There were others, of course, to whom he might appeal; but he sent for Wiley first. He was a mining engineer, he had had his eye on the property and–well, he probably knew something about the lost vein. So he sent a wire, and then a man; and at last Holman, M. E., arrived. He came under protest, for he had been showing a mine of his own to some four-buckle experts from the east, and when Blount made his appeal he snorted.
“Well, for the love of Miguel!” he exclaimed, starting up. “Do you think I’m going to help you for nothing? I’m a mining engineer, and the least it will cost you is five hundred dollars for a report. No, I don’t think anything; and I don’t know anything; and I won’t take your mine on shares. I’m through–do you get me? I sold out my entire interest for one hundred dollars, cash. That puts me ahead of the game, up to date; and while I’m lucky I’ll quit.”
He stamped out of the office–Blount having moved into the bank building where he had formerly officiated as president–and made a break for his machine; but other eyes had marked his arrival in town and Death Valley Charley button-holed him.
“Say,” he said, “do you want something good–an option on ten first-class claims? Well, come with me; I’ll make you an offer that you can’t hardly, possibly refuse.”
93He led Wiley up an alley, then whisked him around corners and back to his house behind the Widow’s.
“Now, listen,” he went on, when Wiley was in a chair and he had carefully fastened the door, “I’m going to show you something good.”
He reached under his bed and brought out ten sacks of samples which he spread, one by one, on the table.
“Now, you see?” he said. “It’s all that white quartz that you was after on the Paymaster dump. I followed the outcrop, on an extension of the Paymaster, and I took up ten, good, opened claims.”
“Umm,” murmured Wiley, and examined each sample with a careful, appraising eye. “Yes, pretty good, Charley; I suppose you guarantee the title? Well, how much do you want for your claims?”
“Oh, whatever you say,” answered Charley modestly, “but I want two hundred dollars down.”