Saxton shook his head reproachfully. "Those notions of yours are going to get in your way, and it's unfortunate, because we have taken hold of a big thing," he said. "I'm an irresponsible planter of wild-cat mining schemes, you're nobody, and between us we're going to best Devine, the biggest man in his line in the province, and a clever one. Still, that's one reason why the notion gets hold of me. When you come in ahead of the little man there's nothing to be got out of him, and Devine's good for quite a pile when we can put the screw on." Again Brooke was sensible of a certain tempered admiration for his comrade's hardihood, for it seemed to him that the project he had mooted might very well involve them both in disaster. "You expect to accomplish it?" he said. "Well," said Saxton, drily, "I mean to try. We can't squeeze him much on the Dayspring, but we want dollars to fight him with, and that's how we're going to get a few of them. It's on the Canopus I mean to strike him." "The Canopus!" said Brooke, who knew the mine in question was considered a rich one. "How could you gain any hold on him over that?" "On the title. By jumping it. Devine takes too many chances now and then, and if one could put his fingers on a little information I have a notion the Canopus wouldn't be his. I guess you know that unless you do this, that, and the other, after recording your correct frontage on the lead or vein, you can't hold a mine on a patent from the Crown. Suppose you have got possession, and it's found that there was anything wrong with the papers you or your prospectors filed, the minerals go back to the Crown again, and the man who's first to drive his stakes in can re-locate them. It's done now and then." Brooke sat silent a space. A jumper--as the man who re-locates the minerals somebody else has found, on the ground of incorrect record or non-compliance with the mining enactments, is called--is not regarded with any particular favor in that province, or, indeed, elsewhere, but his proceedings may be, at least, perfectly legitimate, and there was a certain simplicity and daring of conception in the new scheme that had its effect on Brooke. "I will do what I can within limits," he said. Saxton nodded. "Then you will have to get into the mine, though I don't quite know how we are going to fix it yet," he said. "Anyway, we've talked enough for one day already, and you have to go down to the settlement to see about getting those new drills up."