“Tell us erbout et, Buffler,” said Nomad.
“I’m not intending to mix up in it, mind you. We are going from here direct to Fort Apache, and report for duty to the colonel commanding.”
“Waal, tell us erbout McGowan an’ his dreams, anyways.”
“It’s this way, pards,” went on the scout, lighting a fresh cigar and tilting back comfortably against the wall behind him. “Patrick McGowan owns the Three-ply Mine, mill, and cyanid-plant, over in the Phœnix mountains.” The scout waved one hand toward the distant blue uplifts, visible from the veranda. “For a long time, now, McGowan has been losing gold. The ore, just before it is fed to the stamps, assays one hundred dollars to the ton; when the tailings come off the mill-plates they assay six dollars to the ton. That leaves a difference of ninety-four dollars a ton which McGowan’s plates ought to catch for him; but they don’t. His mill clean-ups bring in an average of only forty-four dollars a ton. The question is, what becomes of the remaining fifty dollars a ton? It’s a conundrum that’s bothering the life out of McGowan.
“They put through ten tons of ore every twenty-four hours at the Three-ply. That means that McGowan is losing five hundred dollars a day in some mysterious manner. And this has now been going on for two weeks, causing him a loss of seven thousand dollars, so far.”
“Some of his millmen aire workin’ er hocus-pocus on him,” suggested Nomad.
“McGowan swears that his millmen are straight. He has camped in the mill night and day and is ready to make oath that there’s nothing crooked in the mill.”
“Whar do ther dreams come in?”
“Well,” and the scout smiled incredulously as he spoke, “McGowan says that he dreamed, one night, he saw an Apache crawling among the cyanid-tanks. When the Apache came out into the moonlight he held up something that looked to McGowan like a bar of bullion. The next moment the Apache was whiffed out among the shadows. McGowan dreamed the same thing the next night, and the night after that. And for this reason,” laughed the scout, “McGowan believes that thieving redskins are mixed up in the thieving.”
“Waugh!” grunted Nomad. “Et sounds reasonable.”