t, urged
me to turn in. But that was a game that two could play at.

"I'm no shorter on sleep than you are," I told him. "You were up all
night with the wagon."

We wrangled over it a bit and I finally yielded. But first I told
Gifford about the Lawrenceburg threat for the day, omitting nothing but
the source of my information.

"So they're going to jump us, are they?" he said. "All right; the
quicker the sooner. Does Barrett know?"

"Not yet. I thought we'd all get together on it this morning. Tell
him when he comes back; and if anything develops before he gets here,
sing out for me." And with that I made a dive for the blankets.

Between the two of them, Gifford and Barrett let me sleep until the
middle of the afternoon. I could scarcely believe the evidence of my
senses when I turned out and saw the miracles that had been wrought in
a few short hours. While I slept, the transformation of the Little
Clean-Up from a three-man prospect hole to a full-fledged mine had
taken giant strides. Machinery and material were arriving in a
procession of teams laboring up the gulch; a score of carpenters were
raising the frame of the shaft-house; masons were setting the
foundations for the engine and hoist. I had slumbered peacefully
through all the din and hammering and the coming and going of the
teams; would doubtless have slept longer if the workmen had not put
skids and rollers under the shack to move it out of their way.

Gifford, now thirty-odd hours beyond his latest sleep, was too busy to
talk; but Barrett took time to bridge the progress gap for me.

"There was nothing you could do," he explained, at my protest for being
left for so many hours out of the activities. "Gifford will have to
knock off pretty soon, but the work will go on just the same. Take a
look around, Jimmie, and pat yourself on the back. You are no longer a
miner; you are a mine owner."

"Tell me," I said shortly.

"There isn't much to tell. I caught that first car to town this
morning and got busy. You're seeing some of the results, and the ready
money in bank is what produced them. But we've got to dig some more of
it, and dig it quick. Blackwell has begun suit against us for
trespassing upon Lawrenceburg property, and as you know, every foot of
ground all around us was relocated by the early-morning mob that
trailed up from our broken-down wagon."

"I ought to have told you about the Blackwell move this morning before
y