tion would not come. "I give it up," he said at last.
"You'll have t' plan it, an' I'll carry it out."

"That's what comes of hard work, Hiram; you lose all your
imagination. Right now you haven't any more imagination than a
cabbage. Now, I could suggest a dozen schemes to suit the purpose if
I had to, but one will do. Suppose this:

"These mountains up here are full of coal--more coal than can be
burnt in a million years. It's a bad road in, but once you get here
you'll see it lying in seams, ten, fifteen, twenty feet thick, and
stretching right through the rocks as far as you like to follow it.
That coal's going to make a bunch of millionaires some day, but not
until you can get at it with something bigger than a cayuse. But
railroads come fast in this country, and there's no saying how soon a
man might cash in if he invested just now."

"You ain't goin't' wait till a railroad comes, are you? We'll like
enough be dead by that time."

"Hiram, I told you you had no imagination, wait a moment. Now,
suppose that some strange eccentric chap owns one of these coal
limits. He lives up in the mountains, a kind of hermit, but we fall
in with him and offer him forty thousand dollars for his limit,
worth, say, half a million, or more if you feel like it. He says,
'All right, but mind I want the money in bills, and you'll have to
bring it out to me here.' Now can you think of anything?"

"Harris don't know nothin' about coal," protested Riles. "He wouldn't
bite at anythin' like that."

"Your faith has been neglected as well as your imagination. You've
got to paint it to him so's to get him interested. That's all. Our
business is to get Harris, with the money in his wallet, started up
into those mountains. It's mighty lonely up there, with timber
wolves, grizzly bears, precipices, snow-slides, and trails that lead
to nowhere, and if Harris is unfortunate--well, he's unfortunate."

The plan gradually penetrated Riles' slow-working mind. At first it
numbed him a little, and his face was a strange colour as he turned
to his companion, and said, in a low voice, "Ain't it risky? What if
the police catch on?"

"They won't. They're all right for cleaning up a rough-house, but
don't cut any figure in fine art work like we'll put over. I tell
you, Riles, it's absolutely safe. Of course, ordinary precautions
must be taken, same as you would with a vicious horse or any other
risk you might run. The main thing is to see that he has