Self-made man

“ After taking out a somewhat rumpled shirt, a suit of underclothes and a couple of pair of socks, Prawle said:
“Now, young gents, I’m going to show you some of the finest specimens of real virgin copper ever dug out of mother earth.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Charlie, a slight shade of disappointment in his voice, “I thought it was gold or silver quartz you had there. But copper——”
“Young man,” said Prawle, diving one hairy paw into his grip and fishing out a magnificent specimen of raw copper, “look at that and hold your breath. There is ninety per cent of copper in that hunk. Think of that! ”

“ Charlie gave the prospector the history of Dave Plunkett’s operations in Sackville, so far as he knew, as well as his opinion of the man’s character.
“Well,” said Prawle, “I judge if he rounds up Jim Sanders before we do, it’ll be all day with us. Without that option I haven’t got the ghost of a claim on the ground. It’s a thousand pities things have turned out as they have. Who would have suspected we had a listener that night in your pop’s surgery?” looking at Charlie Fox. ”

“ You may perhaps know what capitalists are. They want to get the cream of everything they are asked to back, and I, for one, don’t believe in letting too much of a good thing get away from us,” said Jack, earnestly.
“You’ve a pretty level head, Jack,” replied the prospector, who had imbibed a considerable amount of respect for the boy’s ideas and good practical sense.
“Thank you for your good opinion,” answered the bright boy. “One has got to keep his eyes open and his wits on edge to get along in these days of close competition.”
“I move we adjourn,” chipped in Charlie, with a laugh. ”

“ Charlie lit the surgery lamp and then turned down the sheet which had hidden the body from view.
It was then that Jack made the remark with which this chapter opens.
“Does your mother and sister know that this body is here?” asked Jack.
“No,” replied Charlie, shaking his head.
“Would it bother them any?”
“Well, they’re rather delicate about having dead ones so close at hand. Pop always keeps these things a secret; they never have the least idea there’s going to be an inquest till the jurors come—and not always then.” ”

“ I ought to have the larger share.”
“Can’t help that,” replied Plunkett, doggedly. “You can’t do nothing without money, and I’ve got the dust. I’ve made up my mind to be an equal partner, and so halves it’s got to be.”
“But I hold the option on the ground,” insisted Otis.
“Pooh! What good is it to you? It ain’t in your name, and if it was you haven’t the money to complete the deal. What you want to do with that option is to destroy it; then it won’t turn up to put us in a hole, may be. I’m goin’ to look up Jim Sanders right away. ”

“ If, after he has accomplished this, you interfere with your claim he will demand that you produce the option, which, of course, you cannot do. Our only hope in this matter is to run across Jim Sanders before Clymer can get his work in. All you will then have to do is to pay down the balance of the purchase money, and get a bill of sale of the ground.”
“That’s all right,” spoke up Charlie Fox; “but even if he does succeed in getting the bulge on us, what is to prevent us having him arrested on a telegraphic order from Sackville, for the double crime of attempted murder and arson?” ”

“ The two schemers then crossed over to the end of the freight sheds and disappeared.
“So, those scoundrels have arranged to steal my car of ore,” said Jack to himself, as he walked slowly back the way he had come. “And I’ll bet it’s not entirely for the value of the stuff they’re doing this either. They’ve a deeper game. They think now that the mine is in possession of mere boys that the loss of this carload of pure copper may ruin and discourage us, and that, through their agents, they stand a good chance of buying in the mining property cheap. ”

“ Then a convulsive movement shook the body, the hands and feet twitched, and the jaw moved slightly.
“B’gee!” exclaimed Jack, “the man isn’t dead at all.”
“Shumping Moses!” ejaculated Meyer, almost frightened out of his skin. “Let me ouid!” and he made a rush for the door and disappeared.
“What a chump I was not to have tried that this morning when they fetched him in here,” said Charlie, as his chum stopped turning the crank of the galvanic battery. “It was a partial failure of the heart’s action, producing a trancelike state. Wait; I’ll get some brandy.” ”

“ He looked down at the body stretched out on a slate slab in the center of the little surgery at the rear of Dr. Phineas Fox’s drugstore in the town of Sackville, Neb.
“He certainly does look natural—not at all like the usual run of subjects that find their way in here occasionally,” admitted his friend and chum, Charlie Fox, the doctor’s son, holding the kerosene lamp he carried in his hand well up, so as to bring the dead man into full relief. ”

“ As Prawle and the two boys took his part, and interceded in his favor, the doctor was prevailed upon to give a reluctant consent to his going with the party.
“Well, boys, here we are on the ground at last,” said Prawle, enthusiastically. “Here’s the creek I spoke to you about which runs into the North Branch of the Cheyenne River, five miles or so away, and yonder you see the hole in the rock which affords entrance to one of the richest copper deposits in the great Northwest. Unfortunately, it isn’t really ours as yet till we find Jim Sanders, who sold me the option on the property.” ”

“ Plunkett whistled softly.
“You can’t get out of town any too quick for your personal safety, Clymer. Arson is a serious charge to have brought against you, and if convicted would mean anywhere from ten to fifteen years in the State prison.”
“Yes, I realize that. But there is no use now in crying over spilled milk. I’m going out to Montana to try and get possession of that copper mine, and what I want to know is, Are you with me? This is my plan.” ”

