"A man can be straight and still get away with you," observed the veteran shrewdly. "Yes, indeed." He paused to let this bit of wisdom sink in, and then he spoke again.
"You better quit—while you're lucky," he suggested. "You quit and come with me," he urged, "and if we strike it, I'll make you a rich man. I don't need your pardner on this deal. I need just one man that can keep his head shut. Listen now; I'll tell you what it is.
"I know where there's a lost mine down in Mexico. If I'd tell you the name you'd know it in a minute, and it's free gold, too. Now there's a fellow that had that land located for ten years, but he couldn't find the lead. D'ye see? And when this second revolution came on he let it go—he neglected to pay his mining taxes and let it go back to the government. And now all I want is a quiet man to slip in and denounce that land and open up the lead. Here, look at this!"
He went down into his pocket and brought out a buckskin sack, from which he handed over a piece of well-worn quartz.
"That's the rock," he said. "She runs four hundred dollars to the ton, and the ledge is eight inches wide between the walls. Nice ore, eh? And she lays between shale and porphyry."
His eyes sparkled as he carefully replaced the specimen, and then he looked up at Bud.
"I'll let you in on that," he said, "half and half—or I'll pay two hundred dollars a month and a bonus. You alone. Now how about it?"
For a moment Hooker looked at him as if to read his thoughts, then he shook his head and exhaled his smoke regretfully.
"Nope," he said. "Me and Phil are pardners. We work together."
"I'll give you three hundred!" cried Kruger, half rising in his chair.