k."

"I'd just as soon camp here. Go up to-morrow," said Winthrop.

"So'd I if it wasn't for bein' scared some of the hills would mosey off
before I got back." And Overland set a brisk pace up the mountain,
talking as he climbed. Winthrop could do nothing but listen. He was
breathless.

"Or that canon," continued Overland. "She might not be there if we
stayed away all night. Besides, I'm scared to leave _it_ alone by
itself."

"Leave what?" gasped Winthrop.

"It. The find I made while you was out surveyin' the Santa Fe. I was
feared you'd get nervous prosecution if I told you all to once, so I
breaks it easy like."

"What was it?"

"Nothin' but a tent in the canon we're campin' in. But, Billy, when you
find a tent and some minin' tools and other signs of trouble 'way up
some lonesome old slot in the hills, you want to get ready for a
surprise. Mebby it'll be nothin' but some old clothes and bones. Mebby
it'll be them and somethin' else. I didn't find the bones, but I found
the somethin' else, coarse, and fair dribblin' thick in the dirt. It's
there and rich, Billy, rich!"

Overland Red turned and paused as Winthrop leaned against a rock.

"It's the--the real thing?" queried the Easterner.

"The real thing, pardner. Now what do you think of that for highbrow
stuff?"

"Meaning that you stumbled on the secret?"

"If you want to say it that way, yes. Just like fallin' into a sewer and
findin' a gold watch where you lit."

"Then it's all true? We've found the gold? You really believed we
should, and for that matter, so did I. I can't say why. I rather felt
that we should."

"I guess I'm some class when it comes to findin' the incubator that
hatches them little yella babies with the come-and-find-me eyes."

Winthrop straightened his tired shoulders. "You seem to think that
you're pretty clever," he said, laughing. "But in the elegant and
expressive diction of the late--the late Overland Red Summers, 'I think
you're a bum scout.'" And they shook hands, laughing as they turned to
climb the trail.

Near the crest, Overland again paused. "Say, Billy, you said the 'late'
Overland Red Summers. You took particular noise to make me hear that
word 'late.' Have you got any objections to explainin' that there idea?
I been examinin' the works of that word 'late,' and it don't tick right
to me. 'Late' means 'planted,' don't it?"

"Sometimes. It may also mean behind time. Do you remember that I said, a
day or two ag