“We’ll talk it over to-night. Then Polly can hear about it, too. There’s enough for the three of us out there,—and some over. So she can have a claim separate.”
“Oh, I’ll look after her,” said Patton carelessly.
“No.” There was determination in Blandy’s tone. “I’m lettin’ you in on this with the understandin’ that she has her holdin’. She can lease it, or she can work it, just whichever she likes. You know, it’s kinda stylish for a lady to have her own bank-book.”
“All right,” agreed Patton impatiently.
It was close upon four then. Patton was for calling his wife in and breaking the news at once. “And we’ll close up and cut out supper,” he declared, “and have a little celebration.”
But Blandy flatly objected. “Don’t shut down just a’ hour or two before a meal,” he advised. “Put a sign on the front door to-night. Say on it that the rest’rant is closed ’cause your wife is plumb wored out. We can’t afford to give ourselves away, Patton. There’s plenty of men in Searles that can smell a strike forty mile. Look out or some of ’em ’ll be follerin’ us.”
“You’re right,” declared Patton.
Thus it came about that Polly cooked supper in ignorance of the sudden good fortune that was to make such further toiling unnecessary. Blandy went out into the hot kitchen a second time. But he had little to say, and devoted his efforts to the washing and drying of the dishes, which he received in pyramids from the swinging left arm of the flaxen-haired waiter; and when, shortly after seven o’clock, the last guest was gone, and the last dish clean, Blandy swept and mopped the kitchen floor.
At eight, by the light of a single candle, there was a conference of three at one of the oilcloth-covered tables in the front room. The waiter had taken himself off in the direction of the main saloon down the street, out of which were floating the strains of a violin and the voices of singing women. Nevertheless, Blandy told his story in a half-whisper, and without pointing.
“The ledge is in a spur of the range back of Salt Basin,” he confided. “And clost to—what do you think?”