nden and friendly duty to sell his claim. He
hesitated, it is true, and trembled now and again on the verge of giving
in. Inside his muddled head, however, he was chuckling to himself. He
was up to Curly Jim's game, and liked the hands that were being dealt
him. The whisky was good. It came out of one special barrel, and was
about a dozen times better than that in the other five barrels.

Siskiyou Pearly was dispensing drinks in the bar-room to the remainder of
the population of Red Cow, while O'Brien and Curly had out their business
orgy in the kitchen. But there was nothing small about O'Brien. He went
into the bar-room and returned with Mucluc Charley and Percy Leclaire.

"Business 'sociates of mine, business 'sociates," he announced, with a
broad wink to them and a guileless grin to Curly. "Always trust their
judgment, always trust 'em. They're all right. Give 'em some
fire-water, Curly, an' le's talk it over."

This was ringing in; but Curly Jim, making a swift revaluation of the
claim, and remembering that the last pan he washed had turned out seven
dollars, decided that it was worth the extra whisky, even if it was
selling in the other room at a dollar a drink.

"I'm not likely to consider," O'Brien was hiccoughing to his two friends
in the course of explaining to them the question at issue. "Who?
Me?--sell for ten thousand dollars! No indeed. I'll dig the gold
myself, an' then I'm goin' down to God's country--Southern
California--that's the place for me to end my declinin' days--an' then
I'll start . . . as I said before, then I'll start . . . what did I say I
was goin' to start?"

"Ostrich farm," Mucluc Charley volunteered.

"Sure, just what I'm goin' to start." O'Brien abruptly steadied himself
and looked with awe at Mucluc Charley. "How did you know? Never said
so. Jes' thought I said so. You're a min' reader, Charley. Le's have
another."

Curly Jim filled the glasses and had the pleasure of seeing four dollars'
worth of whisky disappear, one dollar's worth of which he punished
himself--O'Brien insisted that he should drink as frequently as his
guests.

"Better take the money now," Leclaire argued. "Take you two years to dig
it out the hole, an' all that time you might be hatchin' teeny little
baby ostriches an' pulling feathers out the big ones."

O'Brien considered the proposition and nodded approval. Curly Jim looked
gratefully at Leclaire and refilled the glasses.

"Hold o