THE CLAIM JUMPERS _A ROMANCE_ BY STEWART EDWARD WHITE 1901 CONTENTS CHAPTER I.--JIM LESLIE WRITES A LETTER II.--THE STORY-BOOK WEST III.--BENNINGTON HUNTS FOR GOLD AND FINDS A KISS IV.--THE SUN FAIRY V.--THE SPIRIT MOUNTAIN VI.--BENNINGTON AS A MAN OF BUSINESS VII.--THE MEETING AT THE ROCK VIII.--AN ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT IX.--THE HEAVENS OPENED X.--THE WORLD MADE YOUNG XI.--AND HE DID EAT XII.--OLD MIZZOU RESIGNS XIII.--THE SPIRES OF STONE XIV.--THE PIONEER'S PICNIC XV.--THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN XVI.--A NOON DINNER XVII.--NOBLESSE OBLIGE XVIII.--THE CLAIM JUMPERS XIX.--BENNINGTON PROVES GAME XX.--MASKS OFF XXI.--THE LAND OF VISIONS XXII.--FLOWER O' THE WORLD CHAPTER I JIM LESLIE WRITES A LETTER In a fifth-story sitting room of a New York boarding house four youths were holding a discussion. The sitting room was large and square, and in the wildest disorder, which was, however, sublimated into a certain system by an illuminated device to the effect that one should "Have a Place for Everything, and then there'll be one Place you won't have to look." Easels and artists' materials thrust back to the wall sufficiently advertised the art student, and perhaps explained the untidiness. Two of the occupants of the room, curled up on elevated window ledges, were emitting clouds of tobacco smoke and nursing their knees; the other two, naked to the waist, sat on a couple of ordinary bedroom mattresses deposited carefully in the vacant centre of the apartment. They were eager, alert-looking young men, well-muscled, curly of hair, and possessing in common an unabashed carriage of the head which, more plainly than any mere facial resemblance, proved them brothers. They, too, were nursing their knees. "He must be an unadorned ass," remarked one of the occupants of the window seats, in answer to some previous statement. "He is not," categorically denied a youth of the mattresses. "My dear Hench, you make no distinctions. I've been talking about the boy's people and his bringing up and the way he acts, whereupon you fly off on a tangent and coolly conclude things about the boy himself. It is not only unkind, but stupid." Hench laughed. "You amuse me, Jeems," said he; "elucidate." Jeems let go his knees. The upper part of his body, thus deprived of support, fell backward on the mattress. He then clasped his hands behind his head, and stared at the ceiling.