“But you see, Mr. Grove, I am rather forced to do something right now. As I told you, I’m not in a position to spend much time tramping about the country looking for what might be a better place. All my capital—all my worldly possessions, in fact—are in that pack there. After all, you know the old saying,” he finished laughingly, “‘It takes a fool for luck.’”
“That ain’t so,” growled Thad, “’cause if it was, my pardner there would be as rich as Rockefeller and Morgan an’ the rest of them billionaires all rolled into one.”
Bob grinned at Edwards reassuringly. Then he said to Thad:
“Now that you’ve got that off your mind, suppose we jest turn in an’ do what we can for the boy here.”
“This here’s Sunday, ain’t it?” returned Thad, doubtfully. “Didn’t my gal tell us yesterday that we couldn’t——“
“Your gal,” interrupted Bob, fiercely. “Your gal—huh. I’m here to tell you that you’d best keep within your rights, Thad Grove, even if me an’ you be pardners. She’s my gal this week beginnin’ at sun-up this mornin’, an’ you know it; an’ besides, there’s good scripture for us helpin’ Mr. Edwards here to get located, even if ’tis Sunday.”
“Scripture!” said Thad scornfully. “What scripture?”
“It’s that there part where the Lord is linin’ ’em up about what they did an’ what they didn’t do,” explained Bob. “Says He to one bunch, ‘When I was dead broke an’ hungry an’ thirsty an’ all but petered out, you ornary skunks wouldn’t turn a hand to give me a lift, an’ so you don’t need to figger that you’re goin’ to git in on the ground floor with me now that I’ve struck pay dirt’—or words to that effect. An’ then to the other bunch He says: ‘You’re all right, Pardners; come on in an’ make your pile along with me, ’cause I ain’t forgot how when I was a stranger you took me in. You grubstaked me when I was down and out, an’ for that, all I’ve got now is yourn’—leastways, that’s the general meanin’ of it.”
Whereupon Thad conceded that while it would be wrong actually to work on the day of rest, it might be safe for them to show the stranger around and sort of talk things over.
And all that day, while the two old prospectors were conducting him to the cabin that, for the following months, was to be his home, while they were showing him about the neighborhood and advising him in a general way about his work, and as they sat at the dinner which Marta had left prepared for them, Hugh Edwards felt that he was being weighed, measured, analyzed. Nor did he in any way attempt to avoid or shirk the ordeal. Fairly and squarely, with neither hesitation nor evasion, he met those keen old eyes that for so many years had searched for the precious metal that is hidden in the sands and rocks and gravel of desert wastes, and lonely cañons, and those mountain places that are far remote from the haunts of less hardy and courageous men.