His gigantic partner came meekly over and perched himself upon the top of a barrel.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“Shares are up,” said his companion. “That’s what’s up. Look here,” and he extracted a crumpled paper from the pocket of the steaming coat. “Here’s the Buckhurst Sentinel. Read this article—this one here about a paying lead in the Conemara mine. We hold pretty heavily in that concern, my boy. We might sell out to-day and clear something—but I think we’ll hold on.”
Abe Durton in the mean time was laboriously spelling out the article in question, following the lines with his great forefinger, and muttering under his tawny mustache.
“Two hundred dollars a foot,” he said, looking up. “Why, pard, we hold a hundred feet each. It would give us twenty thousand dollars! We might go home on that.”
“Nonsense!” said his companion; “we’ve come out here for something better than a beggarly couple of thousand pounds. The thing is bound to pay. Sinclair the assayer has been over there, and says there’s a ledge of the richest quartz he ever set eyes on. It is just a case of getting the machinery to crush it. By the way, what was to-day’s take like?”
Abe extracted a small wooden box from his pocket and handed it to his comrade. It contained what appeared to be about a teaspoonful of sand and one or two little metallic granules not larger than a pea. Boss Morgan laughed, and returned it to his companion.
“We sha’n’t make our fortune at that rate, Bones,” he remarked; and there was a pause in the conversation as the two men listened to the wind as it screamed and whistled past the little cabin.
“Any news from Buckhurst?” asked Abe, rising and proceeding to extract their supper from the pot.
“Nothing much,” said his companion. “Cockeyed Joe has been shot by Billy Reid in McFarlane’s Store.”