Dear Dutchy:--I suppose you thought I'd flew the coop, but I haven't and this is to prove it. Pack up your outfit and hit the trail. I've made the biggest free gold strike you ever see. I'm sending you specimens. There's tons just like it, tons and tons. I got all the claims I can hold myself; but there's heaps more. I've writ to Johnny and Ed at Denver to come on. Don't give this away. Make tracks. Come in to Buck Canon in the Whetstones and oblige. Yours truly, Henry Smith Somebody showed me a handful of white rock with yeller streaks in it. His eyes was bulgin' until you could have hung your hat on them. That O'Toole party was walkin' around, wettin' his lips with his tongue and swearin' soft. "God bless the Irish and let the Dutch rustle!" says he. "And the fool had to get drunk and give it away!" The excitement was just started, but it didn't last long. The crowd got the same notion at the same time, and it just melted. Me and Dutchy was left alone. I went home. Pretty soon a fellow named Jimmy Tack come around a little out of breath. "Say, you know that buckskin you bought off'n me?" says he, "I want to buy him back." "Oh, you do," says I. "Yes," says he. "I've got to leave town for a couple of days, and I got to have somethin' to pack." "Wait and I'll see," says I. Outside the door I met another fellow. "Look here," he stops me with. "How about that bay mare I sold you? Can you call that sale off? I got to leave town for a day or two and--" "Wait," says I. "I'll see." By the gate was another hurryin' up. "Oh, yes," says I when he opens his mouth. "I know all your troubles. You have to leave town for a couple of days, and you want back that lizard you sold me. Well, wait." After that I had to quit the main street and dodge back of the hog ranch. They was all headed my way. I was as popular as a snake in a prohibition town. I hit Dutchy's by the back door. "Do you want to sell hosses?" I asks. "Everyone in town wants to buy." Dutchy looked hurt. "I wanted to keep them for the valley market," says he, "but--How much did you give Jimmy Tack for his buckskin?" "Twenty," says I. "Well, let him have it for eighty," says Dutchy; "and the others in proportion." I lay back and breathed hard. "Sell them all, but the one best hoss," says he--"no, the TWO best." "Holy smoke!" says I, gettin' my breath. "If you mean that, Dutchy, you lend me another gun and give me a drink." He done so, and I went back home to where the whole camp of Cyanide was waitin'.