"You've been there," Bill retorted. "Sure, I'm anxious. That little girl has been hankering for the ocean and palm trees all her life, she said."
"They won't run away in the next year or so, that I know of. Well, I'm no mining shark, but I reckon I better trail over to your diggin's and see what you've got. Maybe them fellows over there can be some help, and then again, maybe you want to steer clear of them. Just because a man draws down his pay from Uncle Sam don't give him any guarantee from the Almighty that he's a he angel. Doris seems to think so."
"What I want, Don, is for you to take a hand and help me get started off on the right foot. I can see it's going to be a mighty big proposition, and I don't want to have the same experience my dad had. On the other hand, I don't want to act the darned fool sitting over my claims with a shotgun, afraid somebody's going to rob me. There's a safe line betwixt and between that I want to take and keep. And I wouldn't ask you to make the trip over there, if I didn't know the stuff's there; acres of it, by the looks."
Don sucked at his pipe for some time before he spoke. Then,
"I'll do all I can, Bill. If you're going to be one of the family I might as well start bossing yuh now. I want to see yuh make good without hurting the other fellow. It can be done, and if it's done rightly, there ain't any cleaner money in the world than what comes out of the ground. Mines or ranches, you're giving the world something it never had before; something it needs. Most money-making is just swapping the ownership of necessities, or else changing the shape and form of them and selling them that way. But when you take something outa old Mother Earth, you've got it clean. What I can't stomach is the way crooks come flockin' around every new strike, and making it rotten business.
"Every boom suffers from 'em. When the news of this leaks out—has it leaked out, yet?"
Bill shook his head, though Don could not see him in the dark.
"Not so far as I know. I just brought down supplies and a mucker from Goldfield—and there's something funny happened up there. The darn parrot was outside while I was in recording the claims, and when I came out, she commenced talking a new speech that I'll swear I never taught her. She got it off to-night, if you noticed." Bill blushed consciously, but went on. "She said, 'Bill Dale's parrot has tipped Bill's hand. We'll lay low—see the recorder.' Only, she couldn't quite get the last word out. Now, she heard that said in Goldfield, while I was in the recorder's office, or she couldn't have repeated it. I've learned that much about parrots. She talks right along, and seems to know what she means—way she calls me down, sometimes, is right human—but she has to hear a sentence before she can say it. One hearing's enough, if she happens to take a notion to the words. But it was funny, her saying that." He flicked the ash off his cigarette. "I shut her up till I was ready to leave," he added. "I guess it didn't amount to anything. I wasn't trailed, anyway."
"What about these fellows camped up there? You sure they ain't——"
"Oh, they came from Las Vegas way. No, they're not on my trail—or if they are they're pretty damned smooth."