Chapter One Matt Bardoul rode his long legged zebra dun down the dusty main street of Deadwood Gulch a few minutes ahead of the stage. He swung down and tied his horse to the hitching rail, then stepped up to the boardwalk, a tall young man in a black, flat crowned hat and buckskin shirt. Instead of entering the IXL Hotel and Restaurant, he pushed his hat back on his head and leaned against one of the posts that supported the wooden awning. In his high heeled star boots with their huge rowelled California spurs, and his ivory-handled tied-down guns, he was a handsome, dashing figure. It was the summer of 1877 and the "Old Reliable Cheyenne & Black Hills Stage Line" boasted the Shortest, Safest, and Best Service in the West. When the stage swung into Main Street Matt Bardoul turned his green, watchful eyes toward the racing six horse Concord and watched it roll to a stop in front of the IXL. He had kept pace with the stage most of the way from Cheyenne, but aside from the mutual protection from marauding Indians, he had no interest in the stage or its passengers until he saw the girl alight from the stage at Pole Creek Ranch. He was lifting a match to the freshly rolled cigarette when he saw her, and he looked past the flame into her eyes and something seemed to hit him in the stomach. He stood there, staring, until the flame burned his fingers. He let out a startled yelp and dropped the match, and he saw just the flicker of a smile on her lips as she turned away. He swore softly, staring after her as she walked toward the ranch house, and then he turned back to his horse, but his fingers trembled as he loosened the cinch. Discreet inquiry, laced and bolstered with a couple of shots of rye, elicited the information from stage driver Elam Brooks that her name was Jacquine Coyle, that she was bound for Deadwood to join her father Brian Coyle, and that she was a pleasant, saucy, and thoroughly attractive young woman. "Not a kick from her the whole trip!" Brooks said with satisfaction. "Most of these durned stage ridin' females are cantankerous as all get out!" Stepping from the stage into the dusty street of Deadwood, Jacquine looked up quickly, her alert blue eyes searching the crowd of onlookers for her father or brother. The first person she saw was the tall, narrow hipped and broad shouldered young man leaning so nonchalantly against the awning post. Instantly she was aware of two things. That he was not at all nonchalant, and that he had been waiting to see her. This was the man she had seen at Pole Creek Ranch. The man who had accompanied them on horseback. She remembered him very well, both from his picturesque appearance and because of what she had overheard Fred Schwartz, the owner of Pole Creek, say to Elam Brooks. "There's one man Logan Deane will do well to leave alone!" "Who is he?" "Name's Mathieu Bardoul. He's a Breton Frenchman, Maine born, but raised in the west. He was in the Wagon Box Fight." "The hell you say!" Brooks turned to stare. "Then he's the same Bardoul that killed Lefty King, over at Julesburg!" "He's the one, all right. Nice fellow to have for a friend, and a bad one with whom to have trouble. If he's ridin' on to Deadwood you won't be surprised by any Indians. He can smell out a bad Indian a mile away!" All that went through her eyes in the flashing instant their eyes met across the heads of the crowd. She remembered his startled stare at Pole Creek, and now when their eyes met she saw something else, something that left her startled and confused. There was no effort to mask the look in his green eyes. It was the look a man, full in the pride of his strength, gives to a woman he wants. Her breath caught, and she turned her face quickly, yet she was conscious of a qu Excerpted from Westward the Tide by Louis L'Amour All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.