"Oh, that's all right, young man," returned Old Henry, looking up with a humorous smile; "we all of us make our mistakes. I knowed you didn't mean no offense and so I never took none. Fact is, I liked you all the better for it. This country is getting settled up with a class of people that never give a nickel to nobody. You paid for that meal like it was nothing, and never so much as looked at me. Sit down, sit down--I want to talk to you!" They sat down by the stove and fell into a friendly conversation in which nothing more was said of the late inadvertence, but when Bud rose to go the old man beckoned him back. "Hold on," he protested; "don't go off mad. I want to have a talk with you on business. You seem to be a pretty good young fellow--maybe we can make some dicker. What are you looking for in these parts?" "Well," responded Bud, "some kind of a leasing proposition, I reckon. Me and my pardner jest come in from Mexico, over near the Chihuahua line, and we don't hardly know what we do want yet." "Yes, I've noticed that pardner of yours," remarked Henry Kruger dryly. "He's a great talker. I was listening to you boys out on the street there, having nothing else to do much, and being kinder on the lookout for a man, anyway, and it struck me I liked your line of talk best." "You're easy satisfied, then," observed Bud, with a grin. "I never said a word hardly." "That's it," returned Kruger significantly; "this job I've got _calls_ for a man like that." "Well, Phil's all right," spoke up Bud, with sudden warmth. "We been pardners for two years now and he never give nothing away yet! He talks, but he don't forget himself. And the way he can palaver them Mexicans is a wonder." "Very likely, very likely," agreed Kruger, and, then he sat a while in silence. "We got a few thousand dollars with us, too," volunteered Bud at last. "I'm a good worker, if that's what you want--and Phil, he's a mining engineer." "Um-m," grunted Kruger, tugging at his beard, but he did not come out with his proposal. "I tell you," he said at last. "I'm not doing much talking about this proposition of mine. It's a big thing, and somebody might beat me to it. You know who I am, I guess. I've pulled off some of the biggest deals in this country for a poor man, and I don't make many mistakes--not about mineral, anyway. And when I tell you that this is rich--you're talking with a man that knows." He fixed his shrewd, blue eyes on the young man's open countenance and waited for him to speak. "That's right," he continued, as Bud finally nodded non-committally; "she's sure rich. I've had an eye on this proposition for years--just waiting for the right time to come. And now it's come! All I need is the man. It ain't a dangerous undertaking--leastwise I don't think it is--but I got to have somebody I can trust. I'm willing to pay you good wages, or I'll let you in on the deal--but you'll have to go down into Mexico."