"Ding my dogs! I'm comin' to that now. Hassayamp got gold there—struck a lode o' quartz that runs about twenty-five to the ton and promises to get richer quick. Here's the samples he brung me."
Deadoak had now reached the apex of his elaborately conceived edifice. Producing a buckskin bag, he emptied it on the table. Specimens of very average gold quartz littered the table. Among them were several pieces of a reddish crystalline substance.
"That don't look so bad," commented Sandy, fingering the quartz. He indicated the glassy red samples. "What's that stuff?"
"Volcanic bottle-glass, I reckon—how it come with the samples I dunno, unless Hassayamp thought it was pretty. This here quartz, like you say, ain't bad; I'd say it was pretty dinged good, if ye ask me!"
Sandy's eyes glinted at the red-glass specimens, and suspicion filled his heart.
"Uh-huh," he grunted. "What's your proposition?"
"Well, I don't want to sell outright. That there lode is goin' to pay big when she's developed. Looks to me, the way them specimens shape up, like she'd run into rotten quartz an' free gold; ye can see that for yourself. Sooner'n sell the hull thing, I'd hang on a spell longer. But here's my idee: You an' your pardners buy the mortgage an' give me a one-fourth int'rest in the mine. You'll have to foreclose the mortgage——"
"Is it recorded?"
"Sure—I recorded her after Hassayamp cashed in an' Piute got his title."
"Uh-huh."