“I spent three years there,” he explained. “I’d have been up there yet, too, if my sister hadn’t worried me into coming down here and getting a job and living in a house. She was scared that some day I’d slip and fall and get hurt and nobody would ever know where to go to look for my bones. She pestered me until I finally give in, but I ain’t surprised that they struck it up there. No, sir! I knowed it was comin’ and for a long time I’ve been waitin’ for it to happen. I had my plans all laid. When she called me up last night, it didn’t take me half an hour to be all ready to start.”
“Are you sure that there’s enough flat space up there to land?” Jimmy asked anxiously.
“There’s plenty of room,” Weber assured him calmly. “I wouldn’t be taking you up there on a wild goose chase. This means too much to me. I knowed there was gold there. I’ve seen the float. But you know it’s a funny thing. I was expectin’ it to be found over on Stink Crick.”
He pointed to one of the valleys to the west of Keno.
“I prospected that Keno flat, but I finally came to the conclusion the main ledge was over on Stink Crick. You know, it’s funny about gold strikes. I’ll bet a hundred men have prospected Keno at one time or another without ever locatin’ this strike. You’d never guess how it was finally found.”
“How?”
“Wal, sir, it jist shows you how these things go,” Weber said reminiscently. “Accordin’ to my sister over the telephone, this old hard pan miner that made the strike had a dog that he took along with him to keep him company. It was just a little rat-tail mutt not much bigger than a rabbit. While they was camped up here at this Keno water hole, this mutt chased something into a hole and commenced to bark and snarl and try to dig it up. He made so much racket that this old hard-shelled prospector went over to see what all the fuss was about, and believe it or not, his dog had uncovered the ledge that all of us had been lookin’ for.”
“I’ll bet that dog gets a good home,” Jimmy grinned.
“Wal, that’s the way it goes,” Weber declared. “Maybe I’ve set on that very ledge of rock and cussed because I couldn’t uncover any color. I heard tell of a strike made down in Arizona when a burro kicked off a piece of rock and uncovered the ledge. Gold strikes are made like that.”
“Are you sure we’ll get there in time to get a claim?” Jimmy questioned.