It was close upon four then. Patton was for calling his wife in and breaking the news at once. “And we’ll close up and cut out supper,” he declared, “and have a little celebration.” But Blandy flatly objected. “Don’t shut down just a’ hour or two before a meal,” he advised. “Put a sign on the front door to-night. Say on it that the rest’rant is closed ’cause your wife is plumb wored out. We can’t afford to give ourselves away, Patton. There’s plenty of men in Searles that can smell a strike forty mile. Look out or some of ’em ’ll be follerin’ us.” “You’re right,” declared Patton. Thus it came about that Polly cooked supper in ignorance of the sudden good fortune that was to make such further toiling unnecessary. Blandy went out into the hot kitchen a second time. But he had little to say, and devoted his efforts to the washing and drying of the dishes, which he received in pyramids from the swinging left arm of the flaxen-haired waiter; and when, shortly after seven o’clock, the last guest was gone, and the last dish clean, Blandy swept and mopped the kitchen floor. At eight, by the light of a single candle, there was a conference of three at one of the oilcloth-covered tables in the front room. The waiter had taken himself off in the direction of the main saloon down the street, out of which were floating the strains of a violin and the voices of singing women. Nevertheless, Blandy told his story in a half-whisper, and without pointing. “The ledge is in a spur of the range back of Salt Basin,” he confided. “And clost to--what do you think?” “What?” questioned Patton. “The bowl in the rock!” Patton turned to his wife. “That’s the spring I told you about,” he explained. “I went out there four years ago with a prospector. You wouldn’t believe, Polly, that water could be found in a place like that--a regular ash-pile, you might say. But there it is. The bowl is hollowed out as pretty as can be. And the water comes in drop by drop--just at night, though. It leaks in through a split that’s so fine you couldn’t get a knife-blade into it. But what comes in doesn’t run out, because the bowl’s good-sized, and if the buzzards don’t drink the water up, the sun does.” Polly made no comment. She sat very still, watching Blandy steadily. Her face was as pale as it had been scarlet at mid-afternoon. “The lead ain’t more’n a stone’s throw from the bowl,” went on Blandy; “--to the right up the slope. Say! think of the feller’s that’ve missed it!--’cause they was so all-fired glad to find water that they forgot all about gold. But _I_ found it. I was comin’ down the slope, headin’ for a drink, when my darned feet got all tangled up and I took a double-ender. Wal, sir, when I sit up to feel if any bones was broke, here was the blossom rock, lookin’ me straight in the eye!--yeller chunks, Patton, as big as pine-nuts!” Patton’s black eyes were glistening. “How high’ll that rock run?” he asked.