Bob Bowen Comes to Town

By H. Bedford-Jones
The fat man squeezed himself into the chair of the smoking-room, eyed the lean man and the drummer who had stretched out on the cushioned seat, wiped his beaded brow, and sighed.
“This central California,” he observed squeakily, “is the hottest place this side of Topheth! Thank Heaven, we get into Frisco to-night.”
The drummer from San Francisco resented the diminutive and gave him a casual stare. The lean man said nothing. Then the drummer turned to the lean man and picked up a thread of conversation which had apparently been broken by the fat man’s entrance.
“This here ruby silver, now,” he argued. “I’ve heard it ain’t up to snuff. Ain’t nothin’ in working it, they tell me.”
The lean man smiled. When he smiled, his jaw looked a little leaner and stronger, and he was quite a likeable chap.
“You can hear ’most anything, especially about ores,” he remarked, between pulls at his cigar. “But Tonopah was founded on ruby silver, and the Tonopah mines are not exactly poor properties to own.” His eyes twinkled, as if at some secret jest.
“But they tell me,” persisted the drummer, “that ruby silver’s got too much arsenic in it to make development and smelting pay. Besides it comes in small veins—”
“It has not too much arsenic to make smelting pay—sometimes! It does not come in small veins—sometimes! Look at the Yellow Jack, the richest mine over at Tonopah! They busted into ruby silver; last week a bunch of mining sharks come and look over the outcrop. They wire east, and their principals pay a cool million and a half cash for the property. That’s what ruby silver did for the Yellow Jack!”
“How d’you know so much about, it?” demanded the drummer. “You been up that way yourself, eh?”
“I’m the man who sold out the Yellow Jack.” The lean man smiled again as he threw back his elbows into the cushions and puffed his cigar.
“Gee!” The drummer stared sidewise at his informant. Very manifestly, that mention of a million and a half was running in his mind. His eyes began to bulge under the force of impact. “Gee! Say, are you stringin’ me?”