ot." Then Fairchild caught the queer look in the man's
eyes. "What do you mean by all these questions? Is that good ore--or
is n't it?"

"Son, just one more question--and I hope you won't get mad at me. I 'm
a funny old fellow, and I do a lot of things that don't seem right at
the beginning. But I 've saved a few young bloods like you from
trouble more than once. You ain't been high-grading?"

"You mean--"

"Just exactly what I said--wandering around somebody else's property
and picking up a few samples, as it were, to mix in with your own
product? Or planting them where they can be found easily by a
prospective buyer?"

Fairchild's chin set, and his arms moved slowly. Then he
laughed--laughed at the small, white-haired, eccentric old man who
through his very weakness had the strength to ask insulting questions.

"No--I 'll give you my word I have n't been high-grading," he said at
last. "My partner and I drilled a hole in the foot wall of the stope
where we were working, hoping to find the rest of a vein that was
pinching out on us. And we got this stuff. Is it any good?"

"Is it good?" Again Old Undertaker Chastine looked over his glasses.
"That's just the trouble. It's too good--it's so good that it seems
there's something funny about it. Son, that stuff assays within a
gram, almost, of the ore they 're taking out of the Silver Queen!"

"What's that?" Fairchild had leaped forward and grasped the other man
by the shoulders, his eyes agleam, his whole being trembling with
excitement. "You're not kidding me about it? You're sure--you 're
sure?"

"Absolutely! That's why I was so careful for a minute. I thought
maybe you had been doing a little high-grading or had been up there and
sneaked away some of the ore for a salting proposition. Boy, you 've
got a bonanza, if this holds out."

"And it really--"

"It's almost identical. I never saw two samples of ore that were more
alike. Let's see, the Blue Poppy's right up Kentucky Gulch, not so
very far away from the Silver Queen, is n't it? Then there must be a
tremendous big vein concealed around there somewhere that splits, one
half of it running through the mountain in one direction and the other
cutting through on the opposite side. It looks like peaches and cream
for you, Son. How thick is it?"

"I don't know. We just happened to put a drill in there and this is
some of the scrapings."

"You have n't cut into it at all, then?"

"