"Aw!" said the newcomer, after an eloquent pause.

"Mistah--er--Townsend, cawn I have a few moments of quite pwivate convehsation with you?"

"No, you cawnt!" retorted Thompson truculently. "Sit down, boys. Sit down, I say! These gentlemen are my friends. Anything you got to say?

If there is, say it. And my name's _Thompson_, if you please."

"Aw!--what an _extwemely_ wemahkable ahtt.i.tude!" Wyatt fixed his monocle on the offending miner with bland and exasperating condescension. "Weally, you quite intewest me, y' know! I appwoach you, quite civilly, y' know, with an offah decidedly to youah ahdvahntage, Mistah--ah--Tomlinson, and you tweat it----"

"_Thompson_!! By Heavens, you say Tomlinson again and I'll pound your face into shape!" roared the misnamed one, jumping up. Mitch.e.l.l and Loring vainly tried to quiet him.

"Weally, I shall be obwiged to wefeh you to my lawyehs----" Wyatt began.

"Refer _me_--you animated outrage--you libel! Turn me loose, you fellows! _I_ don't want to see _you_ or your durn lawyers! I know what _you_ want, well enough. You want to bamboozle me into selling my interest in the Copper-bottom for less than it's worth. Here's my last word to you--Mr.--ah--White! If you want my fourth at forty thousand, to-day, all right. It's worth more--it's paid from the gra.s.s-roots down. But that'll make me the round six figures, and that's enough.

_I_ can make money--_I_ know _my_ little way about," he boasted, with insufferable complacency.

"n.o.body left me _my_ pile! Put up or shut up!"

"Mr. Wyatt," said Mitch.e.l.l, "pardon me, but may I suggest that you call at a more favorable time?" He made, behind Thompson's back, the motion significant of an emptied gla.s.s.

"Aw! I see--I _see_! Thawnks awfully for the hint. Good-evening, gentlemen--and--ah--Mistah Tomkins!"

Thompson broke away, shaking his fist in Wyatt's face. "Say that again and I'll brain you--pawdon me, I should say, I'll smash your head in.

Thompson's my name--T-h-o-m-p-s-o-n, _T h o m p s o n_! And you trade with me, now or never!"

"You see, gentlemen?" Wyatt appealed. "Mistah--ah--Tawmson, I offahed you twenty-five thousand on my own wesponsibility, as a--ah--business pwoposition. My--ah--a.s.sociawates in this undehtaking aw all fwiends, quite congenwial, y' know, and I felt suah they would sanction that. I do not cyah to go futheh lengths without--ah--a confewence with them, as I believe that pwice quite ahmple, y' know. But if I could aww.a.n.ge fo' an option----"

"You pay me twenty thousand, cash, in this room, at eight o'clock to-night, and I'll give you an option for one week at forty thousand,"

persisted the morose miner. "After that, the price goes up."

"Fifty pehcentum down on an option! This is uttehly unpwecedented, y'

know. I must wemonst.w.a.te, weally!"

"It's all the option you'll get from me, you jackanapes." He snapped contemptuous fingers under Wyatt's nose.

Wyatt b.u.t.toned his coat with dignity. "Weally, this pahsses all bounds!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "Gentlemen, I accept this--ah--puhson's offeh.

I cannot enduah such an a.s.sociwate. You ah all witnesses. May I ahsk you-ah names, and may I wequest youah pwesence to-night, both to ensuah the--ar--fulfillment of the vehbal contwact which you have heahd, and to pwevent the wepet.i.tion of this scandalous scene?" He opened the door. "Aw wevoah, gentlemen!" By this time he was in the elevator. From this coign of vantage he sent a Parthian shaft.

"Till eight o'clock, Mistah--ah--Tomkinson!"

The three held the raging Thompson with some mutual dishevelment. They soothed him with flattery, stayed him with flagons, for he yearned for blood with a great yearning.

"Listen to your friends, boy," urged Mitch.e.l.l. "Take his money, and don't do anything you'll be sorry for. Make out your papers and pay no attention to what he says. Come, brace up! It'll be time for dinner in a jiffy. Promise us not to drink any more, and not to make any trouble, or we'll 'phone him not to come."

Steve allowed himself to be pacified at last, but he regarded his mitigators with a malignant eye.

"Here's what I owe you on bridge, Mitch.e.l.l--twenty-three dollars," he said sullenly. "Archibald can settle with Loring. _I_ don't want no dinner--I'm going to sleep."

"Oh, come on now, that's a good fellow," purred Mitch.e.l.l, picking up the two bills and the coins. "Say, old man--you haven't turned counterfeiter, have you?" he said good-naturedly. "This one's N.G."

Steve took it clumsily. "It's no such thing," he blurted. "Good as gold. Take it or leave it. I don't care."

