“Still, that isn’t all,” Philip went on desperately. “We have laid in provisions for the winter, my partner and I; all we could afford to buy. The stake is enough for two, but if there are three of us, we’ll go short before spring. Besides, we haven’t enough money left to pay your wages.”
“Ne’m mind about the wages; they can wait. If half o’ what they’re sayin’ about this here strike o’ yourn is so, there’ll be ore enough on the dump, come spring, to pay all the bills—and then some, I reckon. All I’ll ask’ll be a chance to stake a claim somewheres round next to yourn, maybe.”
“You won’t have to ask anybody’s permission to do that,” Philip put in. “But still there is the question of the short grub-stake.”
The big man grinned cheerfully. “Might trust in the Lord a li’l’ bit, mightn’t we? Maybe He’ll send us a short winter. Anyhow, I’ll take my chance o’ starvin’; it won’t be the first time by a long chalk. Whadda yuh say? Is it a go?”
It was far enough from Philip’s normal promptings to decide anything so momentous without due and thoughtful consideration. But the exigencies had suddenly become urgent. In his mind’s eye he could see the Neighbors gang of desperadoes besieging the log cabin, with its scanty garrison of two untrained defenders. One additional loyal pair of eyes and hands might turn the scale. Hasty decisions, headlong initiative, were the very essence of the time, and of the treasure-seekers’ existence. Impulsively he thrust out a bargain-clinching hand.
“It’s a go, if you want to throw in with us, and I’ll promise you you won’t lose anything by it,” he said. “What may I call you?”
“Name’s Garth—‘Big Jim,’ for short.”
“Mine is Philip Trask. We are strangers to each other, but that’s an even stand-off. I’m banking on you for what you did for the little girl on the train. Let’s hurry and find that park ranch you speak of. It’s running in my mind that we can’t get back to the claim any too soon.”
It was after they had mounted and were herding the jacks down the descending trail that Garth said: “What about the li’l’ gal with the sick daddy? Ever see her again?”
“Just once,” Philip returned, “five or six weeks after they reached Denver. The family was living in one of the tent colonies, and from what was said, I judged the father was pretty badly off.”