"Settle it your own way; if you have gone crazy I suppose I must humour you. But there is a good deal owing to our firm from yours, colonel, isn't there?"
"Of course. That can be set off against a part of the sum due as payment for the claims. Good-night, Mr. Corbett. Thank you for the confidence you show in me. Treat a gentleman like a gentleman, and an honest man like an honest man, say I."
"And a thief or a business man like a thief or a business man," muttered Chance, as Cruickshank walked away. "Oh, Ned, Ned! What a lot nature wasted on your muscles which she had much better have put into your head!"
CHAPTER II. A "GILT-EDGED" SPECULATION.
"Ned, were you drunk last night, or am I dreaming?" asked Chance next morning, as the two sat over their breakfast, while the canoes of the early Indian fishers stole out along the edges of the great kelp beds.
It was a lovely scene upon which Corbett's tent looked out, but Chance at the moment had no eyes for the blue water, or the glories of the snow range beyond, all he could think of was "three claims at two thousand dollars apiece."
"Neither, that I am aware of, Steve. You eat as if you had all your faculties about you, and I've no head ache."
"Then you did not buy three claims from Cruickshank at two thousand dollars apiece?"