tenths pure gold--what is known in the parlance of the prospector as a
"kidney."

The disgruntled claimant to a half interest in the Baby Mine reached
into the hole and seized a nugget worth fully a thousand dollars. The
Desert Rat tapped him smartly across the knuckles with the handle of
his prospector's pick and made him drop it.

"If you please, Boston" he said gently. "You're welcome to share my
grub, and I'll whack up even with you on the water, and I'll cook for
you and wait on you, but I'll be doggoned if it isn't up to you to
furnish your own dynamite. There was ten thousand in loose stuff lying,
on the surface, and you might have been pardoned for helping yourself
to as much of it as you could carry personally, but you elected to
restake the claim and now all that easy picking belongs to the Indian
and me. He's a good Indian and I'm going to let him have some of it. He
won't take much because he's fond of me. I saved him from being lynched
for killing a white man who deserved it. But for years he's just
hungered for a top-buggy, with side bars and piano box and the whole
blamed rig painted bright red, so he can take his squaw out in style;
and I'm going to see that he gets it. However, that's neither here nor
there. You keep your fingers out of the sugar bowl, old sport. It's a
lovely sight and hard to resist, I know, but do be careful."

All that day the Desert Rat and his Indian retainer worked through the
stringers and pockets of the Baby Mine, while the man from Boston sat
looking at them, or, when the spirit moved him, casting about in the
adjacent sand for stray "specimens" of which he managed to secure quite
a number. The next morning, as soon as it was light enough to see, the
work was commenced again, and by noon the last piece of rotten