CHAPTER II.
THE COPPER SPECIMENS.
The man sat up on the slab, where, like many other unfortunate wretches, he had been placed preparatory to a post mortem.
He stared wildly around him, not comprehending the circumstances in which he was placed.
There was a little of the brandy left in the graduating glass, and Charlie held it to his lips.
He gripped the boy’s hands with his two great, rough fists, almost crushing the glass, and eagerly drained the liquor off.
Then he coughed, blinked his eyes, and sliding off the table, stood up.
He would have fallen, for he was as helpless as a scarecrow. But Charlie caught and supported him.
“Feel better now, do you?” asked the doctor’s son.
“Yes, kinder so; only I feel plaguey weak, and I’m stone cold.”
Charlie assisted him to the only chair in the surgery.
“What’s been the matter with me, and where am I? This is a doctor’s shop, isn’t it?” he added, looking around and observing the bottles and instruments.
“You were brought here this morning,” explained Charlie.
“This morning!” exclaimed the man, looking up at the lamp in its bracket. “And is it night now?”
“That’s what it is.”
“I must have been a long time out of my head, then, youngster,” he said, with a look of perplexity on his features.
“You were more than that.”
“How’s that?”
“You fell down—to all appearance dead—at the Mugging’s farm, three miles outside of town, and you were brought here to await an inquest.”
“Fell down dead!” gasped the stranger, with a look of blank dismay.
“That’s right. If you hadn’t come to under the influence of that battery—which my chum suggested applying to you because you looked so lifelike—my father would have carved you up in the morning to find out what caused your death.”
“By the great hornspoon!” cried the man, who had apparently been snatched from the grave by the experiment of Jack Howard. “I knowed it would come to this some day. I’m subject to epileptic fits. I’ve always been afeard I’d be buried alive in one of them.”
“You’ve had a narrow escape,” chipped in Jack, highly pleased at the success of his galvanic treatment.
“I guess I had,” admitted the man, breathing hard and looking around him with a fearsome expression. “I’m very grateful to you young chaps for what you’ve done for me.”
“Don’t mention it,” replied Jack. “We’re mighty glad we were able to pull you around. If you don’t mind, we should be pleased to know who you are.”
“My name is Gideon Prawle. I’m a prospector and miner by occupation, but just at present I guess I ain’t much better’n a tramp. I’m out of luck, that’s all. But I’ve seen the time when I was worth a cool hundred thousand. But I spent it in drink, at the gaming table, and I was robbed of a good bit of it, and that’s the whole story. I’ve been a blamed fool, but I hope to do better yet afore I die. I know something that ought to be worth another hundred thousand to me, and when I realize on it I shan’t forget you young fellows, not by a jugful.”
“You needn’t worry about us,” said Charlie, cheerfully, winking at Jack, as if it was his opinion the man had wheels in his head. “We don’t expect to be paid for what we did for you.”
The man saw the wink, and was evidently offended.
“Look here, my lads,” he said gruffly; “you think because I look like a tramp that I’m a regular hobo—maybe that I’m talking through my hat. I reckon I kin prove what I say.”
Then he began looking around the room.
“I had a grip with me this morning. Do you know what became of it?”
“I guess that’s it over in the corner,” said Charlie, pointing. “I took hold of it awhile ago, and I must say it’s precious heavy. What have you got in it—gold?” he concluded, with a grin.
“Fetch it here and I’ll show you,” said Prawle.
Charlie brought it forward and laid it at the man’s feet.
The stranger started to bend down to undo the straps, but fell back in the chair with a groan.
“Give me another drink!” he gasped, plaintively, while the perspiration indicative of physical weakness appeared on his forehead.
Charlie rushed into the shop for more brandy and returned in a moment.
Gideon Prawle gulped it down at a draught, and it brought him instant relief.
“That’s good stuff, and it warms me innards nicely,” he said, smacking his lips with a sigh of satisfaction.
