ives, and then the climate's against violent
effort, either mental or physical. I was calm, perfectly calm when I
discovered that big ledge. It is just as well--seeing how it petered
out."

"What'll you bet this pans out the same?"

"I never bet. No one but a fool will gamble." Cash pressed his lips
together in a way that drove the color from there.

"Oh, yuh don't! Say, you're the king bee of all gamblers. Been
prospecting for fifteen years, according to you--and then you've got the
nerve to say you don't gamble!"

Cash ignored the charge. He picked up a piece of rock and held it to the
fading light. "It looks good," he said again. "Better than that placer
ground down by the creek. That's all right, too. We can wash enough gold
there to keep us going while we develop this. That is, if this proves as
good as it looks."

Bud looked across at him enigmatically. "Well, here's hoping she's worth
a million. You go ahead with your tests, Cash. I'll wash the dishes."

"Of course," Cash began to conserve his enthusiasm, "there's nothing so
sure as an assay. And it was too dark in the hole to see how much was
uncovered. This may be just a freak deposit. There may not be any real
vein of it. You can't tell until it's developed further. But it looks
good. Awful good."

His makeshift tests confirmed his opinion. Bud started out next day with
three different samples for the assayer, and an air castle or two to
keep him company. He would like to find himself half owner of a mine
worth about a million, he mused. Maybe Marie would wish then that she
had thought twice about quitting him just on her mother's say-so. He'd
like to go buzzing into San Jose behind the wheel of a car like the one
Foster had fooled him into stealing. And meet Marie, and her mother
too, and let them get an eyeful. He guessed the old lady would have to
swallow what she had said about him being lazy--just because he couldn't
run an auto-stage in the winter to Big Basin! What was the matter with
the old woman, anyway? Didn't he keep Maria in comfort. Well, he'd like
to see her face when he drove along the street in a big new Sussex.
She'd wish she had let him and Marie alone. They would have made out all
right if they had been let alone. He ought to have taken Marie to some
other town, where her mother couldn't nag at her every day about him.
Marie wasn't such a bad kid, if she were left alone. They might have
been happy--

He tried then to shake himself