The Long Chance | Page 5

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 longer,
when you win--"
He kissed his grimy paw airily and flung it into space.
"'The Lord is my shepherd,' he quoted, 'I shall not want.' This morning
He left the door opened and I wandered into His Treasure House, so I
guess I'll get busy and grab what I can before the Night Watchman
comes around. Ever see the Night Watchman, Boston? I have. He's a
grave old party with a long beard, and he carries a scythe. You see him
when you're thirsty, and--well, in the pursuit of my inborn hobby for
taking chances, I'll introduce you to him this trip. Permit me to remind
you once more of the consequences if you help yourself to the water
without consulting me. It'll militate against your chances of getting to
the land office first."
The Desert Rat helped the mozo unpack the burros, while the man from
Boston tore some pages from his notebook and proceeded to write out
his location notices and cache them in monuments which he built
beside those of his predecessors. He even copied the exact wording on
the Desert Rat's notices. He forgot his blistered heel and worked with
prodigious energy and interest, receiving with dogged silent disdain the
humorous sallies of the Desert Rat, to whom the other's sudden industry
was a source of infinite amusement. The Desert Rat and the Indian
were busy with pans and prospector's picks gouging out "stringers" and
crevices and picking up scattered pieces of "jewelry" rock. When all
the "color" in sight had been cleaned up, the Desert Rat produced a drill
and a stick of dynamite from the pack, put in a "shot" and uncovered a
pocket of such richness that even the stolid Cahuilla could not forbear

indulgence in one of his infrequent Spanish expletives. It was a deposit
of rotten honeycombed rock that was nine- 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
honeycombed rock with its streaks and wens of dull virgin gold had
been cleaned up. The Desert Rat used the last of his dynamite in a vain
endeavor to unearth another "kidney," and finally decided to call it
quits.
"They took eighty-two