“Good—immitigably good!” chirruped Bromley. “And meanwhile?”
“Meanwhile, we take out our legal papers and get back to that gulch as quick as the Lord will let us. Mr. Drew shook his head when I told him how we had left things. He said we’d be lucky if we didn’t find a bunch of mine jumpers in possession when we got back; that there were plenty of thugs in the mountains who wouldn’t scruple to take a chance, destroy our posted notice and stick up one of their own, and then fight it out with us when we turned up, on a basis of might making right. I mentioned our rights and the law, and he smiled and said: ‘You are a long way from the nearest sheriff’s office over there, and you know the old saying—that possession is nine points of the law. Of course, you could beat them eventually, but the courts are slow, and you would be kept out of your property for a long time. Take my advice, and get back there as soon as you can.’ I told him we’d go back right away and be there waiting for him next spring.”
“Oh, Lord!” Bromley groaned in mock dismay; “have we got to hit that terrible trail again without taking even a couple of days to play around in?”
“Hit it, and keep on hitting it day and night till we get there!” was the mandatory decision. “If you are ready, let’s go and eat. There is a lot to be done, and we are wasting precious time.”
It was at the finish of a hurried breakfast eaten in the comfortless hotel dining-room that Bromley took it upon himself to revise the programme of headlong haste.
“You may as well listen to reason, Phil,” he argued smoothly. “The land office won’t be open until nine o’clock or after; and past that, there is the shopping for the winter camping spell. You are fairly dead on your feet for sleep; you look it, and you are it. You go back to the room and sleep up for a few hours. I’ll take my turn now—do all that needs to be done, and call you when we’re ready to pull our freight.”
Philip shook his head in impatient protest. “I can keep going all right for a while longer,” he asserted obstinately.
“Of course you can; but there is no need of it. We can’t hope to start before noon, or maybe later; and it won’t take more than one of us to go through the motions of making ready. You mog off to your downy couch and let me take my turn at the grindstone. You’ve jolly well and good had yours.”
“Well,” Philip yielded reluctantly. Then: “Late in the season as it is, there will be a frantic rush for our valley as soon as the news of the ‘Little Jean’ discovery leaks out. Mr. Drew warned me of this, and he cautioned me against talking too much here in Leadville; especially against giving any hint of the locality. You’ll look out for that?”
Bromley laughed. “I’m deaf and dumb—an oyster—a clam. Where can I find this Mr. Stephen Drew who is going to help us transmute our hard rock into shiny twenty-dollar pieces next spring?”