"Weston, eh?"
Then our hero remembered of having seen the man before.
The short, gray beard had changed his appearance wonderfully.
The miner was John Sedgwick, a former bartender at a hotel in the little town in the Black Hills that had been named for our hero.
"Sedgwick, I didn't know you," he said, smiling at him. "What in the world are you doing with that gray beard? It makes you look twenty years older."
"Well, we ain't got no barber shop here yet, an' I never was much good at shavin' myself, so I jest let ther beard grow. But what's ther odds? I'll shave up an' spruce up jest as soon as I've made my pile. Then I'll light out fur home, an' me an' my wife will live on ther fat of ther land. I've got nigh to a hundred thousand now, an' jest as soon as I git it I'm goin' ter strike out fur ther East. Hello, Charlie! Hello, Jim!"
He now shook hands with our hero's partners, for they had recognized him as an old acquaintance the moment Wild spoke to him.
The girls had seen Sedgwick, too, and they greeted him warmly.
"Well," said the miner, "I reckon there ain't many here in Big Bonanza what ain't heard tell of Young Wild West an' his pards. I've kept ther boys interested in tellin' 'em about ther wonderful things you've done. Come up an' shake hands with ther whitest boy what ever stuck his toe in a stirrup, boys!"
The last was addressed to the men who had come over with him, and they now pressed forward eagerly.