Old Queeder looked warily up from his hot field, where he had been waiting these many days, and beheld the stranger. He dropped his weed fighting and came forward. Dode drifted in from somewhere. “Pretty dry weather we’re having, isn’t it?” remarked the stranger pleasantly meeting him halfway in his approach. “Yes,” he replied vacantly, for he was very, very much worn these days, mentally and physically. “It’s tol’able dry! Tol-able dry!” He wiped his leathery brow with his hand. “You don’t know of any one about here, do you, who has any land for sale?” “Ye’re another one uv them min’l prowspecters, I projeck, eh?” inquired Queeder, now quite openly. There was no need to attempt to conceal that fact any longer. The newcomer was taken aback, for he had not expected so much awareness in this region so soon. “I am,” he said frankly. “I thought so,” said Queeder. “Have you ever thought of selling the land here?” he inquired. “Well, I dunno,” began the farmer shrewdly. “Thar’ve been fellers like yuh aroun’ hyar afore now lookin’ at the place. Whut do yuh cal-late it might be wuth tuh yuh?” He eyed him sharply the while they strolled still further away from the spot where Dode, Jane and the mother formed an audience in the doorway. The prospector ambled about the place examining the surface lumps, so very plentiful everywhere. “This looks like fairly good land to me,” he said quietly after a time. “You haven’t an idea how much you’d want an acre for it, have you?” “Well, I hyur they’re gettin’ ez much ez three hundred down to Arno,” replied Queeder, exaggerating fiercely. Now that a second purchaser had appeared he was eager to learn how much more, if any, than the original offer would be made. “Yes—well, that’s a little steep, don’t you think, considering the distance the metal would have to be hauled to the railroad? It’ll cost considerable to get it over there.” “Not enough, I ’low, tuh make it wuth much less’n three hundred, would it?” observed Queeder, sagely. “Well, I don’t know about that. Would you take two hundred an acre for as much as forty acres of it?” Old Queeder pricked his ears at the sound of bargain. As near as he could figure, two hundred an acre for forty acres would bring him as much as he was now to get for the entire seventy, and he would still have thirty to dispose of. The definiteness of the proposition thrilled him, boded something large for his future—eight thousand for forty, and all he could wring from the first comer had been eight thousand for seventy! “Huh!” he said, hanging on the argument with ease and leisure. “I got an offer uv a option on the hull uv it fer twelve thousan’ now.” “What!” said the stranger, surveying him critically. “Have you signed any papers in the matter?” Queeder looked at him for the moment as if he suspected treachery, and then seeing the gathered family surveying them from the distant doorway he made the newcomer a cabalistic sign.