"We got to build a wagon road to Mohawk, set six-horse teams to hauling water, and other teams to hauling water to stations along the road for the teams that haul water for us. All this at once; it's going to be some complicated. "That's the lay: Development work; appropriation for honest men in the first camp; another for lawyers; patentin' three claims; haul water seventy-five miles, no road, and part of that through sand; minin' machinery; build a railroad; smelter, maybe--if some one would kindly find coal. "We want a minimum of five hundred thousand; as much more for accidents. Where does this cousin of yours live? In Abingdon?" "In Vesper--seven miles from Abingdon. He's a lawyer." "Is he all right?" "Why, yes--I guess so. When I was a boy I thought he was a wonderful chap--rather made a hero of him." "When you was a boy?" echoed Johnson; a quizzical twinkle assisted the query. "Oh, well--when he was a boy." "He's older than you, then?" "Nearly twice as old. My father was the youngest son of an old-fashioned family, and I was his youngest. Uncle Roy--Oscar's father--was dad's oldest brother, and Oscar was a first and only." Pete shook his head. "I'm sorry about that, too. I'd be better pleased if he was round your age. No offense to you, Stan; but I'd name no places to your cousin if I were you. When we get legal possession let him come out and see for himself--leadin' a capitalist, if possible." "Oscar's all right, I guess," protested Stan. "But you can't do more than guess? Name him no names, then. I wish he was younger," said Peter with a melancholy expression. "The world has a foolish old saying: 'The good die young.' That's all wrong, Stanley. It isn't true. The young die good!" CHAPTER V Something Dewing, owner of Cobre's Emporium of Chance, sat in his room in the Admiral Dewey Hotel. It was a large and pleasant room, refitted and over-furnished by Mr. Dewing at the expense of his fellow townsmen, grateful or otherwise. It is well to mention here that, upon the tongues of the scurrile, "Something," as a praise-name and over-name for Mr. Dewing, suffered a sea change to "Surething"--Surething Dewing; just as the Admiral Dewey Hotel was less favorably known as "Stagger Inn." Mr. Dewing's eye rested dreamily upon the picture, much praised of connoisseurs, framed by his window--the sharp encircling contours of Cobre Mountain; the wedge of tawny desert beyond Farewell Gap. Rousing himself from such contemplation, he broke a silence, sour and unduly prolonged.