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Four thousand acres minin' claims no better than yer own have I seen held fer the trees on thim an' ain't it the way some of these ole fellers thot goes around now wit' their two hands in their pants pockets an' no more work t' do wit' 'em than to light up their seegars ain't it wit' the timber on their minin' claims that they made their pile?
'T ain't much of a pile, but I reckon it's got ter do the business. Then I 'll strike out an' hunt till I find a minin' engineer thet 's got a soul of his own, an' grit 'nough behind it ter root out the facts.
"It's rough on Torchy, though." "Say, don't you waste any sympathy on me," says I, "and don't let off any more knocks at Mr. Pepper. I won't stand for it!" With that they snickers and does a slow exit. That leaves me runnin' the gold minin' business single handed; but me bein' one of the firm, as you might say, it was all right.
I've got NINE hundred; put your FIVE with that, and I know a little ranch that we can get for twelve hundred. That's what I've been savin' up for that's my little game! No more minin' for ME. It's got a shanty twice as big as our old cabin, nigh on a hundred acres, and two mustangs. We can run it with two Chinamen and jest make it howl! Wot yer say eh?" He extended his hand.
Then he said: "It's my mother wouldn't know me from a can of cold meat if I hadn't stopped at this station; but wurrawurra, what a car it was to come in!" He examined his tattered clothes and bare elbows; then he unbuckled the gold-pan, and no easy task was it with his ragged fingers. "'Twas not for deep minin' I brought ye," he said to the pan, "nor for scrapin' the clothes from me back."
"And it took a darn long ride to get here. From Texas." "That so? Well, I come from western Kansas, just across the Texas line." "Been here long?" "Reckon a matter of six months." "What's your work, if you'll excuse curiosity. I'm green, you see, and want to know." "I've been workin' a minin' claim. Gold." "Ah-huh!" replied Pan with quickened interest. "Sounds awful good to me.
Do you know what Corrigan done, yesterday? He got thirty or so deputies pluguglies that he's hired an' hid 'em behind some flat-cars down on the level where they're erectin' some minin' machinery. He laid a trap for 'Firebrand, expectin' him to come down there, rippin' mad because they was puttin' the minin' machinery up on his land, wi'out his permission.
It's most placer minin' that we've been doin' here, 'cause we ain't got no machinery ter go down deep in ther ground. But that there's big deposits down under us there ain't no doubt. I've cleaned up a cool, thousand so fur this week, an' I've got two more days ter make almost another one. I'm goin' ter send my stuff over to ther Bend Saturday afternoon."
Ches said he was so stuck on the West that he half believed he'd learn to be a minin' engineer an' come out here an' live. He tried to get me to promise to come an' visit him, but I told him that I ranged over the same territory mostly, an' wouldn't know how to act in the East; but that if I ever did head in that direction, I'd sure look him 'up.
Jard Hardman is in everythin'. Minin', ranchin', an' I've heard he's gone in for this wild horse chasin'. That's the newest boom around Marco. But Hardman has big interests here in town. It's rumored he's back of the Yellow Mine, the biggest saloon an' gamblin' hell in town." "Well, I'll be doggoned," ejaculated Pan thoughtfully. "Things turn out funny. You can show me that place presently.
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