make excuses. I thought you would like to assist
about these preparations, and I am sure you would, too; but go, by all
means, for, as you say, it must rain very soon, when it will be too
late."

"Thar's nothing I'd like better nor stayin' to work for you, Miss
Edwards," answered Jim, with some appearance of confusion; "but this
time I'm obleeged to go--I am, sure."

"Well, good-by, and good luck to you, Mr. Harris," Miss Edwards said,
pleasantly.

"Ef she only knowed what I'm a goin' fur!" muttered Jim to himself, as
he went to "catch up" his horse, and pack up two or three days' rations
of bread and meat. "But I ain't goin' to let on about it to a single
soul. It's best to keep this business to myself, I reckon. 'Peared like
'twas a hint of that kind she give me, the other day, when she said,
'The gods help them that help themselves, Mr. Harris.' Such a heap o'
sense as that gal's got! She's smarter'n John Edwards and me, and
Missouri Joe, to boot: but I'm a-gainin' on it a leetle--I'm a-gainin'
on it a leetle," concluded Jim, slowly, puckering his parched and
sunburnt lips into a significant expression of mystery.

What it was he was "gainin' on," did not appear, for the weight of his
thoughts had brought him to a dead-stand, a few feet from the fence, on
the hither side of which was the animal he contemplated riding. At this
juncture of entire absence of mind, the voice of John Edwards, hailing
him from the road, a little way off, dissolved the spell:

"I say, Jim," hallooed Edwards; "if you discover that mine, I will give
you half of it, and an interest in the ranch."

The words seemed to electrify the usually slow mind to which the idea
was addressed. Turning short about, Jim, in a score of long strides,
reached the fence separating him from Edwards.

"Will you put that in writin'?"

"To be sure, I will," answered John, nodding his head, with a puzzled
and ironical smile.

"I'll go to the house with ye, an' hev it done to onct," said Jim,
sententiously. "I hev about an hour to spar, I reckon."

John Edwards was struck by the unusual manner of the proverbially
deliberate man, who had served him with the same unvarying "slow and
sure" faithfulness for years; but he refrained from comments. Jim, in
his awkward way, proved to be more of a man of business than could have
been expected.

"I want a bond fur a deed, Mr. Edwards. That's the best way to settle
it, I reckon."

"That is as good a way as any;