"Well, Tad, I was a pesterin' around there not long ago, an' I seed whar
some tarnal critter hed tried to pry the lock off. You know, Tad, I
b'lieve they is pay rock in that gulch, if the likes o' you an' me could
jist light onto it. Ye can pan color anywhere around the shanty, if ye
know how. I picked up some o' that quartz formation by the dump, an' drat
it, Tad, it's fine lookin' stuff."

"Yes, Ben, I often think I'll go back and work a little longer on the old
hole. Bill was certain we had struck it--talked in his fever before he
died. But I haven't got the nerve.

"Ben, I'm going to tell you something. Just before Bill met his end, he
had a letter from the firm that he installed machinery for concerning the
final drawings of an ore-roaster that he had been working on for years. I
have often wondered if he sent those drawings to the firm before his
death, or if Williams got them and the letters. I've never seen a roaster
like his was to be. Some way, I've thought Williams sold those drawings.
If he did, Ben, I'd kill him, I believe. That's what makes me keep a
thinking of the boy. Those drawings would have brought enough then to
have educated him, and perhaps he's poor--poor like you and me, and can't
go to school, while that rascal, Williams, rides around in an automobile.
Some way, I feel like I'll find out, and then I'll--"

"Is that a fact! Well, that tarnal critter!" Ben puffed meditatively at
his pipe and gazed into the fire.

"I have decided to go back, Ben, and work the other claim up in the gulch
by Dad's. If I could get enough money ahead I'd get a detective and put
him on the case. I'm kind of a father to that boy, Ben, wherever he is,