The Empire Pool Room was an innocent enough place to the uninitiate. To those who had the confidence of the proprietor it was something else. There were rooms upstairs where games were played that were somewhat different from pool and billiards. There was also a bar up there and the drinks that were served over it were not of the soft variety. It seemed that Sucatash and Dave MacKay were known here and had the entrée to the inner circles. De Launay followed them trustfully. The only thing he took the trouble to note was at a rack in front of the place where--strange anachronism in a town that swarmed with shiny automobiles--were tethered two slumberous, moth-eaten burros laden with heavy packs, miners' pan, pick and bedding. "Prospector?" he asked, indicating the dilapidated songsters of the desert. The two cow hands looked at the beasts, identifying them with the facility of their breed. "Old Jim Banker, I reckon. In for a wrastlin' match with the demon rum. Anything you want to know about the Esmeraldas he can tell you, if you can make him talk." "Old Jim Banker? Old-timer, is he?" "Been a-soakin' liquor and a-dryin' out in the desert hereaways ever since fourteen ninety-two, I reckon. B'en here so long he resembles a horned toad more'n anything else." This from Sucatash. De Launay paused inside the door. "I wonder. Are there any more old-timers left hereaways?" "Oh, sure. There's some that dates back past the Spanish War. I reckon 'Snake' Murphy--he tends bar for Johnny the Greek, who runs this honkatonk--he's one of 'em. Banker's another. You remember when them Wall Street guys hired 'Panamint Charlie' Wantage to splurge East in a private car scatterin' double eagles all the way and hoorayin' about the big mine he had in Death Valley?" "No," said De Launay. "When was that?" "Back in nineteen eight." "I was in Algeria then. I'd never heard. But I remember Panamint. He and Jim Banker were partners, weren't they?" "They was." Sucatash looked curiously at De Launay, wondering how a man who was in Algeria came to know so much about these old survivals. "Leastways, I've heard tell they was both of them prospectin' the Esmeraldas a whole lot in them days and hangin' together. But Panamint struck this soft graft and wouldn't let Jim in on it, so they broke up the household. You know--or maybe you don't--that Panamint was finally found dead in a cave in Death Valley and there was talk that Banker followed him there and beefed him, thinkin' he really had a mine. Nothin' come of it except to make folks a little dubious about Jim. He never was remarkable for popularity, nohow, so it don't amount to much." "And Snake Murphy: he used to keep the road house at the ford over the river, didn't he?" Once more Sucatash, fairly well informed on ancient history himself, eyed De Launay askance.