“I asked a plain question. What’s the answer?—if you know it.”
“Experience? Nine-tenths of the fools who are chasing into the hills don’t know free gold from iron pyrites, or carbonates from any other kind of black sand. It’s mostly bull luck when they find anything.”
“Yet they are finding it,” Philip put in.
“You hear of those who find it. The Lord knows, they make racket enough spending the proceeds. But you never hear much about the ninety-nine in a hundred who don’t find it.”
“Just the same, according to your tell, one man’s chance seems to be about as good as another’s. I believe I’d like to have a try at it, Middleton. Want to go along?”
“Not in a thousand years!” was the laughing refusal. “I’ll take mine straight, and in the peopled cities. I’ve got a girl back in Ohio, and I’m going after her one of these days—after this wild town settles down and quits being so rude and boisterous.”
Philip looked his desk-mate accusingly in the eye.
“It’s an even bet that you don’t,” he said calmly.
“Why won’t I?”
“I saw you last night-down at the corner of Holladay and Seventeenth.”