She went through the forward corridor to the starboard side. A few gentlemen stood at the rail. She saw a thin young fellow in an Eastern suit, alone. His face was loose and grey and filled with alarm and unease. His shoes looked a bit worn, and he was clutching a cloth cap in one trembling hand. He looked as if he'd come from way back East somewhere, maybe from as far as St. Louis or Indianapolis. From the condition he was in it appeared he'd had a rough trip.

    He might be worth checking out, she thought, but first there were the two prosperous merchants talking business by the davits. She headed sedately in their direction.

CHAPTER THREE

    Gabe clung to the heaving, pitching deck of the boat while it tied up at the dock of Pittsburg.

    Pittsburg, he observed without believing. Maybe five buildings and a pier. If you counted a tack shed as a building.

    He clutched a passing nautical type by the sleeve. "How long will we be tied up here?"

    "Ten minutes. Maybe fifteen."

    Gabe rushed to the gangplank and staggered down to the little pier. Got on solid ground and stood there taking deep breaths. His vision began to clear.

    He looked up toward the forward deck. The big guys stood like trees. So San Francisco had a U. S. Mint, did it? And gold was shipped there.

    That was interesting. Very interesting.

    He was still thinking about that when a sailor in a striped shirt went by bawling, "All aboard-all aboard," which suggested these Westerners couldn't tell the difference between a steamboat and a train.

    Gabe dragged himself aboard.

    He draped himself over the rail as near as he could get to the gold stack, because he thought maybe if he could keep looking at all that gold it would take his mind off being seasick.

    It didn't work out that way. But between spells of being violently sick and spells of dry heaves, there were the occasional merciful moments of respite. During one of those moments he caught sight of a girl drifting unhurriedly along the deck, stopping here and there to look around her with pert wide-eyed interest. A slip of a girl, a delicate innocent flower of a girl. She wasn't looking in his direction; she stopped not too far away, a little beauty of a girl sweetly taking deep breaths of the warm and sunny afternoon air.

    The lovely wisp of a girl, wearing chaste innocence like a clean fragrance, moved daintily past Gabe. He would have turned to watch her go, but his time was up. He lurched back over the rail, clutched a stanchion with one hand, and hung his head weakly, keeping his eyes tight shut so he wouldn't have to watch the water roll past below him. Desperately his mind clung to a vision of the girl he had just seen. The simple dainty frock she wore; the wind gently whipping the long blonde hair around her little face…

    Something jostled him slightly. In his wracked condition, he hardly noticed.

    The first he knew anything was wrong was when he heard the shot and the scream.

    He whipped around, as fast as he could under the circumstances, and slapped his right hand against his hip pocket where his knuckle-duster was.

    Except it wasn't.

    He realized the pocket was empty at the same time that he saw the girl. The same girl he'd been dreaming about, trying to distract himself from his stomach. Damn if Gabe's knuckle duster wasn't in her hand, still smoking at the muzzle as she held it out away from her as though it were a dead rat.

    "Well, by God," Gabe muttered. He pushed himself away from the rail and reached for his property. "I'll take that."

    But she held onto it; partly from panic, it seemed, and partly from a grasping nature. She glared at him, her jaw set, and held on tight.

    Gabe felt as weak as railroad beer. He yanked at the knuckle-duster, clutching his cap in his other hand, and panted, "Gimme that. Give it to me."

    "No." She said it through clenched teeth and held on.

    The knuckle-duster was turning this way and that in their hands, neither of them able to keep a firm grip on it. One of them-probably the girl, who obviously had no idea what it was she'd stolen-accidentally touched the concealed button on the side. The duster's knife-blade snapped open, flipping up between all those fingers without quite removing any of them.

    "Sheee!" The girl let go in a sudden hurry and jumped backward.

    Gabe slapped his cap on his head to free his other hand, then disengaged the blade and folded it shut. Opening the single-shot chamber, he rummaged in his cluttered pockets for a new cartridge. At the same time he kept one eye on the girl and the other on the corner of the forward cabin beyond which the gold guards were clustered. They weren't visible from here, but it was curious that the sound of the shot hadn't brought them on the run.

    No. It wasn't curious after all. They knew their business, those guys. They weren't about to be distracted from the gold by some trivial diversion like a gunshot sounding within forty feet of them.

    He found a .41 cartridge and thumbed it into the knuckleduster in the chamber between the brass knuckles and the knife. Then he shoved the weapon back in his hip pocket where it belonged and took two steps backward to bring the gold stack in view.

    The guards down there were all staring in his direction, and now when he came in sight they all took fresh grips on their shotguns and stared at him a little harder.

    The girl had recovered fast. Indignant, she demanded, "What sort of thing is that?"

    Gabe moved back into the shadow, out of the gold guards' line of sight-and fire. "None of your business," he muttered.

    The girl was rubbing her knuckles and frowning like a folded-up awning. "Mister," she said, "there ought to be a law against you."

    He stared at her. "Against me!"

    "Going around with that… thing in your pocket. You could hurt some-"

    "Now just wait one minute!"

    "-body." She stamped a little foot. "You've got no right to carry a thing like that in a pocket where you ought to be carrying your wallet. And furthermore…"

    "And furthermore," he said, leaning close over her to drown her out, "I'm thinking I ought to turn you in to the captain for picking pockets."

    The girl opened her mouth, but this time didn't manage to say anything. Gabe glanced toward the cabin corner to see if any of the gold guards planned to mosey on down this way. None were in sight, but at that moment a wide man with a rolling gait and an official-looking cap came swinging around the corner instead. He came bearing down on them like an express wagon. "I heard a shot."

    Gabe glanced at the girl. Her eyes were very round and large.

    Gabe shrugged. "We didn't hear anything." He tipped his head toward the girl. "You hear anything?"

    "No. Not a thing."

    "I didn't either," Gabe said. "A shot, you say?"

    "Sounded like a pistol to me," the wide man said suspiciously. His nostrils were wrinkling. "I could swear I smell powdersmoke."

    "I don't smell a thing," the girl said.

    The wide man stood with his shoes planted three feet apart and scratched his head in bafflement. The girl moved closer to him, looked up into his downcast face, and then reached up and thumbed one of his eyelids back. "You sure you're feeling all right?"

    The wide man jerked his head back. "I feel fine. What are you talking about?"