a bill. S'pose I'm mean,
but Belle does break things."

"You are never mean and I was quite sincere."

"Perhaps you found new buttons on your overalls and that accounted for
something."

Jim half consciously moved his hand to his jacket and then stopped.
"I'm afraid I didn't know the buttons were there. After all, it ought
to persuade you of my sincerity."

"Sometimes I'm not certain if you are nice or not. But is there
anything important in your letters?"

"One or two people want to know when we mean to pay our bills; I'm
sorry we can't satisfy their curiosity just yet. Then there's a letter
from Baumstein. He'll give us an extra five hundred dollars for the
Bluebird."

"Ah!" said Carrie. "It's strange he makes the offer when we need money
so!"

"It is strange," Jake broke in. "Almost looks as if the fellow knew
how we were fixed. But we're not sellers, and, for a clever crook,
Baumstein is too keen."

"He states he has reached his limit and we won't get another chance,"
Jim remarked.

Jake pondered and then resumed: "The thing's puzzling. I can't see why
Baumstein's fixed on buying a claim that nobody else wants, but you can
reckon it a sure snap for him when he makes a deal. There's the
puzzle! The ore is pretty good, but that's all. We were kind of
disappointed by the assay. The specimens looked better than the
analysis proved."

"I was certainly disappointed and surprised," Jim agreed. "Suppose we
ask the prospector about it? He has tested a good many mineral claims."

They waited until the prospector returned to the camp, when Jake gave
him some bits of broken rock.

"Feel those and tell me what you think about the metal they carry," he
said.

The other examined the specimens and weighed them in his hand.

"If you've got much rock like that, it's a pretty good claim."

"Do you reckon the stuff would come up to assay?" Jake asked, giving
him the analyst's report.

The prospector looked at him rather hard. "Come up to assay? If the
bulk's like these specimens, it ought to pan out better than the
figures show."

He stated his grounds for believing this, and Jake knitted his brows.
"I expect you know the big mining men and what they're doing. Have you
heard if Baumstein is looking for Northern copper?"

"He bought a claim called the Darien not long since."

Jim smiled. "The Darien? The next block to ours, but the vein begins
to peter out before it crosses their boundary."