“No; I just want to see ’em.”
“Right this way, then.”
He took up the lamp.
“Unless some of you gents have got the stub of a candle in your pockets, you will have to sit here in the dark,” he said, “or foller the procession.”
They preferred to follow the procession.
In the back room Uncle Sam stopped, and, with interest, showed them his furnace, blowpipe, and other things; also a lump of gold which he had laid on a shelf.
“Kind o’ keerless, to lay gold round that way,” said Williams, eying the chunk greedily.
“Mebby so. But we’re bound to be honest among ourselves, if not with other people; you see, I’m trustin’ you, in showin’ it.”
“Where’d you git it—out of the rocky dirt back there?” asked Gopher Gabe, with a hoarse laugh.
“That’s the result of the last hold-up I manipulated,” said Uncle Sam, with apparent pride. “There’s some nuggets, some gold dust, and the gold from four watches, melted down into that. As soon as the express office people git over their scare, I’m goin’ to ship it to my sister in ’Frisco, and tell the express people I got it out of my mine by my famous secret process.”