lot of it. Or you might go
down deep sinking through the hard porphyry for nothing. Science says
that the tellurium crystals are in the porphyry dykes and that these
dykes lie in syncline, perhaps two or three, nested one under the
other."

"Gosh," ejaculated Miranda Bailey. "It sure sounds like a lottery to me.
I wonder c'ud we hire you to p'int out a likely place for us to
locate?" They had left the one street by this time and were making their
way slowly along the western slope of the valley. Men worked at creaky
and shaky old windlasses or appeared and disappeared at the mouths of
lateral shafts, repairing the ancient timbers, wheeling out rubbish.
Once or twice they heard the dull boom of a shot where dynamite was
trying to split the rock and uncover a lead. On several of the claims
were groups, the members of which made no pretense at mining, but lolled
about, playing cards or pitching dollars at a mark. These were
speculators, holding to sell. Stakes with papers in clefts, piles of
stones at the corners, showed the boundaries of the claims.

"If you think my judgment is any good," said Westlake, "you're welcome
to it. I could be more certain of helping you when it comes to assaying
or developing a mine. Are you-all taking up claims? Do you want to align
them, or do you want to pool interests and locate here and there where
the chances look good?"

"Miss Bailey an' her nephew are goin' to take a chance," said Sandy. "Me
an' my two partners are lookin' for claims located by the man who first
discovered the camp. They can't get away an' we'll see Miss Mirandy
settled first."

"Me, I aim to take up a claim," said Mormon. "So does Sam."

"Who's goin' to work it?" asked Sandy. "You-all forget that we agreed
when we went into the ranchin' business together not to go into
speculations on the side 'thout mutual consent. From what I can make
out from Westlake's talk speculation is a mild term fo' lookin' fo'
gold. I don't consent, by a long shot. We got Molly's claims to look
after with our interest in 'em, an' I've a hunch that's goin' to occupy
all our time we got to spare. What does Roarin' Russell do in the camp,"
he asked Westlake, seemingly irrelevantly, "or ain't he shown yet?"

"He is a sort of bouncer, or capper for that gambling joint run by
Plimsoll."

Sandy nodded. "I ain't surprised. Plimsoll's figgerin' that he'll get a
big chunk of whatever's dug out, 'thout takin' any chances on diggin'.
W'udn't w