“‘But I must hit it, you see. He was more serious ’en I’d ever seen him. ‘Fact of the matter is, Peter, I’m in love, and she won’t marry me till I can show her twenty thousand dollars.’
“‘Whew!’ I says. Then to cheer him up: ‘Bub, don’ be scared; if she loves you she’ll take you without a cent.’
“‘Maybe, Peter, maybe, but that’s the sum she named, and I’m a-goin’ to git it.’
“He was allus that way after a talk—seemed to raise his sperits.
“Long ’bout spring things changed. He come in a whoopin’ one even’ ’bout sunset, and nearly turned the camp upside down. He’d struck it at last. Not much, but gold—real gold—and in this game you never kin tell what’s layin’ jest ’round th’ corner.
“A few months later he come to me agin.
“‘Peter,’ he says, ‘my pile’s gittin’ big. It ain’t gonna be so very long till I have twenty thousand, and I want you to promise me this. When I leave I ain’t gonna say good-by to no one, but I’m goin’ to slip you somethin’ for a celebration, and I want you and the boys to have the rousingist farewell party this camp has ever seen—after I’m gone.’
“Not long from that a trader come into camp—the kind that carries ’round all sorts o’ dam’-fool trinkets and changes ’em fer ’most ennythin’—nuggets, dust, er even skins and hides. ’Mong his pack was a passel tied up in newspaper. We all grabbed fur it at onct, then decided we’d play cards fur it—not fur what was inside, understan,’ but ev’ry feller wanted to git the first chanct at that thar newspaper.
“Bub won it. We lost heart in playin’ against him when we seen how anxious he was.
“He tuk it and begun readin’ us the diff’runt items of int’rust, laugin’ and commentin’ in between—when all of a sudden his eye lit on somethin’. I never seen enny human bein’ change so in the same len’th of time. He jest stared—seemed to be readin’ it over and over ag’in.