"All right!" cried Joe, seeming eager now. "I take the chance! You boys just tell me 'So help me God, I play square!' and I take the chance!"
"So help me God!" cried Young Gallup, first of all. "I play square with you, Joe!"
And after him, while Joe waited, both Taggart and Cliff Shipton said, with a semblance of deep gravity: "So help me God."
"We pardners now? Us four?" demanded Joe. And when he had had his three immediate, emphatic assurances—Deveril misjudged him a fool—Joe began, speaking rapidly: "Bueno! Now we talk. An' in the mornin' we start an' to-morrow I show you! I got the bigges' mine you can't beat in all New Mexico an' Arizona an' Nevada, too! For why I care take on three pardners? I tell you, we got the money to devil-him-up, we all rich like hell!..."
"Get going, Joe," growled Taggart. "Where? Down Light Ladies' Cañon, and not more'n three or four miles from Big Pine?"
Joe cackled his derision at Taggart's guess.
"Me, I fool ever'body!" he said gleefully. "Me, I'm damn smart man, Señor Taggart! Nowhere near Light Ladies'. The other way. We go all day to-morrow, way back up in the mountains. One long, hard day, walkin'. Maybe day an' a half. You know where Buck Valley? All right; you know, on other side, Big Bear Creek? An' then you know, little bit more far, two-t'ree mile, Grub Stake Cañon? You know...."
"By the living Lord," broke in Taggart. "That's right square in Bruce Standing's country!"
Again Joe cackled.
"You know whole lot; you don't know ever'thing! Timber-Wolf's lands run like this." (One could imagine a grimy forefinger set in a dirty palm.) "His line, here. My mine, she's just the other side. Nobody's land; gover'ment land." He chuckled. "An' ol' big Timber-Wolf, he goin' cry ... boo-hoo-hoo! ... when he find out we got gold not mile an' half from his line!"