"Absolutely not." Then Fairchild caught the queer look in the man's eyes. "What do you mean by all these questions? Is that good ore—or is n't it?"
"Son, just one more question—and I hope you won't get mad at me. I 'm a funny old fellow, and I do a lot of things that don't seem right at the beginning. But I 've saved a few young bloods like you from trouble more than once. You ain't been high-grading?"
"You mean—"
"Just exactly what I said—wandering around somebody else's property and picking up a few samples, as it were, to mix in with your own product? Or planting them where they can be found easily by a prospective buyer?"
Fairchild's chin set, and his arms moved slowly. Then he laughed—laughed at the small, white-haired, eccentric old man who through his very weakness had the strength to ask insulting questions.
"No—I 'll give you my word I have n't been high-grading," he said at last. "My partner and I drilled a hole in the foot wall of the stope where we were working, hoping to find the rest of a vein that was pinching out on us. And we got this stuff. Is it any good?"
"Is it good?" Again Old Undertaker Chastine looked over his glasses. "That's just the trouble. It's too good—it's so good that it seems there's something funny about it. Son, that stuff assays within a gram, almost, of the ore they 're taking out of the Silver Queen!"
"What's that?" Fairchild had leaped forward and grasped the other man by the shoulders, his eyes agleam, his whole being trembling with excitement. "You're not kidding me about it? You're sure—you 're sure?"
"Absolutely! That's why I was so careful for a minute. I thought maybe you had been doing a little high-grading or had been up there and sneaked away some of the ore for a salting proposition. Boy, you 've got a bonanza, if this holds out."
"And it really—"