"And that ain't all. He said just before he went off--just like this--mind you: 'I'd 'a' got Bully Presby, too, because he didn't treat me fair, after me doin' my best and a-keepin' my mouth shut about what I knew of the big lead.' Now, what in hell do you suppose he meant by that?" CHAPTER XIV "THOUGH LOVE SAY NAY" "Of one thing I am sure," said Dick on the following day, when they began to readjust themselves for a decision, "and that is that if we can find work for them, there isn't a man on the works that I don't want to keep. They are too true and loyal to lose." "We could drive into the blacksmith's tunnel," Bill said; "and I've an idea we might strike something when we pass under that hard cone just above--well, just about under where Bells is. I saw it yesterday when we were up there for the first time. That would give the millman and his gang something to do. Some of 'em can take out the rest of the green lead, and after that drift see if it comes in again. And the others that can't do anything underground, can turn to and build up the dam, with a few masons to help, and, when a new wheel comes, the millman will know how to set that all right again. So, you see, we don't have to lose any of them that has stood by us, so long as Sloan is ready to take his gamble and the hundred thousand lasts. Before that's gone, we'll just have to make good. And somehow I feel we will." As if to add to the mental trials of the half-owner of the Croix d'Or, but another day elapsed after this decision and adjustment before he received a letter from a Seattle broker offering him a price for his interest in the mine. Thus wrote the agent: "My client has the timber and water rights of your property in view more than anything underground, which, on the advice of experts who have visited the property in previous years, he seems to regard as worthless. He informs me that you are, to all intents, representing not only your own interest, but that of the other partner, who places implicit confidence in you. I presume that you will therefore be amenable to doing all you can to save from the wreckage of the dead property all that is possible in behalf of that partner as well as yourself, and am authorized to make you the extremely liberal offer of sixty thousand dollars for the full title to the property." The price was ridiculously low, and Dick knew it; yet if the mine produced nothing more, and was, as the experts were supposed to have reported, worthless, the amount was extremely liberal. But for Bill he would have hesitated to decline such an offer. That worthy, however, threw his head back and roared derisively. "Sixty thousand? Sixty thousand! What does that idiot think men who have dropped a quarter of a million in a property would quit for? Does he think that sixty thousand is any saving from a wreck like this has been? Tell him to chase himself--that the tail goes with the hide, and you'll quit clean whipped, or not at all."