"Don't mind John Emmett, boys. He has no sense of humor, anyway. To-morrow, I think we'll just postpone our field work and go into this proposition very thoroughly with you. Our time and what scant knowledge we have is at your disposal, and free as the desert air. I hope you won't hesitate to use both as long as you feel the need. And whether we decide to roll up our sleeves and help make you a millionaire, Bill, or whether we go on pecking at rocks for the government, I hope you'll rely always upon our friendship and good will." They had been gone some minutes before Don straightened from his hunched position on a box and knocked the cold ashes from his pipe. "We'll try and get them in," he said slowly. "That town-site idea is worth darn near as much as your mine." CHAPTER TWELVE A MAN SHOULDN'T MIX BUSINESS WITH LOVE The big hotel in Goldfield was humming with talk and laughter, as people rushed here and there. Arriving guests were lined up at the desk, waiting anxiously to hear whether they could have a room and bath, or must content themselves with a plain room. A third of them betrayed signs of having slept out under the stars or under canvas. A few of them gazed at these desert dwellers with curiosity that was more than a little envious. The rest were quite absorbed in their own affairs and gave no attention to their neighbors. And the loungers in the great, velvet-upholstered chairs scattered amongst the great pillars of the lobby, watched the new ones, idly amused or indifferent. "That's Bill Dale," a slender, black-eyed man volunteered to his companion on the right, and waved his cigar toward the elevator. "And that's his bride--the little Hunter girl. You know Don Hunter, don't you? Sure, you do! Well, that's his daughter and her mother. Bill? Why, he's the fellow that discovered Parowan! Gold you could hack out of the quartz with your knife! Yeah--that's the stuff they've got over across the street, in the window. Brought in a ton of it and dumped it in that window like so much dirt! "Talk about luck! You know how he found it? Why, he was prospecting around and happened to camp at Parowan spring one night. And I'm blamed if a young cloud-burst didn't hit that side of the mountain, that night, and uncovered the whole vein, bare as your hand. Fact. Bill ran slap on to it when he went to the spring next morning for water. "He was cute as the next one. Staked out a group of claims and kept the whole thing hushed up till he'd got everything nailed down. Laid out a town site, even. Did that on the quiet, too--Don Hunter got a surveyor friend of his to go down and run some lines on his ranch. When he got him down there, he just hitched up and hauled him over to Bill's claims, and had him lay out Parowan town and survey the group of claims so there wouldn't be any chance for fraction hunters. Everything air-tight----