He was dead.
CHAPTER XXV.
A FIGHT FOR FORTUNE.
The sheriff of Calabazos was sitting on the stoop outside the Government Assay Office early the next day when he was startled by a loud clatter of hoofs up the mountain side. He looked up from his absorbing occupation of whittling a piece of wood, and saw coming rattling down the trail at a breakneck speed four horsemen. They were Noggy Wilkes, Hank Higgins, Fred Reade and Luther Barr.
“Hullo, Chunky,” hailed the sheriff to the government clerk, who was inside the office—a rough, clap-boarded affair on which appeared a sign, which announced in white letters that it was the “GOVERNMENT ASSAY OFFICE.” “Come on out here, Barton, here come them fellers that got here yesterday with that thar skyscraper thing of theirn and purty near bothered the life out of Skol Scovgen, the blacksmith, trying to git him to make a conniption of some kind for it.”
The young man who languidly consented to serve Uncle Sam in the capacity of claim clerk joined him on the porch. He also gazed interestedly at the group of horsemen, who were now compelled to slow up by the steepness of the trail.
“Seem ter be in quite a hurry,” he commented, picking his teeth with a quill pick that he had acquired on his last visit to what he was pleased to term civilization.
“Yep,” assented the sheriff, “I reckon they’ve bin up stakin’ out a mine or suthin’. I hear they was talking in ther hotel last night while it was rainin’ so pesky hard about a lost mine and some chap named Witherbee.”
“Oh, I remember that feller Witherbee,” struck in the clerk. “Went east a while ago. I recollect that the gossip was that he’d made quite a piece of money on a mine or had some sort of mine hidden back in the hills thar. I heard it was the one that belonged to old Fogg, who disappeared.”
“Wall, ther fellers seem to have something of ther same kind on their minds,” exclaimed the sheriff, as the party, having now left the uneven trail, came clattering down the road on their wiry horses.
It could now be seen that Luther Barr, who rode in advance of the rest, carried some sort of a paper in his hand. The arrival of the cortege had attracted quite a crowd, who gathered about the Assay Office as the riders came clattering up.