"Out of the claim," says Aggy.

I nearly fell dead. "Out of the claim!" I yelled in a whisper. "Go on! Your whiskers are growing in!"

"Straight goods," says Ag, "and I had to stand here and see them do it!

The Golden Queen is all my fancy painted her. The second pa.s.s that ice-pick-faced mut made he brought up a chunk as big as a biscuit. 'Is that gold?' says he. 'Oh, yes!' says I. 'That's gold!' The truth come out of me before I thought--it knocked me to see that chunk.

First time I ever made such a break--well--well. Why didn't it occur to me to try the taste of that piece of ground before I put in my flavouring? I was so d--d sure there wasn't $13 worth of metal in the whole twenty acres! Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord! To sprinkle a pocket that's near half gold with a little old pinch of dust, is one of them ridiculous and extravagant excesses my friend Shakespeare mentions! If there was a lily around here, I'd paint it, so's to go the whole hog."

"What in the name of all the Mormon G.o.ds are we going to do?" says I.

"Leave me think," he answers. And again he pulls his whiskers and whistles through his teeth.

There came a horrible yell from the hole. Daggett held up what seemed like a yaller potato. "Hooray!" says he. "Ain't that a humming bird?"

"You want to think quick," says I. "I feel something like murder rising in my veins."

"By gosh!" says Ag, snapping his fingers. "I've got her! Come to, you son-of-a-gun. Come to!"

"How's that?" I asked, not just tumbling exactly.

"Come to!" says Ag. "Regain your scattered intelligence! How in blazes can I sell, then, without your consent?"

"Right you are! I'm off!" says I. And with that I cut loose.

"Help!" howls Aggy; "help!"

The two fellers were too busy to want to stop, but after I sent a brace of rocks in their direction, they concluded it might be as well to quiet me first. Lord! How I did carry on! I gave Ag the wink and pulled for the creek, and it was not long before, with Aggy's help, in we all three went, kersock.

They pulled me out and laid me on the bank, insensible.

"He's dead, I reckon," says Daggett.

"No," says Aggy, "I can feel his pulse beat, but it does seem to me there's a different look in his face somehow."

Then I opened my eyes.

"Why, Agamemnon," says I, "what am I doing here?"

"Hush!" says he, "you ain't been well."

"Dear me! You don't say!" And I rubbed my forehead with my hand.

"But I feel all right now--have I been this way long?"

"Nigh on to six months, Hy, old horse; ever since we hit it so rich on our claim--don't you remember about that?"

"Certainly," says I. "It seems like yesterday; it's as clear--but who are these people?"

Ag let on to be very much embarra.s.sed. "Well," says he, "why--hunh--why--to tell you the truth, I thought I ought to get you out of the country, to where you could see an expensive doctor, and these are some folks I brought down to buy the claim--you being sick, you know!"

"Buy the claim!" I hollers, jumping up. "Buy the claim? What's this you're giving me? After all my toils and hardships and one thing and another, to sell the Golden Queen? Well, I want you to understand that n.o.body buys this claim, except across my dead body," says I.

Aggy, he looks completely dumfounded. "My! This puts me in an awkward fix," he says. "Gentlemen, you see how I'm up against it? I can't sell without my partner's consent, now he's in his right mind; and, as far as that goes, the only reason I wanted to sell is removed. The d.i.c.ker's off, that's the long and short of it."

Oh, how pleased that tinhorn looked! He swallowed three times and got red in the face before he answered a word.

"This may be all right, but it looks mighty queer to me," he growls.

"The ways of Providence is past understanding," says Aggy, taking off his hat. "To our poor human minds it does seem queer, no doubt. Now, Mr. Daggett," he continued, waving his arm in that broad-minded style he had, "I'm sorry things has come out this way for your sake, although a man that has such a sympathising nature as you will soon forget his own disappointment in the general joy that envelopes this camp. And to show you there's nothing small about me, you can have any one of those chunks you dug out this afternoon that don't weigh over two dollars."

Daggett sent the chunk to a place where it would melt quick, and expressed a hope we'd follow it. With that he hopped into his go-cart and pulled for town, larruping the poor horse sinful. We had the pleasure of seeing the animile turn the outfit into the gully in return for the compliment. They scrambled in again and disappeared from view.

Then Aggy reached out his hand to me.

"Don't tell me nothing but the plain truth, old man," says he; "I can't bear nothing except the plainest kind of truth, but on your sacred word of honour, ain't your uncle Ag a corker?"

"Aggy," says I, "I ain't up to the occasion. There ain't a man on earth could do credit to your qualities but yourself."

Then we shook hands mighty hearty.

Where the Horse is Fate

One thing's certain, you can't run a sheep ranch, nor no other kind of ranch, without hired men. They're the most important thing, next to the sheep. I may have stated, absent-mindedly, that the Big Bend was organised on scientific principles: none of your gol-darned-heads-or-tails--who's-it--what-makes-the-ante-shy, about it.

Napoleon Buonaparte in person, in his most complex minute, couldn't have got at this end of it better than I did. It looked a little roundabout, but that's the way with your Morgan strain of idees.

Here's how I secured the first man--he didn't look like good material to the careless eye.

Burton and me had just turned the top of that queer hill, that overlooks the Southwest road into the Bad Lands, when I see a parcel of riders coming out. Somehow, they jarred me.

"Easy," says I, and grabs Burton's bridle.

"What the devil now?" he groans. "Injuns? Road-agents?"

"Nope," says I, getting out my field gla.s.s. I had guessed it: there was the bunch, riding close and looking ugly, with the white-faced man in the middle. If you should ask me how I knew that for a lynching, when all I could make out with my eyes was that they weren't cattle, I give it up. Seems like something pa.s.sed from them to me that wasn't sight. And also if you ask why, when through the gla.s.s I got a better view of the poor devil about to be strung, I felt kind towards him, you have me speechless again. I couldn't make out his face, but there was something----

[Ill.u.s.tration: Through the gla.s.s I got a better view of the poor devil about to be strung]

"See here, Burton," says I. "There's your peaceful prairie hanging, in its early stage."

"What!" says he, sick and hot at the same time. "How can you speak of the death of a human being so heartlessly? Let me go!"

"Hold!" says I. "You haven't heard me through. Perhaps you can be more use than to run away and hide your eyes. I ain't got a' word to say against quick law. I've seen her work, and she works to a point.

She beats having the lawyers sieving all the justice out of it. All the same, they've been too careless around here--that, and a small bad boy's desire to get their names up. I know one case where they hung a perfectly innocent man, for fun, and to brag about it."

He looked at me steady. I had suspected him of being no coward, when it comes to cases.

"Now," I says, "I don't know what that is down there. Perhaps it's all right; then you and me has got to stand by. If not--well, by the sacred photograph of Mary Ann, here's one roping that won't be an undiluted pleasure. Now listen. I'm something of a high private, when it comes to war, but no man is much more than one man, if the other side's blood is bad. Give 'em to me cold, and I can throw a crimp into 'em, for I don't care a hoot at any stage of the game, and they do.

But when they're warm--why, a hole between the eyes will stop me just as quick as though I wasn't Chantay Seeche Red. Are you with me? You never took longer chances in your life."