Original subtitles

Where is it? The south drift.

The whole ceiling gave way.

Well, where's Fred Harris, that new man?

He was working there. I know, I saw him.

I always said the top shoring

wasn't strong enough. I had plenty of shoring.

Come on, you men, hurry it up!

JIM: Around the mine, the new man

had been known as Fred Harris.

But his real name was Fred Henderson,

an investigator for Wells Fargo.

Come in.

Oh, come in, Jim.

This is Mr. Wilkins, co-owner

of the Walking Mountain Mine.

Jim Hardie, our special agent.

How do you do, sir? Mr. Hardie,

I understand you're to carry on

the investigation at the mine.

I'm told that's my assignment.

This letter will introduce you to Mr. Jefferson, my partner.

He supervises activities at the mine.

I do the paperwork here in San Francisco.

I see.

Now, Mr. Jefferson will cooperate with you

in every possible way.

Naturally, being my partner,

he's as anxious to stop this high grading

as I am.

Mr. Wilkins,

about how much ore would you say

your mine was losing per month?

Well, that's hard to say exactly.

I would estimate in the neighborhood

of about $5,000 a month.

That much, huh?

To some people that might make stealing worthwhile.

Yes. Or even murder. WILKINS: Murder?

You don't believe your investigator,

Mr. Henderson, was murdered, do you?

I believe it's a possibility

that bears investigation.

How soon can you leave?

I'll take the evening train for Sonora.

Take it and good luck, Jim.

Thank you.

Good luck, Mr. Hardie.

I'll do the best I can, Mr. Wilkins.

Good morning. MAN: Good morning.

Is this the way to the Walking Mountain Mine?

Yeah, after you pass them rocks up there,

you take the path that leads out across the woods.

You got about two miles to go.

Are they doing any hiring out there?

Yeah, today they are

because I just quit.

Why is that? Well, I got a slave driver

for a foreman.

And you won't last long out there either.

Nobody does.

Thanks. And you better not

try no high grading...

That foreman's a hard man to fool.

I'll keep that in mind.

JIM: The reception wasn't altogether unexpected.

Whoever knew that Fred Henderson

was a Wells Fargo man

would be expecting another one.

Mike, come here a minute.

Yeah, Mr. Jefferson?

Smithson?

Yes, sir.

You're late again.

I overslept, Mr. Jefferson.

I'm sorry.

The high grading is still going on, Mike.

How do you know?

It's all in the report.

The samples of ore taken from the mine

show a higher gold content

from the stuff received at the smelter.

No, I can't figure it out, Mr. Jefferson.

I'm with the men when they quit work,

I watch them wash down,

I search their clothes for nuggets.

I don't know what else to do.

Look, we got 15 men on the payroll,

I can fire the whole lot of them and get a new crew,

and maybe that will stop it.

I don't wanna go to that extreme,

we're short of men already.

It's too hard to get them to work

up here in the mountains.

You think Wells Fargo

could be stealing the high grade ore?

Well, I suggested that to Mr. Wilkins

but he didn't seem to think so.

Hi.

JIM: Good morning.

You're doing any hiring?

Yeah, we're short a few men.

Where did you work before?

The Last Chance Mine up in Colorado.

Why did they let you go?

They didn't let me go, I quit.

I wanted to see what California looked like.

Well, do I get the job?

All right. You start right away.

This is Mike Phelps, my foreman.

You take orders from him.

Fix him up with a room in the bunkhouse

and put him to work.

Come on.

In the future, Smithson,

you get to work on time.

Yes, sir.

This is where you bunk.

What did you say your name was?

I didn't say it.

It's Hardisty.

Jim Hardisty. I don't know how it was

where you worked before, Hardisty,

but we don't put up with high grading here

at the Walking Mountain.

Just keep that in mind.

I'll do that.

After you get your gear put away, report to me,

and I'll get you started.

MIKE: Oh, Ed.

Yeah, Mike?

This is Hardisty, a new man.

He's gonna work with you and Bill.

Howdy. Take him inside

and show him what we expect.

Let's go.

Hey, wait a minute,

we don't allow our men to have guns in the mine.

You can pick it up

after work.

JIM: The mine owners knew their best grade of ore

was being stolen.

High grading, it's called.

This meant trouble for Wells Fargo,

unless they could prove the ore wasn't being stolen

from their wagons.

I had to find evidence that the ore

was being stolen at the mine

before it got to the wagons.

Fred Henderson died trying to get that evidence.

JIM: It didn't take much brains

to be a hard rock miner.

All you needed was a strong back

and room on your hands for a family of callouses.

This looks like pretty high grade ore.

Some of these ore is so rich

it's got nuggets sticking out of it.

JIM: I'll push the cart outside.

No, leave it here.

It's getting near quitting time.

No sense doing anything today

we can do tomorrow. Hey.

All right, time to knock off.

Go wash down... your heads, too.

I don't want you walking around with any of our gold dust

in your hair.

Bill, I catch you high grading again

I'll make a hospital case out of you,

so help me. I don't know

how that nugget got in there.

No, of course not.

It just crawled under the collar and sewed itself there

without any help from anybody.

Now listen, you men.

This high grading is gonna stop around here

or they're gonna fire the whole lot of us.

The first thing you know they'll have a whole new crew

and a new foreman.

Only that ain't gonna happen.

Guess what we took out today, sir.

Pretty good, huh?

