“Tell you what, Bowen; that tip of yours sent me up to Tonopah in a hurry. I looked up Henderson and fired him—fired him good and hard. The confounded crook! Now I need another man to take his place. A man I can trust, and a man who can be trusted. Ten thousand a year if the man makes good.”
“Too bad you didn’t look around at Tonopah,” said Bowen innocently. “I know heaps of good men up that way. You should have gone to Judge Lyman or Tom Jerkens or some of those men and had ’em pick you out a nice responsible party for that job. They know everybody up there. Where do you get these cigars? Think I’ll buy me a box.”
Dickover smoked for a moment in silence. Then he laughed.
“I did snoop around up there, Bowen,” he remarked at last. “What kind of a cuss are you? This morning you couldn’t pay your hotel bill; and now you turn down a ten-thousand-dollar job!”
Bob Bowen sighed.
“Well, I do say that it’s tempting. It’s just that, Dickover. But now I’ve got responsibilities, such as that Apex Crown stock.”
“Huh! Well, you know those mines you told me about—the Sunburst and the Golden Lode? I looked ’em up in Tonopah. How much you want for ’em both?”
Bowen looked up, genuinely startled. “You want to buy?”
“Uhuh. If the price is right.”
Bowen grinned. “Say, this is pretty rich! Listen here. An hour ago I was talking with Henderson, and talking soft. Somehow he got the notion that you were waiting here to buy those two claims off me. Savvy? He jumps into the breach with five thousand, which is now mine. The claims are his—”