Free the Key-Lock Man (1965) by Louis L'amour Page B

they were lost in a wilderness of rocks and canyons. They tried several ways through, but each time they ran into a dead-end canyon and had to backtrack. With the wagons, that was a mean job. And then they lost another mule.
    "Tempers were short, and several times they came near to fights. There was a youngster with them, fourteen or fifteen years old. He'd latched onto them before they left California, wanting to work his way east, and it was he who found the way through. It was a high, narrow pass that opened out into desert, but they made it through to the desert and then turned south along the mountains, following a dim Indian trail.
    "Nobody knows how far they had gone when the Coyoteros hit them, but it was a complete surprise. One man fell in the first fire, and then they dropped behind rocks and fought back. The Indians ran off most of their stock, and when the fight was over there were just four men left, four men and that youngster.
    "One of the men left alive was Valadon, and that was a fortunate thing, because he had kept the account of the trip. After the big fight there was almost another one among themselves, for Trim Newhall, one of the men, wanted to kill that youngster, the one they called Muley. It was all the others could do to stop him."
    "But why, Matt?"
    "Because when the fight with the Indians started the kid dug out and hid ... he never helped one little bit."
    "But he was just a boy!"
    "In this country boys of that age usually do a man's work, and if they travel with men, they share alike in fighting or any other trouble. Valadon and Camp Foster managed to talk Newhall out of it, because they needed all the help they could get.
    "With most of their stock gone, they had to abandon the wagons, so they loaded the gold on the mules and horses, and trailed them back into the rugged hills.
    "They could not have gone far, for they were in a hurry.
    The Indians might return at any moment, and they were too few to resist an attack. So they hid the gold, returned to their cache of supplies near the wagons, and then headed south.
    "Trim Newhall, Camp Foster, a man named Ben Hollenbeck, and that kid . . . aside from Valadon they were the only ones left. . . .
    Nobody ever called the kid by any name other than Muley.
    "They had kept enough gold to pay their way, and to outfit and return for the rest of it, and as you can imagine, it was a-plenty. Twelve men gone of the original lot, and gold enough hidden away to make those who remained rich men. Only there was a joker in the deck for Muley. Before the others hid the gold they tied him up and left him behind; then after they'd hidden it, they returned for him. After all, he'd no share in it.
    "Yet one among them had murdered at least two, and perhaps three of the others. Was he among those killed?
    Or was he still one of those living?
    "They rode together and they rode hard, and they switched horses from time to time. It was a brutal ride, but they got through to Santa Fe. They split up there, for no one of them trusted the others, but the following morning Valadon and Foster together went looking for Trim Newhall. They found him . . . with a knife thrust in the ribs.
    "They had been planning an immediate return for the gold, but Valadon had had enough. He slipped away, got his gear together, and before sundown had ridden out of town, en route for Las Vegas and then for St. Louis. He never returned, and he heard nothing of the others after that."
    "But surely they went back for the gold?"
    "Maybe. Of course, no treasure-hunter wants to believe they got it, and in this case there is good reason for not believing it.
    "Actually, but for Valadon's journal nobody would have known of the lost wagons, for so far as could be discovered the others were also killed." "All of them?"
    He took his pipe from his pocket and tamped it full before replying. "All of them. All but Muley." "Did they ever discover who did it?"
    "No."
    "Matt, let's look for it! You know this