“Six of them—and they charge you one for a meal and a drink or two,” he said. “If I hadn’t known where there was quartz streaked right through with wire gold I might have felt discouraged.” Then he straightened himself resolutely. “Seems to me it’s time I went up and looked for it again.”
“How can you know where it is when you have to look for it?” the other man inquired.
Grenfell glanced at him severely.
“I’m not drunk—it’s my knees,” he pointed out. “Don’t cast slurs on me. I was once Professor of—mineralogical chemist and famous assayer too. Biggest mining men in the country consulted me.”
The track-grader nodded as he glanced at Weston.
“I guess he was,” he said. “We had a man from back east on this section who had heard of him.”
Then he turned to Grenfell.
“Go ahead and explain about the mine.”
“I’m not sure that that’s quite straight,” Weston objected. “If he does know anything of the kind——”
“Oh,” said his companion, “I’m not on. If he ever did know I guess he has forgotten it long ago. He has been forgetting right along whether he put salt in the hash or not, and each time he wasn’t sure he did it again. That’s one of the things that made the trouble.”