an' built stamp mills an' smelters an' retorts; oh, they sure
made plans to get the metal wholesale. As soon as it began to flow in
they built stores an' shacks an' a big hotel--they wasn't timorous
about puttin' their coin into circulation, you bet your life, an' it
looked as if they was going to flood the market.

Well, Slocum, he owned a third of everything, mind, an' his expression
flopped square over like a dry moon, an' stayed points up. He forgot
all those years 'at he'd been havin' the muddy end of it, an' after a
time he got 'em to call the mine "Slocum's Luck." The' wasn't no call
to hurl such an insult as that into the mouth of an honest,
hard-workin' mine, an' naturally, as soon as it was done, the mine laid
down in its tracts an' refused to give up another ounce.

They came to a break in the lode an' couldn't find the beginnin' again.
The same twist that had hove one edge out of the ground had unjointed
the other. But they had got out a tidy sum already, an' they knew the'
must be a loose end somewhere, so they was anxious to keep their outfit
in good order.

Slocum hadn't swelled clear out of shape with his new fortune, an' when
I made myself known to him he had give me a purty tol'able decent sort
of a job, where there was more bossin' an' responsibility than brute
labor; an' I felt kindly toward him. Winter lasted full four months out
there. It was a good ninety miles to the railroad, an' so when the
mornin's begun to get frosty every one else scooted for humanity, an'
I, bein' more or less weak-minded, took the job o' watchman, at forty a
month an' my needin's. I always was a hog for litachure, so I got a
bushel o' libraries an' started in to play it alone.

The' wasn't a blessed thing to do, so I read 'em through by New Years,
an' got out of tobacco by the first of February. From that on I begun
to think in a circle, an' my intellect creaked like a dry axle before
the bluebirds began to sing. Quiet? I could hear the shadows crawlin'
along the side of the house. The snow was seventy-five feet deep in the
canyons, so you might say I was duty bound to stay there. As a general
rule, I don't shirk breakin' a path, but when the snow is more than
fifty feet higher than my head, I'd rather walk fourth or fifth.

When the outfit came back in the spring I was the entire reception
committee; but I bet the' never was one more able to do its part.

CHAPTER TEN

A WINTER AT SLOCUM'S LUCK

They only