"You shouldn't, unless you've got sense enough to see that we ain't gettin' you 'way up here, an' we ain't living round these parts a couple of years on a busted proposition."
The stranger evidently debated this.
"How would it be if you took equal shares with me on the claims, your shares to be paid from the earnings? That would be fair all round. You would get nothing unless the title was good. I would risk no more than you did," he suggested.
"Isn't I tellin' yo' I don't appear a tall in this yere transaction?" objected Mizzou.
The stranger laughed a little.
"I can see through a millstone," he said. "Why don't you old turtlebacks come out of your shells and play square? You've got some shady game on here that you're working underhand. Spin your yarn and I'll tell you what I think of it."
"How do I know you don't leave us out a'ter we tells you," objected Mizzou, returning to his original idea.
"You don't!" answered the stranger impatiently, "you don't! But it seems to me if you expect to get anything out of a shady transaction, you've got to risk something."
"That's right," put in Arthur, "that's right! 'Nuff said! Now, Slayton, we'll agree to git you full legal control of these yere claims if you'll develop them at your expense, an' gin Davidson and me a third interest between us fer our influence. That's our proposition, an' that goes. If you don't play squar', I knows how t' make ye."
"Spin your yarn," repeated the stranger quietly. "I'll agree to give you and Davidson a third interest, provided I take hold of the thing at all."