Free The Sheriff (Historical Romance) by Nan Ryan

of a lifetime.”
    “It’s the journey, not the destination.”
    “You’ve got it, my girl.”
    “Well, I hate to admit it, but the sheriff was right. I have come to ‘see the elephant.’” She smiled then, and added, “And should I never find my gold, I will have had the grand adventure of a lifetime!”
    When Chang Li was able to leave Dr. Ledet’s office, less than seventy-two hours after Kate had taken him there badly injured, he told her that he would repay her the only way he knew how. He would work for her.
    Kate was delighted. She explained that she had looked for—with no success—men to help her work the Cavalry Blue Mine.
    “I understand the going rate for miners is $3.00 a day,” she said. “Is that satisfactory?”
    “Most satisfactory,” he said, happily bobbing his head and setting his plaited queue to dancing. “I help Missy find her gold!”
    That same afternoon, while Kate waited just outside, Chang Li quit his job in Mrs. Reno’s laundry, where for the past year he had been slaving twelve hours a day, seven days a week for a pittance.
    “You know anything about working a mine?” Kate asked when he came out of the laundry.
    “Know plenty,” he said as they fell into step on the sidewalk. “I work mine while you look for placer.”
    “No. The placer is gone,” Kate stated.
    “Not know that for sure. Stream that run across your property changes with every rain. You have good batea?”
    “Batea?” Her eyebrows lifted.
    “Is pan with…grooves…corrugations in bottom. You will need good one to wash the gravel.”
    “I’ll get one. What else will we need?”
    “Pick and shovel and sturdy bucket for me to work inside the mine,” he said. “Later we get lumber and build good rocker, handle more volume that way.”
    “All right. Let’s go on over to Barton’s and pick out the tools we’ll need to get started,” Kate said. “Can you be at my house bright and early in the morning?”
    “I be there at sunup!” he promised.

Eleven
    J ust as promised, a smiling Chang Li showed up just as the sun was beginning to rise.
    Within the hour he and Kate stood barefooted in the clear, sparkling stream that ran past her house. Chang Li had his loose white trousers rolled up, and Kate ignored the fact that the hem of her long skirt was saturated and sticking to her ankles.
    She didn’t care. She was eager to learn all that she could from her willing teacher. Patiently Chang Li instructed her in the fine art of placer mining. She quickly caught on and delighted in dipping the large pan into the shallow water, then swishing it slowly around to wash the gravel in hopes of seeing the unmistakable flash of gold.
    Panning for the precious metal was hard physical labor. By noon Kate’s back was breaking and herarms felt as if they would fall off. But she didn’t complain.
    At her insistence, Chang Li spent the entire day with her in the shallow stream, teaching her to identify and wash the grains that might yield specks of gold.
    “That’s enough for today, Chang Li,” an exhausted Kate finally said late that afternoon as the sun was westering behind the tallest mountain peaks. “I’m dead tired and you must be as well. Go home now.”
    The little man nodded and said, “I be back tomorrow. Go on up mountain to Cavalry Brue Mine while Missy pan down here.”
    “Yes, I believe I can handle it now, thanks to you.”
    From that day on the unlikely pair worked as a team. Kate panned in the stream and Chang Li hacked at the rock inside the Cavalry Blue. The loyal Chinaman quickly became her trusted right hand.
    Kate had become the talk of the town.
    The single men in Fortune wanted to court her, and the married men wished they were single so they could court her.
    Only one man in Fortune showed no interest in courting Kate.
    Sheriff Travis McCloud.
    Kate’s presence was nothing but a headache for Travis. He heard about the invitations she received daily from would-be beaux, and was