“I’ll keep in the background, all right, Magpie. Silent? Say, old-timer, any time I’m in the shadow of the law I’m so silent that you could hear uh clam, under sixteen feet uh Missouri mud, calling to its mate.”

Long in the afternoon uh livery rig drives in from Devil’s Turn and unloads uh couple uh men, and then leaves. Magpie don’t waste no time in getting acquainted and extending uh welcome. One is uh tall, dark hombre and the other is shorter and runs uh little to gray on top. They both wears store clothes and boiled collars, and they each got uh valise, which Magpie packs up to our wickiup and places under our bunks.

“We’re mighty glad to see yuh,” orates Magpie, bowing each of ’em to uh chair, the same uh which makes me set on the steps.

“Quite some camp yuh got here,” remarks the short feller. “Must be money here, eh?”

“Uh-huh,” agrees Magpie. “Yuh might say there is. Would you like to look over the works?”

“I wouldn’t—” I starts to cut in, but Magpie shuts me right up.

“Ike, you better get back on the job,” he states. “I got company to entertain, and you got work to do. I can’t pay my hired help for loafing. Sabe?”

That makes me so mad that I goes down and sets on the dam, and wishes I had that canoe right now. After a while I sees Magpie and them two supervisors emerge from the cabin and wander down to where some men are cleaning some bed-rock.

They each got uh gold pan, and after they had been down there for uh while I wanders down. Them two hombres are some enthusiastic, believe me, and they’re panning dirt like they was doing it for uh living.

“Look!” yelps the tall feller, poking around in his pan. I sees Magpie wink at Swede Carlson, who is bossing the gang, and the Swede grins.

“Let me get yuh uh pan uh dirt,” says Magpie. Him and Swede takes that pan and fills it with jewelry. When they’re cleaning bed-rock they finds nuggets in the deep crevices, which they digs out and stacks in little heaps.

I reckon that feller’s pan would run about fifty dollars, and he waits with us. Then Magpie and Swede does the same to the other feller’s pan. It’s just like letting uh man dig down into your pockets on pay-day. It ain’t no hard job to swipe uh hundred or two in uh case like that, but it ain’t my place to act as lookout in uh game like that. I estimates how much ham and aigs I could buy with what we’ll lose, and the figures brings tears to my eyes.

Don’t get the idea that Ike Harper is stingy. He ain’t. When they starts out on more pans of the same stuff my eyes gets so full uh tears that I can’t see, so I goes out into the timber and weeps alone. After the irrigation season is over I goes back to the cabin, and finds them in there weighing the gold.

“Yours weighs twenty ounces,” announces Magpie to the tall Jasper. “And the other gentleman gets twenty-three.”

Magpie talks like uh referee at uh raffle, and I wonders where I laid my gun.

“Wonderful ground!” exclaims the oldest one. “Isn’t it great to pan out real money like that! The feel of it makes me wish it all belonged to me.”

“It does,” states Magpie. “Do yuh think I took yuh down there to pan out gold for me? Not any. You fellers can split them forty-three ounces as uh present from the Golden Hunch. Sabe?”

“What’s the main idea?” asks the tall one, looking at Magpie in uh queer way.

“Listen; did yuh ever hear of the virtue of blindness?”

“Uh-huh,” agrees the tall one, with uh slow grin. “I have, but not in just that way.”

“Well,” says Magpie, “uh man’s duty is sacred, but he can always go deaf, dumb and blind and not hurt nobody. Sabe? Sometimes it pays to be near-sighted.”

Them two supervisors looks at each other for uh few seconds and then at the gold, and they both nods. The tall one gets up and stretches his frame.

“Under them circumstances we sabe your proposition,” says he. “I’d like to have uh little talk with my friend, so if yuh don’t mind we’ll take uh little walk over the works.”

“She’s yours,” says Magpie. “Go right ahead and take your own time. If yuh see anything you want, take it. The keys of the Golden Hunch are yours.”

We sees ’em wander right up to our dam, and set down on uh pile uh new lumber.

* * * * *

“Well,” says I, “they’ve found it, Magpie. They got about eight hundred of our money and you ain’t even got uh receipt. Why didn’t yuh wait until they puts uh price on themselves?”

“Ike, you’re uh silent pardner in this. Sabe? We ain’t going to go to no jail. You don’t sabe political finance, Ike, and therefore you’re uh step behind the progress uh civilization. I knows how to handle ’em. Them fellers has got to figure out how much it’s worth to them.”

