am; and
then he went on to give Uncle Ezra a brief sketch of the manner in which
Tom had got at the bottom of things. He added that if he hadn't shown
Tom the place where the man camped, the nugget would have been up there
now. Uncle Ezra listened in amazement, and when Elam stopped speaking he
thrust out his hand to Tom.

"Where in the world did you learn to trail?" said he. "Shake."

"Thank you," said Tom, retreating a step or two. "I'll take your word
for it. I wouldn't have such a shaking up as you gave Elam a minute ago
for anything."

Uncle Ezra laughed, and pulled a camp-stool near to the fire and sat
down upon it. He couldn't get the nugget out of his head. He kept saying
"By gum!" every time he looked at it, and now and then he glanced at
Elam and pinched himself to see if he was wide awake or dreaming.

"Now, I will give you something to chew on while Carlos is getting
supper for us," said Elam; and as that was a gentle hint that he was
hungry, I got up and went to work. "We three boys are going to Texas."

"Going to Texas?" asked Uncle Ezra. "Now, wait till I tell you----"

"And another thing," said Elam, paying no attention to the interruption;
"we don't want to stay here until this thing is panned out; so can't you
lend us a thousand dollars on that nugget?"

"I know what you want," replied Uncle Ezra. "You want me to lend you a
thousand dollars apiece."

"Well, yes. That's about the way the thing stands."

"Now, wait till I tell you. You will go away with all that money in your
good clothes, and the first thing you know I will never see you again.
Somebody will say 'Where's them three fellows that used to hang around
your place?' and I will say 'Why, they went down to Texas to buy cattle,
and those Texans found out that they had a lot of money about them and
shot them.' That's what I'll say. Now, wait till I tell you. You can't
go!"

That was just about what I expected to hear from Uncle Ezra at the
start, but I knew it would turn out otherwise. I knew if he had the
money we would get it, and so I kept still. Tom was very much
disappointed, but I gave him a wink and nod which told him that our
circumstances were not as bad as they appeared to be, and that
everything would come out all right in the end. I didn't blame Uncle
Ezra for not wanting to let us go away with so much money in our
pockets, but I did not see any other way out of it. If we wanted to get
our cattle for about half what they w