ssor, "I vas joost going by and I
couldn't help but listen. Because dis Bunker Hill, he is alvays
spreading talk dat I am not a cheologist. But him, now; _him_! Do
you know who he is? He is nothing but an ignorant cowman. Ven dis mine
vas closed down I vas for some years the care-taker, vat you call the
custodian of the plant; and dis Bunker Hill, ven I happened to go avay,
he come and take the job. I am a consulting cheologist and my services
are very valuable, but he took the job for fifty dollars a month and
came here to run his cattle. For eight or ten years he lived right in
dat house and took all dat money for nothing; and den, when the Company
can't pay him no more, he takes over the property on a lien. Dat fine,
valuable mine, one of the richest in the vorld, and vot you think he
done with it? He and Mike McGraw, dat hauls up his freight, dey tore it
all down for junk! All dat fine machinery, all dem copper plates, all
the vater-pipe, the vindows and doors--they tore down everything and
hauled it down to Moroni, vere they sold it for nothing to Murray!

"Do you know vot I would do if I owned dat mine?" demanded the Professor
with rising wrath. "I vould organize a company and pump oudt the vater
and make myself a millionaire. But dis Bunker Hill, he's a big bag of
vind--all he does is to sit around and talk! A t'ousand times I haf told
him repeatedly dat dere are millions of dollars in dat mine, and a
t'ousand times he tells me I am crazy. For fifteen years I haf begged
him for the privilege to go into pardners on dat mine. I haf written
reports, describing the cheology of dis district, for the highest mining
journals in the country; I haf tried to interest outside capital; and
den, for my pay, when some chentleman comes to camp, he tells him dat I
am a barber!"

The Professor paused and swallowed fiercely, and as Denver broke into a
grin the old man choked with fury.

"Do you know what dat man has been?" he demanded, shaking a trembling
finger towards Bunker's house, "he has been everything but an honest
man--a faro-dealer, a crook, a gambler! He vas nothing--a bum--when his
vife heard about him and come here from Boston to marry him! Dey vas
boy-und-girl sveetheart, you know. And righdt avay he took her money and
put it into cows, and the drought come along and killed them; and now he
has nothing, not so much as I haf, and an expensive daughter besides!"

He paused and wagged his head and indulged in a senil