The next morning everything was quiet enough. The drunkards had been put into the calaboose by the soldiers, and the others had gone to bed to sleep it off. Tom wanted to know what had become of Dan, but nobody said anything about him, and from that time his name was dropped. They ate their breakfast in haste, paid their bills, and in ten minutes more Tom was on his way in search of a grub-stake.
"Oh, certainly you'll get it," said Monroe, who rode beside him. "That is the way the bosses always treat a tender-foot when they haven't anything in particular for him to do. Some of our best known men have got their start that way."
"I should think that some of the men you trust that way would run off when they find something good," said Tom.
"Why, bless you, they can't take their find with them. They've got to stay and work it. I did hear of a fellow who found a lot of iron pyrites, and filled his pockets with them. He ran away, making the best course he could for Denver, and when he was found, his pockets might just as well have been filled with clay."
"Dead?" said Tom.
"Yes; and he was two hundred miles from where he belonged."
"And his find didn't amount to anything?"
"No. It is a brassy substance and looks very much like the precious metal, but you need a mine to work it."
"What do you suppose killed him?"
"Don't know. Some people suppose that his mule got away from him, and ran away with his outfit. At any rate, there was nothing near him, and the fellow got desperate and died from exhaustion. Oh, it's one of the things that will happen out here."