Overland smiled as he poked a smouldering corner of blanket into the fire. "It is and it ain't. I reckon you could pan fifty pans a day. That's a hundred dollars. Then I could do that much and the cookin', too. That's another hundred. Two hundred dollars a day ain't bad wages for two guys. It ought to keep us in grub and postage stamps and some chewin'-gum once in a while."
"Two hundred a day!" And Winthrop whistled. "That doesn't seem much in New York—on the street, but out here—right out of the ground. Why, that's twelve hundred a week."
"Nope—not exactly. She's a rich one, and bein' so rich at the start she'll peter out fast, I take it. I know these here kind. When we come to the end of the cañon we're at the end, that's all. Besides, she's so rich we won't work six days every week. If she was half as good, mebby we would. You never done much fancy pick-handle exercise, did you?"
"No, but I'm going to. This beats signing checks all to pieces."
"Never got cramps that way myself," grunted Overland. "But I have from swingin' a pick. Your back'll be so blame stiff in about three days that you'll wish you never seen a pan or a shovel. Then you'll get over the fever and settle down sensible. Three of us could do a heap better than two. I wish Collie was on the job."
"I'm willing," said Winthrop.
"'Course you are, but you get your half of this as agreed. Collie's share comes out of my half. I'm playin' this hand over the table, in plain sight."
Winthrop glanced quickly at Overland's inscrutable face. "Suppose I should tell you that my income, each week, is about equal to what we expect to get from this claim?"
"Makes no difference," growled Overland. "It wasn't your money that stood off the constable—and later out in the desert. It was you. They's some places left on this old map yet where a man is jest what his two fists and his head is worth. This here Mojave is one of 'em. Are you squeak to that?"
"I understand," said Winthrop.