COARSE GOLD
As Carter Brent pushed through the swinging doors of "The Ore Dump" saloon, the eyes of the head bartender swept with approval from the soles of the high laced boots to the crown of the jauntily tilted Stetson. "What'll it be this morning, Mr. Brent?" he greeted. "Little eye-opener?"
The young man grinned as he crossed to the bar: "How did you guess it?"
The bartender set out decanter and glasses. "Well, after last night, thought maybe you'd have a kind of fuzzy taste in your mouth."
"Fuzzy is right! My tongue is coated with fur—dark brown fur—thick and soft. What time was it when we left here?"
"Must have been around two o'clock. But, how does it come you ain't on the works this mornin'? Never knew you to lose a day on account of a hang-over. Heard a couple of the S. & R.'s tunnels got flooded last night."
Brent poured a liberal drink and downed it at a swallow: "Yes," he answered, dryly, "And that's
why I'm not on the works. I'm hunting a job, and the S. & R. is hunting a new mining engineer."
"Jepson fired you, did he! Well, you should worry. I've heard 'em talkin' in here, now an' then—some of the big guns—an' they all claim you're one of the best engineers in Montana. They say if you'd buckle down to business you'd have 'em all skinned."
"Buckle down to business, eh! The trouble with them is that when they hire a man they think they buy him. It's none of their damn business what I do evenings. If I'm sober when I'm on the job—and on the job six days a week, and sometimes seven—they're getting all they're paying for."