Rimrock Jones | Page 3

no powder, and nothing but Mexicans for help. But I sure turned up some good ore--she gets richer the deeper you go."
"Any gold?" enquired Hassayamp hopefully.
"Yes, but pocketty. I leave all that chloriding to the Mexicans while I do my discovery work. They've got some picked rock on the dump."
"Why don't you quit that dead work and do a little chloriding yourself? Pound out a little gold--that's the way to get a stake!"
Old Hassayamp spat the words out impatiently, but Rimrock seemed hardly to hear.
"Nope," he said, "no pocket-mining for me. There's copper there, millions of tons of it. I'll make my winning yet."
"Huh!" grunted Hassayamp, and Rimrock came out of his trance.
"You don't think so, hey?" he challenged and then his face softened to a slow, reminiscent smile.
"Say, Hassayamp," he said, "did you ever hear about that prospector that found a thousand pounds of gold in one chunk? He was lost on the desert, plumb out of water and forty miles from nowhere. He couldn't take the chunk along with him and if he left it there the sand would cover it up. Now what was that poor feller to do?"
"Well, what did he do?" enquired Hassayamp cautiously.
"He couldn't make up his mind," answered Rimrock, "so he stayed there till he starved to death."
"You're plumb full of these sayings and parables, ain't you?" remarked Hassayamp sarcastically. "What's that got to do with the case?"
"Well," began Rimrock, sitting down on the edge of the sidewalk and looking absently up the street, "take me, for instance. I go out across the desert to the Tecolotes and find a whole mountain of copper. You don't have to chop it out with chisels, like that native copper around the Great Lakes; and you don't have to go underground and do timbering like they do around Bisbee and Cananea. All you have to do is to shoot it down and scoop it up with a steam shovel. Now I've located the whole danged mountain and done most of my discovery work, but if some feller don't give me a boost, like taking that prospector a canteen of water, I've either got to lose my mine or sit down and starve to death. If I'd never done anything, it'd be different, but you know that I made the Gunsight."
He leaned forward and fixed the saloon keeper with his earnest eyes and Old Hassayamp held up both hands.
"Yes, yes, boy, I know!" he broke out hurriedly. "Don't talk to me--I'm convinced. But by George, Rim, you can spend more money and have less to show for it than any man I know. What's the use? That's what we all say. What's the use of staking you when you'll turn right around in front of us and throw the money away? Ain't I staked you? Ain't L. W. staked you?"
"Yes! And he broke me, too!" answered Rimrock, raising his voice to a defiant boom. "Here he comes now, the blue-faced old dastard!"
He thrust out his jaw and glared up the street where L. W. Lockhart, the local banker, came stumping down the sidewalk. L. W. was tall and rangy, with a bulldog jaw clamped down on a black cigar, and an air of absolute detachment from his surroundings.
"Yes, I mean you!" shouted Rimrock insultingly as L. W. went grimly past. "You claim to be a white man, and then stand in with that lawyer to beat me out of my mine. I made you, you old nickel-pincher, and now you go by me and don't even say: 'Have a drink!'"
"You're drunk!" retorted Lockhart, looking back over his shoulder, and Rimrock jumped to his feet.
"I'll show you!" he cried, starting angrily after him, and L. W. turned swiftly to meet him.
"You'll show me what?" he demanded coldly as Rimrock put his hand to his gun.
"Never mind!" answered Rimrock. "You know you jobbed me. I let you in on a good thing and you sold me out to McBain. I want some money and if you don't give it to me I'll--I'll go over and collect from him."
"Oh, you want some money, hey?" repeated Lockhart. "I thought you was going to show me something!"
The banker scowled as he rolled his cigar, but there was a twinkle far back in his eyes. "You're bad now, ain't you?" he continued tauntingly. "You're just feeling awful! You're going to jump on Lon Lockhart and stomp him into the ground! Huh!"
"Aw, shut your mouth!" answered Rimrock defiantly, "I never said a word about fight."
"Uhhr!" grunted L. W. and put his hand in his pocket at which Rimrock became suddenly expectant.
"Henry Jones," began the banker, "I knowed your father and he was an honorable, hardworking man. You're nothing but a bum and you're getting worse--why don't you go and put up that gun?"
"I don't