"I was goin' to write. But I ain't no hand to write about business. Writin' po'try is bad enough. You recollec' them papers and that dust Billy tried to find, out there by the track?"
"Yes."
"Well, I found it all. Since the company is workin' the claim now and I didn't have so much to do, I got to thinkin' of them papers. I went out there, paced her off down the track, guessed at about where it was, and found 'em."
"Found them?"
"Yes, sir. There was that little bag almost atop of the sand, account of wind and rain. Then there was a record of the claim, our claim. It's been filed on before. We made a mistake and filed on the wrong section. When me and Billy went to file, I noticed the clerk said something about havin' neighbors on the claim next, but I was scared of answerin' too many questions, so I give him some cigars and beat it."
"Who owns our claim, then?"
"That's the queer part of it. You know the guy we give the water to—the one that died out there. He owns the claim, or he did. It belongs by rights to his girl now. His name was André Lacharme."
"Lacharme!"
"Yes, Louise's pa. Recollect your boss tellin' us as how the Rose Girl's daddy was missin' out in the Mojave? Then they was a letter—old and 'most wore out—from Walter Stone himself. It was to him—her pa—tellin' him about the little Louise baby and askin' him to come to the Moonstone and take a job and quit prospectin'. That's where we stand."
Louise, breathless, listened and could not believe that she was real, that this was not a dream. André Lacharme! Her father!