"Say, you'll get right out an' post the
notices. I'm buyin' your 'dust,' an' I'm driving the stage."

CHAPTER XXVI

WILD BILL INSPECTS HIS CLAIM

Suffering Creek awoke on the Monday morning laboring under a hideous
depression of nightmare. There was no buoyancy in the contemplation of
the day's "prospect." It was as though that wholesome joy of life
which belongs to the "outdoor" man had suddenly been snatched away,
and only the contemplation of a dull round of unprofitable labor had
been left for the burdened mind to dwell upon.

It was in this spirit that Joe Brand rubbed his eyes and pulled on his
moleskin trousers. It was in this spirit that the miner, White,
slouching along to the store for breakfast, saw and greeted him.

"Nuthin' doin' in the night," he said, in something like the tone of a
disappointed pessimist.

"No." Joe Brand did not feel a great deal like talking. Besides the
nightmare depression that held him he had drunk a good deal of rye
whisky overnight.

White stared out across the creek, whither his thoughts were still
wandering.

"Maybe we--was scairt some," he observed, with a hollow laugh.

"Maybe."

Joe's manner was discouraging.

"Gettin' breakfast?" the other inquired presently.

"Guess so."

And the rest of the journey to the store was made in morose silence.

Others were already astir when they reached their destination. And at
some distance they beheld a small group of men clustering at one point
on the veranda. But such was their mood that the matter had no
interest whatever for them until they came within hailing distance.
Then it was that they were both startled into new life. Then it was
that all depression was swept away and active interest leapt. Then it
was that sore heads and troubled thoughts gave way before an
excitement almost equal to the previous day's, only that it carried
with it a hope which the latter had almost killed.

"Say, don't it beat hell?" demanded a burly prospector as they came
up, pointing back at the wall of the store where the group was
clustering like a swarm of bees.

"Don't what?" inquired Brand, with only partial interest.

"Why, that," cried the man, still pointing. "Ther' it is, all writ up
ther'. It's in Minky's writin', too. They're sendin' out a stage,
Wednesday. Git a peek at it."

But Brand and his companion did not wait for his final suggestion.
They, too, had already joined the cluster, and stood craning on the
outsk