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Updated: July 16, 2025
In the morning he rose early, to muck out the rock and clear the tunnel for a new round of holes; and each time as he came out with a wheel-barrow full of waste he cocked his eye to the west. Bible-Back Murray would be coming over soon, if he was still at his camp around the hill.
"Danged right he's working for him," returned Old Bunk grimly. "He runs to him with everything he hears. It's a wonder I haven't killed that little tub of wienies he crabs every trade I start to make. What's the matter with Old Bible-Back now?" "Oh, nothing," answered Denver, "but if it's all the same to you I'd like to just locate that ground.
But Denver was driving himself to the limit, blasting out ore that grew richer each day; and at thought of Bible-Back Murray, waiting to pounce upon his mine, he sent back a reluctant refusal. Yet they published his name, with the partner's place left vacant, and advertised that he would participate; for on the Fourth of July, with Slogger Meacham for a partner, he had won the title of champion.
"Nope, it don't look good to me," answered Denver promptly, "there's too many ifs and ands. And I'll stay here till I rot before Bible-Back Murray will ever get that mine from me. He hired that bunch of gun-men to jump my claim twice when he had no title to the mine, and then he hired Chatwourth and Slogger Meacham to get me in the door and kill me.
Did it mean he was to refrain from opposing Old Bible-Back, or merely that he should oppose him within reason? That was the trouble with all these prophecies you never could tell what they meant. Take the silver and golden treasures how would he know them when he saw them? And he had to choose wisely between the two.
"What are you doing around here?" he demanded angrily and, as Denver made no answer, another man stepped out from behind. Then with a word to the guard he came down the trail and Denver knew it was Murray himself. He was a tall, bony man with a flowing black beard and, hunched up above his shoulders, was the rounded hump which had given him the name of "Bible-Back."
A great fire seemed to consume him, to drive him on, to fill his body with inexhaustible strength; and, against the advice of the station man, he started on in the heat for Moroni. All he wanted was a show-down with Bible-Back Murray, to meet him face to face; and no matter if he had the whole county in his pocket he would tell him what he thought of him.
Three weeks of idle waiting, of pacing up and down and cursing the slow passage of time; and then, perhaps, delays and disappointments and obstructions from Bible-Back Murray. He sat with bowed head, then rose up suddenly and wrote a brief letter to Murray. "Get me a pardon," he scrawled, "and I'll give you a quit-claim. This goes, if you do it quick."
That's the way I dope it out and I've spent fifteen years of my life just playing that system to win. Me and old Bible-Back Murray, the store-keeper down in Moroni, have been working in this district for years; and, sooner or later, one or the other of us will strike it and we'll pile up our everlasting fortunes.
"He's drilling for copper," nodded Bunker significantly, "and for all you and I know, he's got it. He's got an armed guard in charge of that drill, and no outsider has been allowed anywhere near it for going on to six months. The cores are all stored away in boxes where nobodv can get their hands on them and the way old Bible-Back is sweating blood I reckon they're close to the ore.
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