“I tell you what,” said Jack, enthusiastically, “why couldn’t we go out to this place in Montana and take a look at the mine? This is your vacation, Charlie. You have more than four weeks yet ahead of you before you have to be in Omaha. We can let Mr. Prawle have the money to complete the purchase of the ground, so there won’t be any hitch about that. Then we could pay his way on to Chicago after that, and I would go with him to see that the mining promoter he picks out doesn’t do him up.”
“B’gee!” exclaimed Charlie, alive at once to the proposal, “it will be just the thing. If I represent the matter right to my father, he won’t object.”
“What do you say to that, Mr. Prawle? Will you go back with Charlie, myself——”
“Und dis shicken, don’d forget dot, off you blease,” piped Meyer.
“And Meyer Dinkelspeil,” continued Jack. “We’ll put up the $200 and all expenses; and afterward I’ll see you through to Chicago.”
“Do you mean it, young gentlemen?” said Gideon Prawle, interested in the proposal.
“Certainly we mean it,” replied Jack.
“Then it’s a bargain. I look on you now as my partners in the enterprise. Now, I’ll show you the paper by which I hold claim to the mine.”
Whereupon Prawle took out an old red pocketbook, extracted a not overclean bit of paper, which he unfolded and spread out on the slab which had lately been his bed.
“There’s my option on the ground,” he said, complacently. “The mine is situated at the head of Beaver Creek, three miles southeast of Rocky Gulch mining camp, and a mile eastward of the trail. The creek runs into the north branch of the Cheyenne River, which flows past Trinity, a railroad town, so that the copper can be easily shipped by rail East. Here’s a map, with all the points named, which I drew up to show its location in the State. Young gentlemen, it was a lucky day for you that you came to know Gideon Prawle.”