“No. Copper. And a good, healthy lead of it. I traced the vein some distance before I would believe it myself. And the bulk of it seemed to lie right inside the boundaries of that supposedly worthless claim those poor people had bought. “I didn’t dare tell anybody at first. I had to figure out how she could be mined (for copper mining isn’t like washing gold dust) and how the ore could be taken to the crusher. The old roads were pretty good, I found. It wouldn’t be much of a haul from Seeper’s Gulch to town. “Then I told Uncle Terry—and showed him.” Ned waited, looking at Garry curiously. “That—that’s where he and I locked horns,” sighed Garry. “Uncle Terry was for offering to buy the claim for a hundred dollars. He had that much in his jeans and the squatters were desperate—meat and meal all out and not enough gold in the bottom of the pans to color a finger-ring.” He was silent again for a moment, and then continued: “I couldn’t see it. To take advantage of the ignorance of that poor family wasn’t a square deal. Uncle Terry lost his head and then lost his temper. To stop him from making any such deal I out with my story and showed those folks just where they stood. A little money would start ’em, and I lent them that——” “But your Uncle Terry?” asked Ned, curiously. “Oh, he went off mad. I saw the squatters started right and then made for home. I was some time getting there——” “You cleaned yourself out helping the owners of the claim?” put in Ned, shrewdly. “Why—yes, I did. But that was nothing. I’d been broke before. I got a job here and there to carry me along. But when I reached home Uncle Terry had hiked out for Alaska and left a letter with a lawyer for me. I was the one bad egg in the family,” and Garry laughed rather ruefully, “so he said. He’d rather give his money to build a rattlesnake home than to me. So that’s where we stand to-day. And you see, White, I did not exactly prepare myself for any profession or any business, depending as I was on Uncle Terry’s bounty.” “Tough luck,” announced Ned White. “It was very foolish on my part. No man should look forward to another’s shoes. If I had gone ahead with the understanding that I had my own row to hoe when I got through school, believe me, I should have picked my line long before I left the university and prepared accordingly. “I figure that I’m set back several years. With this little bunch of money your uncle is going to pay me for my old ranch I have got to get into something that will begin to turn me a penny at once. Not so easy to do, Mr. White.” “But what about the folks you steered into the copper mine?” asked Ned. “Oh, they are making out fairly well. It was no great fortune, but a good paying proposition and may keep going for years. Copper is away up now, you know. They paid me back the loan long ago. But poor old Uncle Terry—well, he is still sore, and I guess he will remain so for the remainder of his natural. I’m sorry for him.”