“Yes, I got it,” nodded the Roper.
“Then what’s eating of yer?”
“Well, Shawmut, I am a whole lot sorry this yere job is ended. That’s what’s the matter. It certain was a snap.”
“That’s right,” agreed Kip, sitting down near the other. “We gits good pay for our time, and we works none to speak of. It certain was a snap. Howsomever, such snaps can’t last always, partner. Do you opine we’ve got any kick coming?”
“The only thing I was a-thinking of,” answered Kip, “is that here we fights to keep this yere mine for him, we takes chances o’ being called outlaws, and—now the job is done—we gits dropped. You knows and I knows that this yere mine is a mighty rich one. Why don’t we have the luck to locate a mine like that? Why should luck always come to other galoots?”
“I ain’t explaining that none,” confessed Shawmut, as he filled his pipe. “Luck is a heap singular. One night I bucks Jimmy Clerg’s bank down in Tucson. I never has much luck hitting the tiger, nohow. This night things run just the same. I peddles and peddles till I gits down to my last yeller boy. If I loses that I am broke. I has a good hoss and outfit, and so I says, ‘Here goes.’ Well, she does go. Jim’s dealer he rakes her in. I sets thar busted wide. When I goes into that place I has eight hundred in my clothes. In less than an hour I has nothing.
“Clerg he comes ambling along a-looking the tables over. I sees him, and I says: ‘Jim, how much you let me have on my hoss and outfit?’ ‘What’s it wurth?’ says he. ‘Three hundred, cold,’ says I. ‘That goes,’ says he. And he lets me have the coin. Then I tackles the bank again, and I keeps right on peddling. Yes, sir, I gits down once more to my last coin. This is where I walks out of the saloon on my uppers. All the same, I bets the last red. I wins. Right there, Kip, my luck turns. Arter that it didn’t seem I could lose nohow. Pretty soon I has all the chips stacked up in front of me. I cashes in once or twice and keeps right on pushing her. I knows luck is with me, and I takes all kinds o’ long chances. Well, pard, when I ambles out of the place at daylight the bank is busted and I has all the ready coin of the joint. That’s the way luck works. You gits it in the neck a long time; but bimeby, when she turns, she just pours in on yer.”
“But it don’t seem any to me that my luck is going to turn,” muttered the Roper.
“Mebbe you takes a little walk with me,” said Shawmut significantly. “Mebbe I tells you something some interesting.”
They arose and walked away from the others, so that their talk might not be heard.