Brent shrugged, "Go ahead. It don't make any difference to me how you divide them up."
Camillo Bill grinned: "It does make a hell of a lot of difference to you how we divide 'em up," he said. "It's like this: I like your style. You're a tillicum—a natural borned sourdough. You're white clean through. When you said there's so and so much in Stoell's safe, the dust was there. An' when you know'd yer claims was worth more than a million, you says a million instead of stretchin' it to two million, an' maybe stickin' some one. Now when I cash them markers that's out agin the claims, an' figger in the slips an' markers I hold myself, I'll have a million invested, won't I? An', that's what I won—a million—not a million an' a half, or two million—just a million. Well, when I get that million back—you get the claims back—see?"
Brent stared at the man in amazement: "What do you mean? I lost the claims—lost them fair and square——"
"No you didn't," interrupted the other, "You lose just what yer slips an' markers says you lose—an' not a damn cent more. The claims was only a sort of security for the dust. C'latteral the banks would call it. Am I right, or wrong?"
Brent drank the whiskey in his glass and refilling it, shoved the bottle toward Camillo Bill, but the man shook his head. "No more for me. Too much of that stuff ain't no good. But about them claims—am I right, or wrong?"
"You're the whitest damned white man that walks on two legs, if that's what you mean," answered Brent, in a low voice. "I'll make the claims over to you, now."
"Don't say that," replied Camillo Bill, "they was five or six of us that figgered out this play—all friends of yourn. We all of us agreed to do what I'm doin'—it was only a question of who could afford to carry the load till next fall. I kin. Right's right—an' wrong ain't deuce-high, nowheres. A million's a million—an' it ain't two million. An' you don't need to make over them claims to me, neither. Jest you sign a paper givin' me the right to go into 'em an' take out a million, an' we'll tear up them slips an' markers."
"But what if there isn't a million in them. I believe there is—much more than a million. But, what if they're 'spotted,' and I just happened to hit the spots, or what if bed-rock shows a lot shallower than I think it will——"
"What if! What if! To hell with what if! If the claims peter out I ain't no better off if I hold title to 'em, am I? If they ain't good for the million, what the hell difference does it make who owns 'em? I'd ruther someone else holds a bum claim
than me, any day," he added with a grin. "An' now that's settled, what you goin' to do, while I'm gettin' out my dust?"