A good old scout

by Theodore Solomons

A GOOD OLD SCOUT

By Theodore Seixas Solomons

By the author of “Two Stirs Forward—Three Back,” Etc.

It was a question of sentiment—which had the more genuine, the old-timer or the more modern prospector. When a rich haul of gold was at stake, which man would cast aside his finer feelings and become a heartless grabber?

“It’s a land a-flowin’ with milk and money,” quoted old “Nock” Whipple, in a high and hopeful voice, “Jest as the Good Book says. Only the conditions is different. You got ter stew down the berries to git the honey—and it’s some puckery. Fer the milk—why, jest catch a caribou or a cow moose.”

He turned his gaunt frame on his elbow to laugh, his gray-bearded head and hollow neck emerging from the dingy blankets of his bed on the bough-strewn floor of the tent. His merriment ended in a fit of coughing.

“Get back under there, old scout!” admonished McAdams severely, striding to him and giving the blankets a jerk into place. “And shut up. You talk too much!” He shoved a stick or two of wood into the battered sheet-iron stove—a fortunate pick-up of the afternoon before, relic of a winter camp of earlier prospecting days.

“Don’t be so harsh to him, Aleck,” said a third man reprovingly. He was sitting in the corner, hunched over a diary or memorandum book of some sort, in which he was industriously writing.

“Aw, I know how to handle the old guy,” returned McAdams good-naturedly, as he slipped through the tent flap, bent on cutting stove wood for the night. The prospect without was a dreary one.