"And what I got from the real-estate feller last night," adds the hotel clerk, "must 'a' come nigh to cleanin' _him_ out."

Another spell of quiet. Then----

"I wonder," _re_marks the station-agent, "if that Rockafeller telegram was _genuwine._"

The postmaster throwed up his hands. "We're it!" he says. "We sole our sand fer a song, and we bought it back at a steep figger."

"With all that money," adds the hotel clerk, "they must 'a' had to walk bow-laigged."

"My friends," says the station-agent, "the drinks is on us!"

And me? Wal, I wandered 'round fer a while--like I was plumb loco. When I landed up at last, I seen somethin' white in front of me. It was a sign, and it said, "The Lloyd Addition."

I sit down on my little pile of stakes, and pulled out the last letter I'd got from Macie.

"Dear Alec," it begun, "I'm so glad you got you' land----"

I didn't read no further. I looked off acrosst the mesquite in the _di_rection of Briggs City. "The land ain't no good," I says. "And all my money's gone." And I laid my haid down on my arms.

Just then, outen a bunch of gra.s.s not far off, I heerd the s.p.u.n.ky little song of a lark!

I riz up.

"Anyhow," I says, "I'm goin' home. Mebbe I look like a b.u.m; but I'm goin' back where I got some friends! I'm goin' back where they call me Cupid!"

CHAPTER TWELVE

AND A BOOM AT BRIGGS

I GOT back all right. It takes two dollars and six-bits to git from Goldstone to Briggs City on the Local. But if you happen to have a little flat bottle in you' back pocket, you ride in the freight caboose fer nothin'. I _had_ a flat bottle. I swapped "The Lloyd Addition" fer it.

When I hit ole Briggs City, she looked all right t' _me,_ I can tell y'. And so did the boys. And by noon I was plumb wored out, I'd ga.s.sed so much.

Wal, I went over and sit down on the edge of Silverstein's porch to rest my face and hands. Pretty soon, I heerd a hoss a-comin' up the street--_clickety, clickety, clickety, click._ It stopped at the post-office, right next me. I looked up--and here was Macie!

Say! I felt turrible, 'cause I hadn't slicked up any yet. But she didn't seem to notice. She knowed they was somethin' gone wrong though, 'fore ever I said a word. She just helt out one soft little hand.

"Never you mind, Alec," she says; "never you mind."

My little gal!

"It means punchin' cows fer four years at forty per, Macie," I says to her.

"I'll wait fer you, Alec," she answers.

She'd gone, and I was turnin' back towards Silverstein's, when--I'm a son-of-a-gun if I didn't see, a-comin' acrosst from the deepot, one of them land-sharks! It was Porky, with that wedge-coat of hisn, and a seegar as big as a corn-cob!

Say! I duv under the porch so quick that I clean scairt the life outen six razorbacks and seventeen hens that was diggin' 'round under it. And when I come out where the back door is, I skun fer Hairoil Johnson's shack to borra a dif-f'rent suit of clothes offen the parson. Next, I had my Santy Claus mowed at the barber-shop.

But, when I looked in the gla.s.s, I wasn't satisfied, 'cause I wasn't changed enough. "What'll I _do?_" I ast the barber.

"Wash," he says.

Wal, I'll be dog-goned!--the _dis_guise was complete!

Just then, in come Hank Shackleton. "Hank," I says, "what do y'

think?--that fat Chicago millionaire I was a-tellin' you of is _here!_"

"You don't say so!" he answers, beginnin' to grin. "That sh.o.r.e _is_ luck!"

"How so?" ast the barber.

"Why," I says, "just think what we can _do_ to him!"

Hank just lent back and haw-hawed like he'd bust his b.u.t.tons off. "Aw, _don't_ make me laugh," he says; "my lip's cracked!"

They ain't no use talkin'--we fixed up a proposition that was a _daisy_.

"And it'll work like yeast," says Shackleton. "A-course, whatever _I_ make outen it, Cupid, you git a draw-down on--yas, you do."

"n.o.body from Goldstone'll speak up and spoil the fun, neither," I says. "Not by a jugful! That pa.s.sel of yaps down there is jealous of Briggs, and 'd just _like_ to see her done. What's more, they got a heap of little, mean pride, and 'd never own up _they_ been sold."

It was sh.o.r.e funny, but from that _very_ minute, and all by _itself_ kinda, Briggs City begun to boom! Billy Trowbridge put a barb-wire fence 'round a couple of vacant lots next his house. Bergin dug a big hole behind that ole vacant shack of hisn, and buried about a ton of tin cans.

Hairoil turned some shoats into a rock patch he owned and cleaned out the rattlesnakes. And all over town, sand got five times as high as it'd ever been afore.

So when my dudey friend, the real-estate feller, struck our flourishin'

city, and hired a' empty shanty fer his office, he didn't find no one anxious to sell him a slice of land. "Say! property's up here," he _re_marked, whilst he put down the stiff price that Bill Rawson 'd ast fer a lot. He seemed sorta bothered in his mind. (But he had to have land--to start his game on.)

"And _climbin',_" says Bill, pocketin' the spondulix. (Later on, Bill says to _me,_ "I ain't a-goin' to do another lick of hard work this year!")

Same day, here was Sam Barnes, walkin' up and down on that acre of hisn and holdin' to a forked stick. Wouldn't tell Porky _why,_ though he hinted that whenever a forked stick dipped _three_ times, _it meant somethin' more 'n water._

"But I ain't got the cash to do no investigatin'," says Sam, sad-like.

Porky got turrible inter_est_ed. "Say," he says t' Shackleton, "what you think of that land of Barnes's?"

"Wal," answers Hank, "I'll tell y': Oncet I seen another strip that looked _just_ like hisn on top. And it was rich in gold. It was so blamed rich in the colour that when the feller who owned it (he was as lazy as a government mule)--when that feller wanted more t'bacca, 'r some spuds, 'r a piece of pig, why, he'd just go out into the yard and roll. Then he'd hike to town, and when he'd get into the bank, he'd shake hisself--good--pick up what fell to the floor, git it weighed, and the payin'-teller would hand him out what was comin' t' him."

Porky peeled his eyes. (It was plain he didn't swaller it all.) But, after talkin' with that real-estate feller, he hunted up Sam and bought ev'ry square inch he had. "'Cause it's dollars to doughnuts," he says, "that Briggs City'll grow this way."

"Wal, I don't know," says Sam. "Bergin is powerful strong in pollytics, and he figgers to git the Court House _er_ected on the other side of town--where his wife's got some land."

The new parson and the doc showed up that same afternoon. And I reckon they liked that Court House idear, 'cause they took the north half of the Starvation Gap property straight off.