatively unimportant. But they lived a day-to-day
existence, never allowing these dangers to become a settled fear.
Neither of them considered the problem of the mining itself. To their few questions
Adam had been casual in comment. "It's slow work," he said, "mainly hacking it out
of the native rock and getting it down the mountain."