county?â
The clerk nodded and slid open a wide, flat drawer, saying, âI know what you have in mind. Other marshals have been studying the same crazy situation. You wonât find the siding everyoneâs looking for. Half of the old narrow-gauge tracks up there have been pulled up for scrap.â
Longarm spread the map on a nearby table and ran his finger along a red line between Manzanita and the Big Valley. He mused aloud, âIf thereâs unused track laying around up there to be claimed by any junkman, it wouldnât be impossible for somebody to build his own siding in some wooded stretch of canyon.â
The clerk shook his head. âThe other lawmen have been all up and down the line. Besides, the train crews say theyâve never stopped or been stopped between the mine tipple and the mills down here.â
âWhat about this other fellow, Hearst?â
âGeorge Hearst? He lives in Frisco. Ainât heard about him missing any gold. Like I said, they crush their own ore up at Sheep Ranch and ship it almost pure. They send it down in freight wagons, under guard. The way I hear tell, nobody wants to tangle with old Hearst. Heâs in politics in the city and thick with the Big Five. This young MacLeod likely donât have as many friends whoâd back his play against high-graders.â
Longarm smiled thinly. âHe has the U.S. government in his corner. He contracted with the treasury to deliver his gold to the mint. Where does this Hearst jasper send his gold?â
The clerk shrugged. âSame place, of course. Nobody else buys gold in quantity on this coast.â He saw Longarmâs puzzled frown and asked, âDid I say something important, Deputy?â
âMaybe. These robberies have added up to a mess of gold, no matter what the quality of the stolen ore might have been. But youâre right. You canât sell a real pile of gold to anyone but Uncle Samânot without attracting a lot of attention.â
âMexico?â the clerk suggested.
The marshal tugged at a corner of his mustache. âDoubt it. For sure, they couldnât haul it that far as ore. They have to have a refinery we donât know about. If MacLeodâs extracting with the cyanide process, it canât be just some backwoods stamping mill, either, You say the Hearst mine has its own mill?â
The old man shook his head. âWrong tree, Deputy. The mill in Sheep Ranch is just a simple crusher that runs the slurry over mercury beds. They boil the mercury out of the results and wind up with rich dust. If the Lost Chinamanâs ore needs cyanide to leach it from the rock, the Hearst mill couldnât extract it worth mention.â
âHow about those other ghost towns up there, like Angelâs Camp?â
âThey ainât quite dead, for one thing, so youâd have witnesses. There ainât no cyanide mills, either, so youâd get no gold.â
âTry it this way. What if MacLeodâs wrong? The ore might be rich enough to run through an old-fashioned mill and settle for half, letting whatever gold the cyanide might get out stay where it is?â
The man scratched his wispy-haired pate vigorously. âWell, high-graders is called high-graders âcause they skim the cream. You could get some gold out of nigh
any
rock with a pan and running water. Theyâre going to a lot of effort if thatâs their play, though. MacLeodâs ore is marginal. Wouldnât be worth digging if they hadnât come up with new methods in the past few years. Hell, if
I
was up there high-grading, Iâd rob George Hearstâs mine. Itâs a third richer in color.â
Longarm thanked the clerk and left. He went next to the offices of the
Sacramento Bee
, where he found another friendly cuss who was more than willing to jaw about the newspaperâs back files.
He knew he was wasting time asking about the high-grading. If the case could