The Andre Norton Megapack - 15 Classic Novels and Short Stories

leathers and fought not only to keep on his feet but awake.
    “What’s the matter with you, boy?”
    Drew tried to lift his head, tried to summon words to answer that demand. A sullen kind of pride made him release his hold and stand away from the bay, only to reel back and bring up hard against a rock, grating his arm painfully. He clung there for a moment and got out:
    “Nothing a little sleep won’t cure.” He spoke into the dark outline of Hunt Rennie. “I’m all right.”
    Drew made a painful effort, pulled himself away from the rock to fumble at the cinches of the bay’s saddle, only to be pushed aside.
    “Steer him over there, Perse…bed him down.”
    The Kentuckian’s last scrap of protest leaked away. He hardly knew when a blanket was pulled up over him as he lay in a rock niche, already drifting into deep sleep.
    Voices awoke him into the gray of early morning. The light was hardly brighter than moonlight but he could make out Hunt Rennie, sitting cross-legged, rifle to hand, while Chino Herrera squatted on his heels before him. Chino had not been with them when they left the pass. And there was Greyfeather, too. Their party had had reinforcements. Drew pushed away theblanket and sat up, realizing he was stiff with cold. Fire…hot coffee…there was no sign of either. He yawned and jerked his coat straight about him. His attention suddenly focused on an object which lay on the ground at Chino’s left. It was a book, the same size as the three he had bought at Stein’s!
    Without thinking, Drew moved forward, was about to reach for the volume when he heard the click of a cocked Colt. A hand swept down on the book.
    “You, hombre—what do you want with this?” Herrera, with no friendliness in either voice or eyes, was holding a gun on him.
    “That book—it looks like the ones I bought in town.” Drew was startled by the vaquero’s enmity.
    “Give it to him,” Rennie ordered.
    For a moment Herrera seemed on the point of open dispute, then he obeyed. But for some reason his weapon remained unholstered. Drew took up the volume.
    “ History of the Conquest of Peru ,” he read out. The binding was a match for that of the other three. But—there was something different. He weighed the volume in his hand. That was it! This book was heavier.…
    “Well, hombre, you have seen such a one before?”
    “Yes, this is bound to match those I bought from Stein. And one of those was History of the Conquest of Mexico . This is surely a part of the same library.”
    “Those—what did they have in them?”
    Rennie appeared content to let Chino ask the questions, but he continued to watch Drew and the book.
    “Have in them?” Drew repeated. “Why pages. They were books to read— The Three Musketeers , The Count of Monte Cristo , and History of theConquest of Mexico . That’s all, just books.”
    “Open this one,” Rennie told him.
    The Kentuckian had trouble obeying. And for the first time he saw he did not hold a book composed of pages but a type of box. The cover resisted his tugging. Then, as if some catch had been mastered, it opened so suddenly he almost lost his grip on the book. The core of those once separate pages had been hollowed out to contain a nest of raw cotton on which lay…The Kentuckian gasped.
    Even in this subdued light those stones glittered, and their settings were gold and silver. Drew saw elaborate pieces, the like of which he had never seen before.
    “There was a mule shot back in the pass,” Rennie explained. “His pack was opened. Three books were in it—one of them fell out and burst open.”
    “This one?”
    “No, it held gold coin. Hard Times by Charles Dickens—the contents hardly indicative of the subject, were they? Upon investigation a Wonders of the World produced more coin. And, as you see, History of the Conquest of Peru was even more fruitful. You are sure this binding matches that of the books you bought?”
    “Certain. This was bound to order, as were the other three. They were part of someone’s personal library—had no bookplate, though.”
    “And what was Stein’s story concerning them?”
    “An old prospector named Lutterfield found them in a trunk in some cave he located out in the desert country. He brought them in to trade for supplies.”
    “Lutterfield,” Rennie repeated thoughtfully. “Yes, that could be.”
    “Trunk in a cave?” Herrera was skeptical. “But why leave books in a trunk in a cave?”
    “One of Kitchell’s