Skeleton Hand — Paul Lederer

In a desolate mountain shack, three ranchers find a hidden treasure On a freezing mountainside, three out-of-work cowboys are near death when one of them spies a long-abandoned trapper's shack. It is little more than a pile of old logs, but it has a hearth and a chimney where they can build the fire that will save their lives. Before he lights the wood, Cody Hawk checks the chimney to make sure it's clear. Inside he finds a pair of saddlebags, filled to the brim with gold. In the corner of the shack, underneath a pile of old furs, he discovers the gold's former owner, whom time has reduced to a pile of bones. The coins are fifteen years old, stolen in some forgotten robbery, and the desperate men believe they can claim them as their own. But dead man's gold is always cursed, and these coins will buy nothing but heartache, danger, and death.