“Pshaw! Blenship,” he was saying, “you have no business to stake all this creek. Even discovery would only entitle you to three claims, and you must have twenty. You’ll have to pull up and let my boys go in.”
“Nearer forty claims than twenty,” Blenship declared coolly, “and every one of them staked on a good power of attorney from good hard-headed men in Nome. If you try to cut them out, they’ll fight you, every one of them, and you know what that means in the Alaska courts. No, sir, those claims are legally staked, on the square, and I propose to hold ’em.”
“But you can’t stake except on an actual discovery of gold,” continued the big man. “Do you mean to say you have found prospects on every one of them?”
“Colonel,” said Blenship, “you come with me and see.”
The two were gone two hours and came back, still arguing the matter.
“All the same,” said the big man, “it’s only prospects, and the ground is more than likely to be spotted. What I want to see is actual outcome of gold from it before I consider any such preposterous price for a controlling interest in it.”
“You do, do you, colonel?” queried Blenship calmly. “Well, just step this way.”
Blenship stepped down toward the sluices where Harry and Joe stood, as had been quietly planned by the wily little man.
“Colonel,” said he, “these are Mr. Nickerson and Mr. Desmond, discoverers of Candle Creek diggings, the richest in the known world. Boys, this is Colonel Lane, of California, now of Nome. He’s also about the richest in the known world, but, like Julius Cæsar or whoever it was, he’s looking for more mining-fields to conquer. Gentlemen, show Mr. Lane what’s in the riffles.”
The boys stepped aside and Colonel Lane stepped up to the sluice boxes. He looked from riffle to riffle without a word. It was the result of a full half day’s shoveling, and fate had been kind to them.