mith, you savvy that?"

"No," rejoined Pan bluntly. He began to fear he had been rather
thickheaded. "I've holed up in a few gambling hells where drinks and
scraps went pretty lively. But this is the first one for me where
there were a lot of half-naked girls."

"You're west of the Rockies, now," replied Brown, grimly. "An' you'll
soon find that out in more ways than one.... Louie Melliss is straight
from Frisco, an' chain-lightnin' to her fingertips, so they say. Been
some bad messes over her. But they say too, she's as white an' square
as any good woman."

"Aw! ... Reckon I'm pretty much of a tenderfoot," returned Pan. His
regret was for the pretty audacious girl whose boldness of approach he
had not understood.

"For Gawd's sake, pard," began Moran, recovering from his shock.
"Don't you come ridin' around heah fer thet little devil to get stuck
on you. She's shore agoin' to give young Hardman a bootiful trimmin'.
An' let her do it!"

"Oh. So you don't care much about young Hardman?" inquired Pan with
interest. He certainly felt that he was falling into news.

"I'd like to throw a gun on him an' onct I damn near done it," declared
Moran.

"What for?"

"He an' another fellar jumped the only claim I ever struck thet showed
any color," went on the cowboy with an earnestness that showed
excitement had sobered him. "I went back one mawnin' an' there was
Hardman an' a miner named Purcell. They ran me off, swore it was their
claim. Purcell said he'd worked it before an' sold it to Jard Hardman.
Thet's young Hardman's dad, an' he wouldn't fit in any square hole. I
went to Matthews an' raised a holler. But I couldn't prove nothin'....
An' by Gawd, Pan, thet claim is a mine now, payin' well."

"Tough luck, Blink. You always did have the darndest luck.... Say,
Brown, is that sort of deal worked often?"

"Common as dirt, in the early days of a find," replied Brown. "I
haven't heard of any claim jumpin' just lately, though. It's somethin'
like rustlin' cattle. You know most every cowman now and then picks up
some unbranded stock that he knows isn't his. But he takes it along.
Now claim jumpin' is somethin' like that. If a fellar leaves his claim
for a day or a week he's liable to come back an' find some one has
jumped it. I never leave mine in the daytime, an' I have witnesses to
that."

"Blinky, I came out here to find my dad," said Pan. "Have you ever run
across him?"

"Nope. Never hee