Free Collection 1997 - End Of The Drive (v5.0) by Louis L’Amour Page B

business.”
    â€œFor the amount of work he does,” somebody else said, “he sure has a lot of gold. He ain’t spent a day in that shaft in a week.”
    â€œWhat do you mean by that?”
    â€œAsk them down to the settlement. He does more gambling than mining, according to some.”
    That baker woman was there, waltzing around like she was light as a feather, and seeing her made me think of a Welshman I knew. Now you take a genuine Welshman, he can talk a bird right out of a tree…I started wondering…how would he do with a widow woman who was a fine baker?
    That Welshman wasn’t far away, and we’d talked often, the year before. He liked a big woman, he said, the jolly kind and who could enjoy making good food. I sat down and wrote him a letter.
    Next morning early I met up with Griselda. “You actually marrying that Arvie?”
    Her pert little chin came up and her eyes were defiant. “A girl has to think of her future, Tell Sackett! She can’t be tying herself to a—a—ne’er—do—well! Mr. Wilt is a serious man. His mine is very successful,” her nose tilted, “and so is the bakery!”
    She turned away, then looked back, “And if you expect any girl to like you, you’d better stop eating those onions! They’re simply awful!”
    And if I stopped eating wild onions, I’d starve to death.
    Not that I wasn’t half-starved, anyway.
    That day I went further up the creek than ever, and the canyon narrowed to high walls and the creek filled the bottom, wall to wall, and I walked ankle deep in water going through the narrows. And there on a sandy beach were deer tracks, old tracks and fresh tracks, and I decided this was where they came to drink.
    So I found a grassy ledge above the pool and alongside an outcropping of rock, and there I settled down to wait for a deer. It was early afternoon and a good bit of time remained to me.
    There were pines on the ridge behind me, and the wind sounded fine, humming through their needles. I sat there for a bit, enjoying the shade, and then I reached around and pulled a wild onion from the grass, lifting it up to brush away the sand and gravel clinging to the roots.…

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    I T WAS SUNDOWN when I reached my shanty, but I didn’t stop, I rode on into the settlement. The first person I saw was the Welshman. He was smiling from ear to ear, and beside him was the baker woman.
    â€œMarried!” he said cheerfully. “Just the woman I’ve been looking for!”
    And off down the street they went, arm in arm.
    Only now it didn’t matter anymore.
    For two days then I was busy as all get-out. I was down to the settlement and back up above the narrows of the canyon, and then I was down again.
    Putting my few things into a pack, and putting the saddle on that old mule of mine, I was fixing to leave the claim and shanty for the last time when who should show up but Frank Popley.
    He was riding his brown mule with Griselda riding behind him, and they rode up in front of the shack. Griselda slid down off that mule and ran up and threw her arms around me and kissed me right on the lips.
    â€œOh, Tell! We heard the news! Oh, we’re so happy for you! Pa was just saying that he always knew you had the stuff, that you had what it takes!”
    Frank Popley looked over at me and beamed. “Can’t keep a good man down, boy! You sure can’t! Griselda, she always said, ‘Pa, Tell is the best of the lot,’ an’ she was sure enough right!”
    Suddenly a boot crunched on gravel, and there was Arvie, looking mighty mean and tough, and he was holding a Walker Colt in his fist, aimed right at me.
    Did you ever see a Walker Colt? Only thing it lacks to be a cannon is a set of wheels.
    â€œYou ain’t a-gonna do it!” Arvie said. “You can’t have Griselda!”
    â€œYou can have Griselda,” I heard myself say, and was astonished to