"Oh, very well," said Mitch.e.l.l, humoring him. Then he reflected. The indications were that their projected _coup_ might fail if Steve's surly humor kept up. Why not improve the shining hour? The coin was obviously bad.

"I'll take it before it gets you into trouble," he insinuated.

Steve lurched to his feet, thrusting an undecorative face over the table. "You think' it's bad?" he queried darkly. "You think I'm a fool?" He flung a packet of bills on the table. "Cover that, if you dare," he said. "There's the money for the Post place--ten thousand dollars. It says that's a good dollar. Put up or shut up!"

"You'll lose your money!" warned Mitch.e.l.l. "Then you'll say I took advantage of you."

"_I_ know what _you_ think," said Steve shrewdly. "_You_ think I'm drunk, but I'm not. _I_ know a good thing when I see it. Don't you--don't you lose no sleep about _me_. I'm--I'm all right, you bet!

Now what'll you do or take water?" he fleered.

Surrept.i.tiously Loring had tried the coin with his penknife during this controversy. The metal was quite soft--the knife left a great scar, which he flashed at Mitch.e.l.l.

"Well--if you insist," said Mitch.e.l.l reluctantly. He counted out ten one-thousand-dollar bills. "Who'll be the judge?"

"Anybody. Archie. I've got you skinned a mile anyway."

"I am sorry, Mr. Thompson," said Archibald, "but this dollar seems to be pewter, or something of that general description. Aw, give him back his money, Mitch.e.l.l--he's drinking.

"I won't!" said Mitch.e.l.l stubbornly. "He forced me into it. He wouldn't have given it back to me if I'd lost."

"Sure I wouldn't," a.s.sented Steve. "I'm no boy. _I_ play for keeps, me. Don't be so fast, _if_ you please. This money ain't won yet. Cut into that dollar! I was from Missouri before ever I saw Montana."

"Cut it, Loring," said Mitch.e.l.l. "Show him!"

Loring scratched it with the penknife point. "You see? soft as cheese--rotten," he said. And then the knife struck something hard.

A chill crept over him. Stupefied, he sc.r.a.ped the base metal back, revealing a portion of _an irrefutably good dollar._

The dismayed rascals looked up. In Thompson's hand a large, businesslike gun wavered portentously from one head to the other.

"Go on!" he admonished. His tone was not particularly pleasant. "Peel her off! Yah! You puling infants! You cheap, trading-stamp crooks!"

He raked off the money. "Be tran-tranquil! You doddering idiots, I'd shoot your heads off for two bits I Try to rob a countryman, will you?

Why, gentle shepherds all, I've been on to such curves as yours ever since Hec was a pup! You and your scout Loring and your Bickford and your Post!" he scoffed. "Don't open your heads. Bah! Here, you skunks!" He threw an ostentatiously bad dollar on the table. "Take that, and break even if you can. That patronizing half-baked tailor's dummy that called me out of my name will be back bimeby, with his pockets full. I'd like to see him taken down a peg, but I da.s.sent spoil the sale of my mine. Tell him I'm in bed, full, but'll be out in an hour or so. He'll come again to buy me out. Hates me like poison, he does. If you can get him to bite, go it! But I doubt if you'll find even that saphead as rank as you three wise guys. Anyway, I don't want to see him while I feel this way. My head aches, and I suppose there's some sort of law against shooting the likes of him--or you. I'm leavin' for another hotel, right now. Don't you fellows bother me if you value your hides. If you can skin, that puppy, why, sic 'em, Towse! and the devil take the hindmost! Oh, you Smart Alecks!"

He backed out with a traditional wiggle of his fingers.

It is to be regretted that the stringent regulations of the postal authorities will not permit us any report of the heart-to-heart talk that followed his departure, other than the baldest summary. It was marked by earnestness, sincerity, even by some petulance, interspersed with frank and spirited repartee. Mutual recrimination resulted.

Subdued and chastened, Mr. Mitch.e.l.l was reduced to the ranks; Loring, by virtue of his own and Mitch.e.l.l's vote, replacing him. Archibald's preference was for a third person still--namely, himself--and he acquiesced with ill grace.

They had but little over ten thousand dollars remaining for the return match; and this, as Loring pointed out with just indignation, would only put them even. They knew that Wyatt would have at least twice that much with him. So they scurried forth and made such good use of the scant time left them, by borrowing, by squeezing both Bickford and the hard-working bookkeeper, and by resource to certain nest-eggs laid by for case of extreme urgency (known among themselves as "fix money"), they sc.r.a.ped together some six thousand more. The "ripping"

dinner went untasted. They were hardened, but human.

All ravages of carking care were smoothed away, and they were disposed in luxuriant and contented ease when Wyatt came.

"Aw, gentlemen, I am punctual, you see!" he announced gayly. "It is weally vewy kind of you to be so obliging--I'm suah. Is the--ah--mining puhson in?"