The Argosy, Vol. 76, No. 3 — page 47: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

GOLD GRABBERS. since I was near that God-forsaken spot where we lived and labored and lost faith. I went to see’ that beautiful hole over which we’d cracked our backs, and — will you believe me? — it was deeper than when we left it, and a bit of a cross-cut had been run, and six men were takin’ out ore that would have made your eyes bulge. The claim had been jumped, so help me. And why not, with no assessment work done for a year? Oh, the fools we were not to be thinkin’ of that cross-cut!” Bremerton was dumfounded. And yet he need not have been. Occasion- ally such things are happening in the mining country, and as long as men dig for gold they will continue to hap- en. ar But the two thousand?” said Bremerton. “ If the claim was jumped, I don’t see why the newcomers had to buy it.” “Tis there the laugh comes in,” proceeded O’Hara,_ ccrinkling his crossed eyes. “ It was in my name, do you mind, and you had a quitclaim to half. My location was filed, but you hadn’t taken the trouble to file your quitclaim. They knew of me, those claim-jumpers, and they imagined trouble where none could be made, and gave me the two thousand to sheer off. I got it without passin’ my hat!” and he wrapped his long legs around the chair and nearly choked with mirth. Never before for Bremerton had fortune gone to. such lengths to give him a bit of a smile. He appreciated the humor of it, yet, if he had not, the wild joy of O’Hara would have forced a laugh out of sheer sympathy. “Phe best part of it, Mike,” said Bremerton, “is that luck has turned for you.” | “Faith,” was the response, “ the longest lane is bound to have a turn. Not being able to turn for the worse, it had to be for the better. As soon as I had the money in my jeans I set off looking for you. The divil’s own chase you led me. 517 “Here you were grub-stakin’ for a month in the hills, and there you'd come in, with your chuck gone and the burro no more than skin and bones. Maybe it was carpenter work you did, or clerkin’ in a store, or drivin’ stage until you’d amassed enough capital for another pasear in the wilds. “ Och, lad, but you’re a hard one to come up with when the gold fever’s in you and the heart of you cryin’ for the lonesome trails! But I kept along until I found the place where you skinned yourself of your property to buy a ticket to Denver. Then I knew,” and the smiling face went long and the faded, mismatched eyes grew dull. “I knew, by my soul, that you’d knuckled under to Deane.” O’Hara had no use for Deane. An honest Irishman, no matter if he is out at elbows, will think of his cori- science twice for every once you men- tion a pirate. “Only,” continued O’Hara, “TI wished to High Heaven I’d got to you with the thousand in time. For what have you sold yourself, Lee? A para- graph in the papers let me know you were here, and that Deane had hired you to lay out this property butter- side up. What was the price?” A grim smile flickered across the other’s Jean face. | “Tf you think I’ve sold my birth- right for a mess of pottage, Mike,” said hé, “ you'll have to guess again. Now listen. I’m going to tell ‘you something I’d confide to no other liv- ing soul, and I want you to get it straight.” He went into his arrangement with Deane exhaustively. Not only that, but he followed his own trail down from Denver, to the hospital with La- cey, to the cottonwoods by the Pheenix town canal, to the mine, and, at last, to the mouth of the arroyo. Bremerton could speak to O’Hara as to no one else. His beliefs, his hopes, his intentions were all laid naked be- fore the eyes of his friend. He had no need to tell of his confidence in COMicdoo S CO@