"Well, we can sell him the cart and Duke for $50," informed Harry, outside. "He's getting together a show. It will be a soft job for Duke; no heavy hauling, just standing 'round and eating and looking wild."
"I wouldn't sell him Duke if Ike's to be in the show, too," declared Terry.
"Ike," assured Harry, "will never be back. He's probably running yet. And maybe we won't have to sell Duke. Now for the Russells, anyway. We'll try the Eldorado."
But they were relieved from entering the crowded Eldorado by encountering Journalist Villard and another man just stepping out.
"Ah!" spoke Mr. Villard, recognizing them, in the dusk. "If you wish to ask Mr. Green Russell anything, here he is."
"Yes; we want to ask him if he remembers a man in his party of last summer by the name of Jones," said Harry, quickly, for it was apparent that Messrs. Villard and Russell were in a hurry.
"I shorely do," responded Mr. Russell. He was a broad-shouldered man, with sparse beard and long-pointed moustache—had a cool eye and a deliberate speech.
"He is this boy's father," continued Harry. "He came home with some dust and claimed to have located a mine about a day's travel from here, on the Platte."
"If that was Fifty-eight, 'tain't wuth looking after now," decided Mr. Russell. "Too close in. I reckon it was yonder whar we had some dry diggin's that we-all worked out, 'round Placer Camp."
"Captain Russell's an old miner, you know," put in Mr. Villard. "He's prospected through here pretty closely, since he came out first, and so have his brothers; and they're convinced that the only paying mines will be found in the mountains."