“Vell, vat you t’ink?” he demanded insistently, “vas I right or vas I wrong? Ain’t I showed you the golt–and I’ll tell you anodder t’ing, dis mine vill pay from the start. You can pick out dat rich quartz and pack it down to the crick and vash out the pure quill golt; but dat ore of Old Bunk’s is all mixed oop with lead and zinc, and with antimonia too. You vil haf to buy the sacks, and pay the freight, and the smelter charges, too; and dese custom smelters they penalize you for everyt’ing, and cheat you out of what’s left. Dey’re nutting but a bunch of t’ieves and robbers─”
“Aw, that’s all right,” broke in Denver impatiently, “for cripe’s sake, give me a chance. I haven’t bought your mine nor Bunk’s mine either, and it don’t do any good to talk. I’m going to rake this country with a fine-tooth comb for claims that show silver and gold, and when I’ve seen ’em all I’ll buy or I won’t, so you might as well let me alone.”
“Very vell, sir,” began the Professor bristling with offended dignity and, seeing him prepared with a long-winded explanation, Denver turned up the hill and quit him. He clambered up to the rim, 74dripping with sweat at every step, and all that day, while the heat waves blazed and shimmered, he prospected the face of the rim-rock. The hot stones burned his hands, he fought his way through thorns and catclaws and climbed around yuccas and spiny cactus; but at the end of the long day, when he dragged back to camp, he had found nothing but barren holes. The country was pitted with open cuts and shallow prospect-holes, mostly dug to hold down worthless claims; and the second day and the third only served to raise his opinion of the claim that Bunker had showed him.
On the fourth day he went back to it and prospected it thoroughly and then he kept on around the shoulder of the hill and entered the country to the north. Here the sedimentary rim-rock lay open as a book and as he followed along its face he found hole after hole pecked into one copper-stained stratum. It was the same broad stratum of quartzite which, on coming to the creek, had dipped down into Bunker’s claim; and now Denver knew that others beside himself thought well of that mineral-bearing vein. For the country was staked out regularly and in each location monument there was the name Barney B. Murray.
The steady panting of a gas-engine from somewhere in the distance drew Denver on from point to point and at last, in the bottom of a deep-cleft canyon, he discovered the source of the sound. Huge dumps of white waste were spewed out along the hillside, there were houses, a big tent and 75criss-crossed trails; but the only sign of life was that chuh, chuh, of the engine and the explosive blap, blaps of an air compressor. It was Murray’s camp, and the engine and the compressor were driving his diamond drill.
Denver looked about carefully for some sign of the armed guard and then, not too noisily, he went down the trail and followed along up the gulch. The drill, which was concealed beneath the big, conical tent, was set up in the very notch of the canyon, where it cut through the formation of the rim-rock; and Denver was more than pleased to see that it was fairly on top of the green quartzite. He kept on steadily, still looking for the guard, his prospector’s pick well in front; and, just down the trail from the tented drill, he stopped and cracked a rock.
“Hey! Get off this ground!” shouted a voice from the tent and as Denver looked up a man stepped out with a rifle in his hand. “What are you doing around here?” he demanded angrily and, as Denver made no answer, another man stepped out from behind. Then with a word to the guard he came down the trail and Denver knew it was Murray himself.
He was a tall, bony man with a flowing black beard and, hunched up above his shoulders, was the rounded hump which had given him the name of “Bible-Back.” To counterbalance this curvature his head was craned back, giving him a bristling, aggressive air, and as he strode down towards 76Denver his long, gorilla arms, extended almost down to his knees.
“What are you doing here, young man?” he challenged harshly, “don’t you know that this ground is closed?”
“Why, no,” bluffed Denver, “you haven’t got any signs out. What’s all the excitement about?”