“I mean a level place, maybe half a mile long or so where I could land the plane.”
“There’s a flat down between the hills where I reckon you could maneuver her into a place to set down,” the old man explained. “But how much will you take to fly me there?”
Jimmy took the old man off behind one of the hangars where he would not be grabbed by one of the other pilots and then got out his map. Keno did not show on the map, but Weber made a pencil cross to indicate its approximate location.
“What is it—a town or a ranch?” Jimmy inquired.
“Wal,” Weber explained, “there used to be a shack there where a man could get a drink and maybe a slab of bacon and some beans, but I reckon there ain’t much right now except the water hole. Figgerin’ it conservative, though, inside of three days there’ll be five thousand men there and the name of Keno will be spread over the front page of every newspaper in the U. S.”
The old man chuckled quietly at Jimmy’s bewilderment.
“It’s a gold strike, son,” he said quietly. “I’ve got a sister living up there in that country. Last night I got a long distance telephone call from her saying that an old hard pan miner had staggered in with a bag of samples and his tongue hanging out, blabbing about the strike he’d made at Keno.”
“When do you want to go?”
“Jist as soon as we can get started, son,” the old man said earnestly. “Here’s the way I’ve got it figgered out. If we can get into Keno today we’ll be ahead of the first of the rush. Old-time gold strikes don’t happen often nowadays, but there’s still enough prospectors and would-be prospectors left to make a fairly sizable gold rush. But at the best, they can’t commence to come in until tomorrow morning. I know every foot of that ground. I always knowed there was gold around Keno somewheres. I found plenty of rich float but I was never able to track it down. From the information I got over the telephone last night, I know just where the strike was made, and if we can get there ahead of the rest of them, I’ll stake out a claim that will put me on Easy Street for the rest of my life.”