"Now," and Madden had tossed gauntlets and hat to the floor beside him,
"I'm anxious to get this thing over with. You've struck gold, they
tell me? Let's see the colour of it."

"What's your proposition?" Drennen asked carelessly.

Madden laughed his stock-in-trade laugh; it was intended to make the
other man feel vaguely that he was talking nonsense to a seer.

"Do you think I run around with a proposition to make every prospector
who thinks he's found a bonanza? Before I know where the claim is or
see the dirt out of it?"

Drennen lay back a little, his hands clasped behind his head.

"I know something of your company and your methods," he said coolly.
"You're a pack of damned thieves. And, since you ask it, I do think
that you run around all loaded with your proposition. Your game is to
pay a man enough to get him drunk and keep him drunk for a spell;
that's his cash bonus; he gets the rest in stocks. Then you break him
with assessments and kick him out. I'm not talking business to-day,
thank you," he ended drily.

Madden looked at him keenly, making a swift appraisal which had in it
something of the nature of a readjustment. Then he laughed again.

"Look here, Mr. Drennen," he said confidentially, leaning close to the
man on the bunk, "my company has a bigger financial backing than any
other in the country. We are willing to take what we can get as cheap
as we can get it, of course I'll admit that. At the same time if
you've got a gold mine we're ready and we're able to pay all it's
worth. You've got the brains to know that the day has passed for a man
to work his own claim if there's anything in it. You've got to sell
out to somebody. Why not to the Canadian?"

Now, Madden, having heard the tale of Drennen's dice game with a canvas
bag of virgin gold backing his play and of a fight in which Drennen had
gone down from a bullet fired by Ernestine Dumont, had made up his mind
that in the dugout he would come upon a certain type of man which he
knew well. He expected to find Drennen half sodden with liquor,
garrulous, boastful and withal easy to handle. His estimate changed
swiftly, but he altered merely in slight detail his plan of attack.
After a keen glance about the dugout his words came smoothly. Drennen
was no illiterate miner but he was sorely ridden by poverty, just the
same.

"Give me your word that you've really found the real stuff," Madden
said, "and we'll talk business. Oh, that