"Do you reckon the stuff would come up to assay?" Jake asked, giving him the analyst's report.
The prospector looked at him rather hard. "Come up to assay? If the bulk's like these specimens, it ought to pan out better than the figures show."
He stated his grounds for believing this, and Jake knitted his brows. "I expect you know the big mining men and what they're doing. Have you heard if Baumstein is looking for Northern copper?"
"He bought a claim called the Darien not long since."
Jim smiled. "The Darien? The next block to ours, but the vein begins to peter out before it crosses their boundary."
"When Baumstein gets the next block, you want to sell him your lot or watch out," the prospector rejoined. "If he can't buy you up, he'll make trouble for you. I reckon he knew what kind of ore the Darien boys had got."
"Yes," said Jim, "I imagined something like that."
He said no more about the mine, and next morning the prospector resumed his journey. After this, for a week or two, nothing broke the monotony of their strenuous toil, until one day Martin and his packers arrived.
"I'm going down to the settlements and thought I'd strike your camp and stop a night," he said. "The woods get lonesome, and your line's a pretty good route to the pack trail."
Jim was somewhat surprised, but he took Martin to Jake and went to tell Carrie.