"And that was ten years ago?" Robert Fairchild's eyes were reminiscent. "I remember—I was only a kid. He sold off everything he had, except the house."
Henry Beamish walked to his safe and fumbled there a moment, to return at last with a few slips of paper.
"Here 's the answer," he said quietly, "the taxes are paid until 1922."
Robert Fairchild studied the receipts carefully—futilely. They told him nothing. The lawyer stood looking down upon him; at last he laid a hand on his shoulder.
"Boy," came quietly, "I know just about what you 're thinking. I 've spent a few hours at the same kind of a job myself, and I 've called old Henry Beamish more kinds of a fool than you can think of for not coming right out flat-footed and making Thornton tell me the whole story. But some way, when I 'd look into those eyes with the fire all dead and ashen within them, and see the lines of an old man in his young face, I—well, I guess I 'm too soft-hearted to make folks suffer. I just couldn't do it!"
"So you can tell me nothing?"
"I 'm afraid that's true—in one way. In another I 'm a fund of information. To-night you and I will go to Indianapolis and probate the will—it's simple enough; I 've had it in my safe for ten years. After that, you become the owner of the Blue Poppy mine, to do with as you choose."
"But—"
The old lawyer chuckled.
"Don't ask my advice, Boy. I have n't any. Your father told me what to do if you decided to try your luck—and silver 's at $1.29. It means a lot of money for anybody who can produce pay ore—unless what he said about the mine pinching out was true."