“What are they going to do? Give us back some change?” I asks.

“Eight hundred ain’t much in uh case like this, Ike.”

“Ain’t, eh?” I retorts. “Before we locates this mine, Magpie, eight dollars would have seemed uh lot if the case was first-degree murder. You ain’t going to give ’em more, are yuh?”

“Ike, yuh can’t be uh piker in uh case like this.”

“Santa Claus,” says I, “you can give ’em your immortal soul and honor, but I’ll be danged if you gives ’em any more uh that jewelry gravel—not while Ike Harper lives.”

I goes down and sets on the bank the rest of the day, but they don’t show up again.

I’m so mad that I don’t eat with them at supper. Later on I goes up to the shack, and finds Magpie on the steps smoking uh cigaret.

“Well, Andrew Rockefeller, you got rid of all your filthy money?” I asks. “I just happens to think that them Boston books will be fine to stock some uh them libraries you’re giving away today.”

“Go take uh ride in your little canoe, Ike,” he grins. “Things is coming our way, just like I said. They may leave tomorrow.”

“Yes?” says I. “I’d leave, too, if I had eight hundred dollars. What right they got to all that money, Magpie?”

“Ike, yuh got to pay for them things. Them two supervisors comes up here to wish us into the pen. They comes with malice in their hearts, and I meets ’em like they was potentates.

“They sizes up things, and from the way I treats ’em they begins to think: ‘Well, this here Simpkins person ain’t no bad hombre. He’s big-hearted and open-handed. He’s real folks. He treats us like we was royalty, and we ain’t got the heart to yell about uh few feet uh timber. Uh course we got to be paid expenses for the trip.’

“Now, ain’t that deduction, Ike?”

“Yes,” says I. “Your reasoning is as wise as the wau-wau of an owl, which consists uh hoots. You sure treats ’em royal, Magpie. I don’t know what it costs to travel, but two broncs and uh buckboard over forty miles uh passable road is well paid at eight hundred dollars. Dog-gone it, Magpie, I’d inch that distance on my back for that money.”

Magpie smokes away on his cigaret for uh while and then opines:

“You’d lose money and skin, Ike. You couldn’t average more than two inches at uh wiggle, could yuh? Well, you never could wiggle the last ten miles. Now thirty miles would mean one million, nine hundred thousand, eight hundred inches, which would mean nine hundred and fifty thousand, four hundred wiggles. Figuring an average of ten wiggles to the minute—yuh can’t figure more than that on account of meals and so forth, Ike, you——”

“Magpie,” says I, “you said that every man had uh price. What’s yours?”

“Huh! What yuh want to know for?”

“I wants to see if I got enough to buy you, Magpie. If I got enough I’ll take yuh, old-timer, cause the law gives uh man the right to kill anything he buys.”

Just then them two supervisors shows up, and sets down with us.

“We must find uh place to sleep tonight,” states the tall one, and Magpie immediate and soon gets generous again.

“Take our beds,” says he. “Right inside is two fine bunks, and I’d deem it uh favor to the Golden Hunch if you’d accept. You’d have the seclusion that should be accorded to honored guests.”

“Pshaw!” exclaims the tall one. “We don’t like to deprive you gents of your beds thataway.”

“No depredation uh tall,” says Magpie. “You fellers go right in and go to bed. I’ll tell the cook to have uh good breakfast for yuh. Don’t hurry, ’cause he works all day.”

“Magpie,” says I, after they shuts the door. “Do you know what mesika hyas pelton means?”

“No,” says he.

“Well, in the Chinook jargon it means that you’re uh danged fool. The word hyas may be used for any adjective yuh feels like. If yuh can think of anything real nasty and expressive yuh can tack it on in place of the word danged that I used. I’d love you, Magpie—if you was dead! You gives up our good beds to them gol-blasted officials—dang your string-bean carcass to thunder!”

“We’ll sleep in the bunk-house, Ike. There’s an empty bunk.”

“Yes!” I snorts. “We’ll sleep in the bunk-house and get lousy. Aw, don’t tell me that there ain’t no itch-bugs in there, Magpie. I seen them six hombres from Cinnamon Crick scratching each other like uh bunch uh monkeys. I hope you gets ’em in your mustache and has to shave it off.”

“Don’t get sore, Ike,” says he, soothing like. “After tomorrow these forest officials will be gone, and life will be one pleasure after another.”