“Haven’t seen anything yet of Monty Girard. Can’t think what’s the matter, unless that savage Ford of his attacked him when he wasn’t looking. It will be just as well now if he holds off till I get your alfalfa cut and stacked. I’ll have a merry heck of a time doing it alone. There’s about four acres, I should judge. To-morrow morning I start in and do a one-step around the patch with that cussed scythe. You needn’t think it’s going to be funny--not for Handsome Gary. I tried to get the youngest Piute to double for me in the part, but nothing doing. ‘Them holler no good,’ is what he said. Funny--I kinda feel that way myself. Money wouldn’t tempt ’em. He spoke well of Steve Carson, too; but he sure as heck don’t like his voice. “What would you say, kid, if I found you a mine in here? I’ve had the strongest hunch--I can’t explain it. I keep thinking there’s a mine up on the bluff where that Voice is. I suppose I can trace the idea back to that porphyry float I picked up the day after I landed here. I found another piece yesterday, lying out here behind the cabin. It must have been packed in from somewhere else. Pretty rich-looking rock, kid. If I could find enough of that, you wouldn’t need to pound out invoices and gol-darned letters about horse feed and what to wean calves on. You could have a white mansion topping that hill of ours, where we climb up and sit under the oak while we build our air castles. Will we ever again? You feel farther away than the sun, kid. I have to write just to keep my thoughts from growing numb with the damned chill of this place. You know--I wrote it down before. It’s hell to be wondering what you’d see if you looked around.... “Well, if I find you a mine you can have your mansion on the hill. Because, if the mine stacked up like the rock I found, you could carry a million dollars around with you careless-like for spending money--street-car fare, you know, and a meal at the cafeteria, and such luxuries. And if your pocket was picked or your purse snatched or anything, you could wave your hand airily and say, ‘Oh, that’s all right. I’ve hundreds of millions more at home!’ How’d you like that, old girl? “Because I mortared a piece of that rock and panned it. It was rich, Pat--so darned rich it scared me for a minute. I thought I had a bad case of Desert Rat’s Delusion. I wouldn’t tell you this, kid, if I ever meant to send the letter. I’m just writing to please myself, not you. No, sir, I wouldn’t tell you a word about it. I’d just go ahead and open up the mine--after I’d found it--and get about a million dollars on the dump before I let a yip out of me. Then maybe I’d send you word through your lawyer saying ‘I begged to inform you that I had dug you a million dollars, and how would you have it?’ Golly grandma, if I could only find the ledge that rock came from!