"Well, they was still excited when I got here!" Bill gazed up at the ceiling, his half-shut eyes hiding their twinkle. "It's too bad you didn't happen to be one of the lucky ones," Harper consoled him, arising from his chair. "Lucky?" Bill scratched his head under his ragged slouch-hat. "Say, I located more claims than any man what ever came out here! I been a civil engineer." The table was not a sufficient throne for Bill, so he slipped down from it and went close to Harper, peering up at him. "You ought to be a rich man, Mr. Jones!" "Always cheated out of my share." Bill shook his head sadly. "Crooked partners was the reason." "Couldn't you do anything to them?" "I shot some, put all the others in the penitentiary--all but one." "What happened to him?" "He died before I got him." "Died of fright, perhaps?" "I guess so." Harper took his hat from the table, clapped Bill on the back, and said, laughingly, "I think I'll get out before you tell me any more!" Marvin urged him to have a bite of supper, but Harper declined, explaining, as he went to the door, that he had to be in Truckee in two hours, and that it would take him fully that time to make it in his car. Bill, anxious to retain his audience, added his entreaty to Marvin's. That failing, he followed Harper to the door, searching for an excuse to hinder his leaving. Harper paused at the door. "Well, Marvin," he said, "I'm going to send the trucks down here to-morrow and start hauling. And you might as well disappear from here for a while; then, if there's any kick, no one here will know anything about it. I'll keep you posted. Are you sure you don't want that eight hundred now?" He took out his wallet and again tried to make Marvin take the money, but again Marvin refused. Bill had been listening to every word. Now he seemed to have hit on a way to detain Harper and at the same time prove his own personal importance. As Harper shook hands with Marvin, Bill took an envelop from his pocket. Drawing a paper from it, he offered it to Harper. "If you want to get rid of some of that money," he remarked, easily, "maybe you'd cash that check for me." Harper, examining it, saw that it was a government check. "Oh, a pension check! So you were in the war?" "First man to enlist!" Smiling, Harper handed him the check to "indorse"--which happened to be a new word on Bill. "Write your name on the back of it," said Harper. "I always do that," said Bill, as he complied. Then he held the check up to the light, pointing to the signatures on its face. "See all them names," he asked, "Secretary of the Treasury, and all of 'em?" Harper nodded wonderingly. "Well, they ain't no good at all--not unless I sign it!" said Bill, triumphantly. Harper laughed; handed Bill the money for the check, and, with a final "Good-night!" hurried out of the door. Bill poked his head out, watching him crank his machine and drive away in the moonlight.