He rose, and taking down a battered walnut case, shook out a little bundle of greasy papers with a trembling hand. Then a faint gleam crept into his eyes as he opened a little box in which Brooke saw several big round pieces of gold. The dulness of the unpolished metal made the inscriptions on them more legible, and he knew enough about such matters to realize that no man of mean talent could have won those trophies. "They would, I fancy, have got you a good appointment anywhere," he said. "As a matter of fact, they got me one or two. It is, however, occasionally a little difficult to keep an appointment when obtained." Brooke could understand that there were reasons which made that likely in his host's case, but he had by this time had enough of the subject. "What are you going to do with the ore I brought you?" he said. Allonby's eyes twinkled. "Enrich what we raise here with it." "It is a little difficult to understand what you would gain by that." Allonby smiled suggestively. "I would certainly gain nothing, but Thomas P. Saxton seems to fancy the result would be profitable to him." "But does the Dayspring belong to Saxton?" Allonby emptied his glass at a gulp. "As much as I do, and he believes he has bought me soul and body. The price was not a big one--a very few dollars every month, and enough whisky to keep me here. If that failed me, I should go away, though I do not know where to, for I cannot use the axe. He is, however, now quite willing to part with the Dayspring, which has done little more than pay expenses." A light commenced to dawn on Brooke, and his face grew a trifle hot. "That is presumably why he arranged that I should bring the ore down past the few ranches near the trail at night?" "Precisely!" said Allonby. "You see, Saxton wants to sell the mine to another man--because he is a fool. Now the chief recommendation a mine has to a prospective purchaser is naturally the quality of the ore to be got out of it." "But the man who proposed buying it would send an expert to collect samples for assaying." Allonby's voice was not quite so clear as it had been, but he smiled again. "It is not quite so difficult for a mine captain who knows his business to contrive that an expert sees no more than is advisable. A good deal of discretion is, however, necessary when you salt a poor mine with high-grade ore. It has to be done with knowledge, artistically. You don't seem quite pleased at being mixed up in such a deal." Brooke was a trifle grim in face, but he laughed. "I have no doubt that, considering everything, it is a trifle absurd of me, but I'm not," he said. "One has to get accustomed to the notion that he is being made use of in connection with an ingenious swindle. That, however, is a matter which rests between Saxton and me, and we may talk over it when I go back again. Why did you call him a fool?"