Well, it's all right.

Yeah, what do you want?

My gun, I'd like to get it back.

All right?

Give it to him.

Thank you.

JIM: A cartridge without gunpowder

is about as useless as a saddle

without a horse.

JIM: Duds. Every one of them.

During the day someone got to my gun

in the office, pried the lead out of each cartridge,

dumped the gunpowder out,

and stuck the lead back in.

I'm gonna get me a confounded bit

and put it between my teeth.

If I'm gonna work like a horse

at least oughta look like one.

All right, all right.

Let's not be chewing the fat

on company time.

There goes a friendly cuss.

He ought be carrying a black snake whip.

He's a lousy company man.

Maybe.

Why maybe?

Somebody's been high grading gold around here.

I figured it's somebody

that's free to wander around

as he pleases.

Don't you think?

I don't get paid to think.

It ain't healthy.

Why do you suppose they call this the Walking Mountain Mine?

Well, there's a weak fault running through the mountain.

Whenever a shaft hits the fault,

you're likely to get a cave-in.

Unless the shaft is shored up

plenty strong with big timbers.

Whenever there's a cave-in, it sounds like an earthquake,

like the mountain was walking.

And just about every time she walks,

somebody gets killed.

Does it happen often?

Fella got caught in a cave-in last week.

Fred Harris.

Poor guy only been on the job

a couple of days.

How about showing me where the cave-in happened?

Why?

Well, I'd like to know where the weak spots are.

I don't wanna wind up like that other fellow did.

Come on.

Yeah, here's where it happened.

Whole roof fell in on him.

The shoring was plenty weak.

We cleaned up and re-timbered

after Harris was killed.

What's this timber over here?

Oh, some of the shoring got busted up

during the cave-in.

The timber hasn't just busted,

as Bill had put it.

It had been cut hallway through

and whoever cut it murdered Fred Henderson

as surely as if he'd fired a bullet

through his head.

Seems to me you're pretty curious

about a lot of things around here.

I just got an inquiring mind.

All right. Break it up, break it up.

What's going on around here?

Chow was over five minutes ago.

None of you guys like it around here?

Now get that ore moving before I fire the lot of you.

Well, now what are you snooping around for?

JIM: That goes clear through the mountain.

An air shaft.

Now what are you gonna make about that?

Nothing.

I just thought I felt a draft.

MAN: Look out below!

You almost didn't holler soon enough.

I'm sorry, it was an accident.

Yeah.

JIM: There's a lot of gold in the California Mountains.

Some of it lies in the beds of streams,

it's panned out as dust.

But most of the gold is buried underground,

in the form of ore.

Found what you're looking for?

I think so.

I figure I'm looking at the man

that's been high grading this ore,

and the man that killed Fred Harris.

Oh?

What's a dead man like you going to do

with information like that?

That gun won't do you no good.

Them bullets are all duds.

Are they?

Now you come with me, Mike.

You got an appointment with the sheriff

to stand trial for murder.

Let's go.

Look out!

PHELPS: Ahh!

JIM: Funny.

There were times when I thought a case was closed,

then something like this would happen.

I identified myself to Jefferson

and told him what had happened.

I suggested that a grating over the air shaft

might keep their high grading losses at a minimum.

Smithson, take a couple of men

and bring Mike's body out of the mine,

will you?

Well, Mr. Hardie, you can rest assured

Mr. Wilkins and I will be eternally grateful for what you've done.

Sure you won't to stay and have dinner with us before you go?

Thanks again. I've just got time to catch the evening train.

Oh, you're in a hurry to get back to San Francisco?

I'm in a hurry to find out who Mike's partner is.

Mike's partner?

You think someone's in cahoots with him?

While I was up on the hill with Mike,

somebody rigged this shotgun

to give me a dose of buckshot poison.

I figure that would be Mike's partner.

You see, this shotgun was bought in San Francisco,

there's a manufacturer's name and serial number.

A lot of business houses

are starting to keep a record

of customer sales.

You think it's possible the manufacturer

might have the customer's name?

Either that or maybe I can find a clerk

with a good memory for faces.

People, where they came from and whatnot.

Oh, I see.

Well, thanks again,

Mr. Jefferson.

All right. Let's get back to work.

Hello, Wells Fargo man.

I took a shortcut.

So I see.

I was beginning to wonder

if you were gonna let me get away

with your shotgun.

No, I wouldn't let you do that.

You know, I figure I'm gonna lose

a couple of thousand dollars a month

on a kind of you.

That's too bad.

It goes that way sometimes.

It's no one's fault, really.

You were just doing your job.

You're sure right about that.

JEFFERSON: Still and all,

when one man's responsible for another man

taking a financial loss,

that man should pay,

financially or otherwise.

Well, that's one way of looking it.

It's the only way, Hardie.

I imagine you're wondering how I can talk so big

when I'm not carrying a gun.

When a man has a stiff arm, he either has a bad arm

or a spring Derringer up his sleeve.

And no gun is as fast as a spring Derringer.

You know that?

So I've heard.

There's one thing you don't know.

It's not always the fastest gun that wins,

but the straightest.

JIM: The local authorities took care of Jefferson.

It delayed me a few hours, but I got away in time

to board the afternoon train for San Francisco

where I knew they'd have another assignment

waiting for me.

They always have.

For there's always another man somewhere

who thinks he can make his pile

the easy way.