t. "We'll go back and get
your gun, Tender-foot. How far is that pocket from here?"

"Why, it is a two-weeks' journey," said Tom, who suddenly became aware
that he would have to go over that long tramp again. "I never could find
my way back there in the world."

"Who sent you into the mountains to dig for my nugget?"

"Your nugget?"

"Them's my very words, stranger."

"Why, who are you?"

"I am Elam Storm, the man who lost the nugget twenty years ago, and who
intends to have it back if he has to kill every man this side of the
country you came from; and where's that?"

Tom, who had arisen from his rock at the same time the stranger began to
put on his coat, stared fixedly at the speaker, and then sat down again.
So this was Elam Storm, the man who had a better right to the nugget
than anybody else in the world! He was a boy, not more than nineteen or
twenty years of age, but he had a face on him which expressed the utmost
resolution. And he had the physical power, too, to carry out his
determination, for, as he moved around his camp, putting away his tools
where he could readily find them, he showed muscles which said that it
would not be a safe piece of business for anyone to interfere with that
nugget.

"Where did you come from, I asked you?"

"I came from down in Mississippi, where my uncle owns a plantation and a
heap of niggers," answered Tom, who did not like the way the boy eyed
him when he spoke.

"And right there is where you ought to have stayed," said Elam. "Did you
hear anything about the nugget down there?"

"Of course not," replied Tom, surprised at the proposition. "I started
to go to Texas, but got on the wrong boat and was brought up here. I
couldn't do anything else, and so Mr. Parsons grub-staked me and sent me
into the mountains. He lives out that way a short distance."

"How far do you call a short distance?"

"Fifteen or twenty miles, maybe."

"Haw-ha! Man, you're just about a hundred miles from where he lives."

Tom caught his breath, but could say nothing in reply.

"You have been going further and further away from him ever since you
lost your horse," continued Elam. "Come on; let's go and get your
rifle."

"You say that nugget of yours was lost twenty years ago," said Tom, as
he fell in behind Elam, being afraid to do anything else. "You are not
that old, are you?"

"Well, not so long as that!" laughed Elam. "It is a long story and will
take you a good portion of the eve