“Yes, I’ve got it,” whined the barkeeper, “but where’s your cussed mine? This don’t look like nothing to me!”
“No, that’s it,” expounded Wunpost, “you haven’t got my system–they’s no use for you to turn prospector. Now look in this crack–notice that stuff up and down there? Well, now, that’s where I’d look to find gold.”
“Jee-rusalem!” exclaimed the barkeeper, or words to that effect, and dropped down to dig out the rock. It was the very same ore that Wunpost had shown when he had entered The Mint at Blackwater, only some of it was actually richer than any of the pieces he had seen. And there was a six-inch streak of it, running down into the country-rock as if it were going to China. He dug and dug again while Wunpost, all unmindful, unpacked and cooked a good meal. Fellowes filled his small sack and all his pockets and wrapped up the rest in his handkerchief; and before they packed to go he borrowed the dish-towel and went back for a last hoard of gold. It was there for the taking, and he could 105have all he wanted as long as he turned over the thousand dollar bill. Wunpost was insistent upon this and as they prepared to start he accepted it as payment in full.
“That’s my idea of money!” he exclaimed admiringly as he smoothed the silken note across his knee. “A thousand dollar bill, and you could hide it inside your ear–say, wait till I pull that in Los! I’ll walk up to the bar in my old, raggedy clothes and if the barkeep makes any cracks about paying in advance I’ll just drop that down on the mahogany. That’ll learn him, by grab, to keep a civil tongue in his head and to say Mister when he’s speaking to a gentleman.”
He grinned at the Judas that he had taken to his bosom but Fellowes did not respond. He was haunted by a fear that the simple-minded Wunpost might ask him where he got that big bill, since it is rather out of the ordinary for even a barkeeper to have that much money in his clothes; but the simple-minded Wunpost was playing a game of his own and he asked no embarrassing questions. It was taken for granted that they were both gentlemen of integrity, each playing his own system to win, and the barkeeper’s nervous fear that the joker would pop up somewhere found no justification in fact. He had his gold, all he could carry of it, and Wunpost had his thousand dollar bill, and now nothing remained to hope for but a quick trip home and a speedy deliverance from his misery.
“Say, for cripes’ sake,” he wailed, “ain’t they 106any short-cut home? I’m so lame I can hardly walk.”
“Well, there is,” admitted Wunpost, “I could have you home by morning. But you might take to dropping that gold, like you did them Boston beans, and I’d come back to find my mine jumped.”
“Oh, I won’t drop no gold!” protested Fellowes earnestly, “and them beans was just for a joke. Always read about it, you know, in these here lost treasure stories; but shucks, I didn’t mean no harm!”
“No,” nodded Wunpost, “if I’d thought you did I’d have ditched you, back there in the rocks. But I’ll tell you what I will do–you let me keep you blindfolded and I’ll get you out of here quick.”
“You’re on!” agreed Fellowes and Wunpost whipped out his handkerchief and bound it across his whole face. They rode on interminably, but it was always down hill and the sagacious Mr. Fellowes even noted a deep gorge through which water was rushing in a torrent. Shortly after they passed through it he heard a rooster crow and caught the fragrance of hay and not long after that they were out on the level where he could smell the rank odor of the creosote. Just at daylight they rode into Blackwater from the south, for Wunpost was still playing the game, and half an hour later every prospector was out, ostensibly hunting for his burros. But Wunpost’s work was done, he turned his animals into the corral and retired for some much-needed 107sleep; and when he awoke the barkeeper was gone, along with everybody else in town.