“Did you ever hear of Benson Clark?” asked Shawmut.
“Clark? Clark? Why, I dunno. Seems ter me I hears o’ him.”
“I knows him well once. He was a grubstaker. But his is hard luck and a-plenty of it. All the same, he keeps right on thinking sure that luck changes for him. Something like two years ago I loses track of him. I never sees him any since. But old Bense he hits it rich at last. Somewhere in the Mazatzals he located a claim what opens rich as mud. Some Indians off their reservation finds him there, and he has to run for it. He gits out of the mountains, but they cuts him off and shoots him up. His luck don’t do him no good, for he croaks. But right here is where another lucky gent comes in. This other gent he happens along and finds old Bense, and Bense he tells him about the mine and gives him a map. Now, this other lucky gent he proposes to go and locate that mine. He proposes to do this, though right now he owns two of the best mines in the whole country. Mebbe you guesses who I’m talking about.”
“Why,” exclaimed Henry, “you don’t mean Mr. Merriwell, do yer?”
“Mebbe I does,” answered Shawmut, glancing at his companion slantwise. “Now, what do yer think of that?”
“What do I think of it?” muttered the Roper. “Well, I will tell yer. I think it’s rotten that all the luck is to come to one gent. I think Mr. Merriwell has a-plenty and he can do without another mine.”
“Just what I thinks,” agreed Shawmut. “I figgers it out that way myself. But he has a map, and that shows him where to find old Bense’s claim.”
“See here,” said Kip, stopping short, “how do you happen to know so much about this?”
“Well, mebbe I listens around some; mebbe I harks a little; mebbe I finds it out that way.”
“I see,” said Henry, in surprise; “but I never thinks it o’ you. You seem so satisfied-like I reckons you don’t bother any.”