Why, he
was out two nights last week, all night, prospecting in the moonlight
for blind leads, just out of sheer foolishness."
"It was quite enough for me," broke in the Left Bower, "when the other
day, you remember when, he proposed to us white men to settle down to
plain ground sluicing, making 'grub' wages just like any Chinaman. It
just showed his idea of the Lone Star claim."
"Well, I never said it afore," added Union Mills, "but when that one of
the Mattison boys came over here to examine the claim with an eye to
purchasin', it was the Old Man that took the conceit out of him. He
just as good as admitted that a lot of work had got to be done afore
any pay ore could be realized. Never even asked him over to the shanty
here to jine us in a friendly game; just kept him, so to speak, to
himself. And naturally the Mattisons didn't see it."
A silence followed, broken only by the rain monotonously falling on the
roof, and occasionally through the broad adobe chimney, where it
provoked a retaliating hiss and splutter from the dying embers of the
hearth.
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