"Nope," said Big Boy, "you can't work me now--you lost your horse-shoe this morning. I was a hobo then and you told me to go to hell, but now when you see I've got eight hundred dollars you're trying to bunco me out of it. I know who you are, I've heard the boys tell about you--you're one of these blue-bellied Yankees that try to make a living swapping jack-knives. You got your name from that Bunker Hill monument and they shortened it down to Bunk. Well, you lose--that's all I'll say; I wouldn't buy your claims if they showed twenty dollar gold pieces, with everything on 'em but the eagle-tail. And the formation is no good here, anyhow." "Oh, it ain't, hey?" came back Bunk thrusting out his jaw belligerently, "well take a look up at that cliff. That Apache Leap is solid porphyry----" "Apache Leap!" broke in Big Boy suddenly sitting erect and looking all around, "by grab, is this the place?" "This is the place," replied Old Bunk wagging his head and smiling wisely, "and that cap is solid porphyry." "Gee, boys!" exclaimed Big Boy getting up on his feet, "say, is that where they killed all those Indians?" "The very place," returned Bunker Hill proudly, "you can find their skeletons there to this day." "Well, for cripe's sake," murmured Big Boy at last and looked up at the cliff again. "Some jump-off," observed Bunker, but Big Boy did not hear him--he was looking up at the sun. "Say," he said, "when the sun rises in the morning how far out does that shadow come?" "What shadow?" demanded Bunker Hill. "Oh, of Apache Leap? It goes way out west of town." "And does it throw its shadow on these hills where your claims are? Well, old-timer, I'll just take a look at them." He climbed out purposefully and began to put on his shoes and Old Bunk squinted at him curiously. There was something going on that he did not know about--some connection between the Leap and his mines; he waited, and the secret popped out. "Say," said Big Boy after a long minute of silence, "do you believe in fortune-tellers?" "Sure thing!" spoke up Bunker, suddenly taking a deep breath and swallowing his Adam's apple solemnly, "I believe in them phenomena implicitly. And, as I was about to say, you can have any claim I've got for eight hundred dollars--cash." CHAPTER V MOTHER TRIGEDGO "Well, I'll tell you," confided Big Boy, moving closer to Old Bunk and lowering his voice mysteriously, "I know you'll think I'm crazy, but there's something to that stuff. Maybe we don't understand it, and of course there's a lot of fakes, but I got this from Mother Trigedgo. She's that Cornish seeress, that predicted the big cave in the stope of the Last Chance mine, and now I _know_ she's good. She tells fortunes by cards and by pouring water in your hand and going into a trance. Then she looks into the water and sees a kind of vision of all that is going to happen. Well, here's what she said for me--and she wrote it down on a paper.