"Are you out of work?"
"Sure thing."
I caught Gifford's eye and the carpenter nodded. We were going to need men and more men, and here was a chance to begin on a man who knew the Lawrenceburg, or at least some of the history of it.
"You're hired," I told him; and it was thus that we secured the most faithful and efficient henchman that ever drew pay; a man who knew nothing but loyalty, and who was, besides, a practical miner and a skilful master of men.
Hicks—we carried him thus on the pay-roll, though he himself spelled it "Hix," for short, as he said—left us to go back to town for his dunnage, and Gifford, knowing that I had been on watch all night, urged me to turn in. But that was a game that two could play at.
"I'm no shorter on sleep than you are," I told him. "You were up all night with the wagon."
We wrangled over it a bit and I finally yielded. But first I told Gifford about the Lawrenceburg threat for the day, omitting nothing but the source of my information.
"So they're going to jump us, are they?" he said. "All right; the quicker the sooner. Does Barrett know?"
"Not yet. I thought we'd all get together on it this morning. Tell him when he comes back; and if anything develops before he gets here, sing out for me." And with that I made a dive for the blankets.
Between the two of them, Gifford and Barrett let me sleep until the middle of the afternoon. I could scarcely believe the evidence of my senses when I turned out and saw the miracles that had been wrought in a few short hours. While I slept, the transformation of the Little Clean-Up from a three-man prospect hole to a full-fledged mine had taken giant strides. Machinery and material were arriving in a procession of teams laboring up the gulch; a score of carpenters were raising the frame of the shaft-house; masons were setting the foundations for the engine and hoist. I had slumbered peacefully through all the din and hammering and the coming and going of the teams; would doubtless have slept longer if the workmen had not put skids and rollers under the shack to move it out of their way.