Stack's obsequiousness supplied the complement to his insolence. His smile was painfully ingratiating. "I flushed a good lead to-day," he said, with a queer imitation of the other's off-hand air.
"Heard that before," said the financier, attending to his nails.
"But I never started anything like this."
"What is it?"
"I've been watching the assay office," Stack said eagerly. "It was my own idea. We all know there's plenty of gold waiting to be found up North. Well, I haven't got the money to spend staking prospectors, and in bribing and wheedling the miners. So I watch the assay office. Everything that comes out is bound to go there."
"Well, what then?" asked the financier.
"No one knows the game better than me," Stack continued, with a little red spot in either sickly cheek. "I'm acquainted with all the known mines and diggings. I know all the old-timers in the field, and all the agents here in town. To-day a new man came in with a sweet little bag of dust. A youngster of twenty-five with the tan of high altitudes still on his skin. He was green; didn't know where to go with his dust. It was in a mooseskin bag, Indian made—nearly two thousand. He hasn't a friend here. I haven't let him out of my sight!"
"Suppose he has something good up there, how do you expect to get in on it? What do you want me to do?"
"Stake me to five hundred so I can follow him back to his claim," said Stack breathlessly.
To his relief the other man did not flout him. "How do you know he's going back?" he asked.