“Never ran away yet,” he answered briefly and 6balanced the rock in his hand. “Pretty heavy,” he observed, “I’ll bet it would assay. Have you got very much on the dump?”
“What–that?” she cried, snatching the specimen away from him and bursting into a nervous laugh. “That assay? Well, you are a greenie–it’s nothing but barren white quartz!”
“Oh, it is, eh?” he rejoined and gazed at her hectoringly. “You seem to know a whole lot about mineral.”
“Yes, I do,” she boasted. “Death Valley Charley teaches me. I’ve learned how to pan, and everything. But that rock there–that’s the barren quartz that the Paymaster ran into when the values went out of the ore. Old Charley knows all about it.”
“Yes, they all do,” he observed and as his lip went up her eyes dilated suddenly in a panic.
“Oh, you went to that school–I forgot all about it–where they study about the mines! Are you in the mining business now?”
“Why, yes,” he acknowledged, “but that doesn’t make much difference. I find I can learn something from most everybody.”
“Well, of course, then,” she stammered, “I shouldn’t have said that; but the whole Paymaster dump is covered with that heavy quartz, and everybody knows it’s barren. Are you just looking around or─”
She hesitated politely and as he reached for another specimen she noticed a ring on his finger. 7It was of massive gold and, set in clutching claws, there were three stupendous diamonds. Not imitation stones nor small, off-colored diamonds, but brilliants of the very first water, clear as dew, yet holding in their hearts the faintest suggestion of blue.
“Oh!” she gasped, and as he did not seem to notice, she drew her skirts away with a flourish. “I’m surprised,” she mocked, “that you condescend to speak to us–of course you own your own mines!”