The bantering smile broadened to a grin--the graceless young desert
wanderer threw back his head and laughed.

"You're such a card, Boston" he chortled. "Such exquisite notions of
social usage I have never observed outside the peerage. Really, you
shouldn't be allowed to go visiting. You're unmannerly enough to ask
for a third helping to cake."

"I insist that I am entitled to a half interest in this claim. As you
decline to recognize my rights, I must take the matter in my own hands.
I, too, shall stake the claim and endeavor to get my location notice
filed in the land office before yours. If you haven't any sense of
justice and decency, I have."

"Oh, all right, fire away. I'll take you back to civilization and see
that you don't starve or die of thirst on the way. I'm not entirely
heartless, Boston. In the meantime, however, while you're staking the
claim, it occurs to me that I can gather together a very snug fortune
in the next day or two. There appears to be more gold than quartz in
this rock--some indeed, is the pure quill. All hands, including the
jacks, will go on a short ration of water from now on. Of course we're
taking chances with our lives, but what's life if a fellow can't take a
chance for a fortune like this? I'd sooner die and be done with, it
than live my life without a thrill. That's why I've degenerated from a
perfectly matriculated mining engineer into a wandering desert rat.
Would you believe it, Boston, I lived in your town once. Graduated from
the Tech. Why, I once made love to a Boston girl in a conservatory. I
remember her very well. She spilled pink lemonade over my dress shirt.
I took a long chance that time; but out here, even if the chances are