“It’s the best in Sackville,” said Charlie. “It’s none of your common saloon firewater. No, sir; that is kept exclusively for the sick.”
“I believe you,” said the Westerner. “Now, if I might ask you another favor, it would be in the shape of something to eat. I’m most famished. Ain’t had a mouthful since yesterday afternoon.”
“Sure thing,” replied Charlie, with alacrity. “I ought to have thought of that myself. Meyer,” he called, stepping to the surgery door.
The German boy poked his head into the room in fear and trepidation.
“Vat haf you done mit der corpse?” he asked, seeing the slab vacant.
Then, as his eyes roved to the chair, his hair almost stood on end with fright.
“Mein Gott! Vot is dot?”
“Don’t be a fool, Meyer,” said Charlie impatiently, grabbing him in time to prevent him making a bolt. “The man was not dead. He was only in a trance, and we brought him out of it with the battery.”
“So,” replied the German boy, gazing at the stranger in fearful wonderment, “he been in dose transes under dot sheets der whole lifelong day, ain’t it? Vot a great dings dose battery vos, I ped you.”
“Go into the house, Meyer, and see what you can pick up in the pantry in the way of a cold bite. Fetch a jug of milk from the cellar.”
Meyer opened the door leading to the garden and looked out.
The storm had passed over the town by this time and was receding in a northwesterly direction.
“You’ll find the entry door unlocked, Meyer,” added Charlie. “See that you don’t make any unnecessary noise.”
“I vill look oud, I ped you,” replied Dinkelspeil. “Off I voke der cook ub I vouldn’t heard der last off it purty soon I dink.”
Then he vanished into the night.
Gideon Prawle, feeling better after the reaction, began undoing the straps of his grip.
Then he fumbled in his pocket for the key.
After taking out a somewhat rumpled shirt, a suit of underclothes and a couple of pair of socks, Prawle said:
“Now, young gents, I’m going to show you some of the finest specimens of real virgin copper ever dug out of mother earth.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Charlie, a slight shade of disappointment in his voice, “I thought it was gold or silver quartz you had there. But copper——”
“Young man,” said Prawle, diving one hairy paw into his grip and fishing out a magnificent specimen of raw copper, “look at that and hold your breath. There is ninety per cent of copper in that hunk. Think of that! It has only to be separated from its rocky matrix, when it is ready for market. That chunk, just as I took it from the mine, where there are thousands and thousands of tons of it waiting to be dug out, is almost chemically pure copper. That mine, young gentlemen, is a marvel. There’s millions in it. Nothing in this country to match it outside of the great Calumet and Hecla mine of Michigan, which has an annual production of 50,000,000 pounds.”
Jack Howard examined the specimen with great interest.
“Where is this mine you speak of?”
Gideon Prawle winked one eye expressively and moistened his lips with his tongue.
“It’s in Montana,” he said, with a significant grin.
“That’s a pretty big State,” said Jack. “Whereabouts in Montana?”
“That’s my secret,” said Prawle, “and I’m going to Chicago to sell it.”
“Then you have really located a valuable copper deposit?” asked Jack with kindling eyes, for he had a strong enthusiasm for anything connected with mines and minerals.
“That’s the size of it, young gent. It’s an old, deserted surface copper mine that was originally worked after a rude fashion by the Injuns, or some other folks who didn’t know its value. There’s millions of pounds there waiting for modern methods to bring it up to the light of day.”
Jack and Charlie looked at the several rich specimens Prawle laid out for their inspection, and then at one another.
Evidently this tramplike man, whom they had so strangely brought back to life, had stumbled on to a good thing.
Both of the boys had read stories of similar good things having been discovered by the merest accident, and the tales had excited their imagination at the time.
But this was different.
Here was evidence of a thrilling fact, and this prospect of sudden wealth, as it were, could not fail to have its effect on the two lads.
At this point Meyer made his appearance with an abundant cold repast, which, being placed before the stranger, he attacked like a famished wolf.