“No. Copper. And a good, healthy lead of it. I traced the vein some distance before I would believe it myself. And the bulk of it seemed to lie right inside the boundaries of that supposedly worthless claim those poor people had bought.
“I didn’t dare tell anybody at first. I had to figure out how she could be mined (for copper mining isn’t like washing gold dust) and how the ore could be taken to the crusher. The old roads were pretty good, I found. It wouldn’t be much of a haul from Seeper’s Gulch to town.
“Then I told Uncle Terry—and showed him.”
Ned waited, looking at Garry curiously.
“That—that’s where he and I locked horns,” sighed Garry. “Uncle Terry was for offering to buy the claim for a hundred dollars. He had that much in his jeans and the squatters were desperate—meat and meal all out and not enough gold in the bottom of the pans to color a finger-ring.”
He was silent again for a moment, and then continued:
“I couldn’t see it. To take advantage of the ignorance of that poor family wasn’t a square deal. Uncle Terry lost his head and then lost his temper. To stop him from making any such deal I out with my story and showed those folks just where they stood. A little money would start ’em, and I lent them that——”
“But your Uncle Terry?” asked Ned, curiously.
“Oh, he went off mad. I saw the squatters started right and then made for home. I was some time getting there——”
“You cleaned yourself out helping the owners of the claim?” put in Ned, shrewdly.