"Very well," Jake agreed. "What you say about it goes."
Jim looked up with some surprise. Jake and he had done enough work on the copper vein to get their patent, but could develop the mine no further without capital. Jim did not understand what Carrie had to do with this.
"He doesn't know," Jake remarked, and turned to Jim with a smile. "We put in the stakes and filed the record, but Carrie's a partner. She helped us out."
"Ah," said Jim, "I begin to see!"
He felt disturbed. The placer gold they had found was all spent before they proved the copper vein. Food cost much and nobody would let them have supplies. Copper mines were hardly thought worth exploiting then, since transport was expensive. When it looked as if they must give up the claim, Jake got some money from home, and now Jim knew who had sent the sum. He did not know how Carrie had saved it, but she must have used stern economy.
"You don't like my sending the money?" she remarked, with a quick glance at Jim.
"I don't like to think of your going without things you probably wanted and ought to have had. We could have let the mine go and worked for somebody else."
Carrie laughed. "I don't know if you're nice or not. Anyhow, I had the money; I'd been clerking for a time at the Woolsworth store and they had given me a good job. Why shouldn't I send Jake the money I didn't know how to spend?"
"You're exaggerating," Jim rejoined. "A pretty girl can always spend money on hats and clothes. In fact, I think she ought."
"Now you're certainly nice, but we'll let it go. Your taking the money made me a partner, and in the meantime the Bluebird is not for sale. If you wait long enough, somebody will give you what the mine is worth."