"Yes; I've cashed in on the outfit, and I've got twenty dollars in my inside pocket. Let's go in and chew before them fellers eat it all up."
"Don't be in a hurry; the kind of supper we'll get here can wait. I said you are a rich man, and I meant it. You remember the old hole up in the hillside above the camp,—the one you struck a 'dike' in two years ago?"
"Reckon I ain't likely to forget it."
"Well, that 'dike' was decomposed quartz carrying free gold. I was curious enough to put a handful of the stuff into my pocket and bring it out. The assayer's at work on it now, and he says it'll run high—up into the hundreds, I imagine. Is there much of it?"
The effect of the announcement on the unspoiled one was like that of an electric shock. He staggered to his feet, went white under the bronze, and flung his arms about Jeffard.
"Hooray!" he shouted; "that old hole—that same derned old hole 'at I've cussed out more'n a million times! Damn my fool soul, but I knew you was a Mascot—knew it right from the jump! Come on—let's irrigate it right now, 'fore it's a minute older!"
It was out of the depth of pure good-fellowship that Jeffard went to the bar with the fortune-daft miner. Not all the vicissitudes of the breathless rush down the inclined plane had been sufficient to slay the epicure in him; and the untidy bar reeked malodorous. But the occasion was its own excuse.
Garvin beat upon the bar with his fist, and the roar of his summons drowned the clatter of knives and forks in the adjacent dining-room. The bartender came out, wiping his lips on the back of his hand.
"What'll it be, gents?"
"The best you've got ain't good enough," said Garvin, with unwitting sarcasm. "Trot her out—three of a kind. It's on me, and the house is in it."