s suggestion we drove a drainage tunnel on the
purchased property and unwatered the three shafts which the Nebraskans
had sunk; an expedient which enabled us to prove to the satisfaction of
the courts that the Mary Mattock, at the time of its abandonment by its
original owners, was nothing more than a series of prospect holes, and
that the property was valueless save for a dumping ground.

Through all these bickerings and compromisings the Lawrenceburg fight
held on, giving us the most trouble and costing the most money.
Blackwell proved himself to be a scrapper of sorts, leaving no
expedient untried in his attempts to tie us up and put us out of
business. Shortly after we began developing in earnest, he put a
shaft-sinking force on the nearest of the Lawrenceburg upper claims on
the hillside above us, hoping, as we supposed, to flood us out by
tapping one of the numerous underground water bodies with which the
region abounds and turning it loose on us. At least, we could imagine
no other reason for the move, since the growing dump at this upper
working was entirely barren of ore, and remained so.

On our own part we were able to get back at Blackwell only in small
ways. When he tried to shut us out of our wagon road right-of-way in
the gulch, we beat him in the courts and made him pay damages for
obstructing us. Later, when his upper dump began to encroach upon our
ground, we sued him again and got more damages, with a peremptory order
from the court to vacate.

Still later we took Phineas Everton away from him. The assayer had had
some disagreement with Blackwell, the nature of which was not
explained, but which I, for one, could easily understand, and Everton,
apologetic now for his early suspicion of us, had told Barrett that he
was open to a proposal. The proposal was promptly made and we
installed Everton as our assayer and expert in the town offices,
fitting up a laboratory for him which lacked nothing that money could
buy in the way of furnishings and equipment.

Consequent upon this change, Barrett and I both saw more of the
Evertons. They took a small house in town and Polly welcomed us both,
making no distinction, so far as I could determine, between the
president and the secretary-treasurer. Barrett's attitude toward Polly
puzzled me not a little. He was a frequent visitor in the cottage on
the hill, but he rarely went without asking me to go along. If he were
really Mary Everton's lover, he wa