The well there is dug on a slant and looking down they saw a prospector kneeling at the water, filling a canteen and blocking passage.
“Reckon you fellows are thirsty,” he greeted. “I’ll hand you up a drink. Have to strain it though. Full of wiggletails.” He pulled his shirt tail out of his pants, stretched it over a stew pan, strained the water through it and handed the pan up to Brown. “Now it’s fit to drink,” he said proudly.
“It was no time to be finicky,” Charlie said. “We drank.”
Brown and Yerrin combed hill and canyon but failed to find anything of value. Yerrin knew of another place. “You can have it,” Brown said. “I left a good claim.”
Yerrin eyed him a long moment, then grinned: “Stella, huh?”
The sage in Greenwater streets was rank now and again Ralph Fairbanks looked out over the dying town. “Ma, we’re getting out,” he said. He emptied his pockets on the table; counted the cash. “Ten dollars and thirty cents. Can’t get far on that—”
He was interrupted by a knock at the door. There stood a stranger who wanted dinner and lodging for the night. During the evening the guest disclosed that he was en route to his mining claim near a place called Shoshone, 38 miles south. It was near a spring with plenty of water, warm, but usable. He wanted to put 50 miners to work but first he had to find someone willing to go there and board them.
“Maybe we’d go,” Fairbanks said. “What’ll you pay for board?”
“A dollar and a half a day. Figures around $2250 a month.”
Ralph looked at Ma. She nodded. “It’s a deal,” he said.