“ Charlie waited for it in a fever of impatience.
“Now, get into your clothes and come down yourself as quick as you can,” he cried to the boy, when the key flopped at his feet.
“Shimmany Christmas!” grumbled the German lad, as he watched Charlie rush to the barn with the key. “Dis vos a nice hour to voke a feller ub, I don’d dink. Off I stood it much longer I am a yackass.”
Dr. Fox, when he appeared on the scene, was amazed to find the unconscious form of Gideon Prawle lying stretched out like a dead man upon the grass. ”

“ Now, gents, what kind of a dockument did you make Jim Sanders sign here yesterday?”
“A duplicate bill of sale of his claim,” said Clymer.
“When did he give the original bill of sale?”
“A week ago.”
“Well, gents, I tell you what we’ll do. You date that duplicate paper back, then we’ll just go down to the creek and tell those chaps we bought the property first. Of course there’ll be a kick. Then we’ll sail in and clean ’em out. If somebody gets hurt, it mustn’t be us.”
“Do you mean to kill the four of them?” asked Plunkett, not exactly relishing the scheme. ”

“ Where’s your sand?” said Coffey, who didn’t wish to lose his new acquaintances while they had a dollar to spend on his premises. “Don’t get discouraged all at once. There’s more ways than one of killin’ a cat.”
“Well, you’re one of us, now. What do you propose?” asked Clymer.
“How many are there in that party all told?”
“Four—Prawle and the three boys. One of them is a Dutch boy.”
“You think the claim is valuable enough to fight for, do you?”
“I’m certain of it. Prawle, who ought to know, said the rock would turn out ninety per cent. copper.” ”

“ Mr. Price drew up the papers which makes you the principal owner of the Pandora, and they’re signed and witnessed in regular shape, so nobody can do you or your friends out of the claim. Three-fifths of the mine is now yours, the other parts I have allotted to Charlie Fox and young Meyer Dinkelspeil. I have chartered the steamer River Bird to tow the flat-boat to one of the wharves of this town. Mr. Price here will cart the stuff for you over to the freight house, where a car has been arranged for to take the ore to Marysville. ”

“ Vhy not?” retorted Meyer, opening his mouth to its full extent.
“Don’t do that again,” remonstrated Jack, with a sober face. “One of us might get in and be lost.”
“So-o-oo!”
“Well, Mr. Prawle,” said Charlie Fox, “you buy what you think we ought to have. Do you think you will have any trouble finding a suitable flatboat?”
“Not at all. I know where I can hire one. We can float down the river and pull it up the creek ourselves. When we’ve loaded it with copper, however, we’ll have to charter a small steamer to tow it back here.” ”

“ Plunkett produced a big flat bottle from one of his hip pockets, and they both drank success to the scheme in which they were embarked.
Then they took the back track, which brought them to the trail a mile distant, and the trail landed them in Rocky Gulch in the course of an hour.
The Gulch was a settlement of perhaps three hundred inhabitants.
It was not greatly different from some hundreds of other mining camps which have from time to time sprung up in the western wilderness in a night, flourished for a brief time, and then disappeared as the occasion for their existence passed away. ”

“ If he’s the soak you say he is, I shan’t have much trouble in gettin’ a bill of sale for that hill out of him. Now let us settle the thing right here. Are we even partners, or are we not?”
“You’ve got me where the shoe pinches, so I have to agree,” said Clymer, reluctantly.
“Now you’re talkin’ sensibly. I never like to go into a deal where the other man has the bulge on me. I’m treatin’ you perfectly fair, for money counts every time, and it’ll take money to put this thing through. You don’t know what trouble we may be up against if that fellow Prawle turns up out here and makes a squeal. ”

“ So the Mongolian was duly instructed and dispatched.
“If he succeeds in getting his fingers on that paper the game will be in our hands,” said Plunkett to his partner in the nefarious scheme, as they sat at the table in Coffey’s saloon awaiting the return of their moon-eyed agent.
“Yes,” coincided Clymer, “for we have already managed to get a duplicate from Sanders in our own names to take the place of the original. A hundred dollar bill will induce the old soak to swear that he sold the claim to us, and that he doesn’t know anything about this man Prawle and his companions.” ”

“ With this man out of the way, the papers gone, the boys will have to give up their fascinating scheme of going out to the Northwest, and the way will be clear and easy for Plunkett and myself. I knew I was not born to have to drudge for a beggarly living. No; it takes money to see life, and money is now almost within my grasp.”
Clymer then took the night lamp and re-entering the back of the drugstore lifted a trap leading to the cellar. ”

“ No telling what piece of rascality those men may put up against us. The possession of this mine, of whose richness Clymer is assured, is temptation enough for scoundrels like them even to attempt our lives. ”

“ Coffey was a man of no principle at all, and this fact had recommended him to their notice.
He suggested to Clymer and Plunkett that a good plan would be to try and steal the bill of sale given by Jim Sanders to Prawle.
As neither of the two conspirators had the nerve to engage in such a hazardous enterprise himself, Coffey proposed, for a $20 bill, to send a Chinaman he employed about the premises, on this mission to the camp of the newcomers at the creek.
He introduced them to Meen Fun, who he said was the individual for the job. ”

“ He’s altogether too willing, when you come to consider the matter. I noticed him several times casting an inquisitive look about the spot we’re working; and all about the place, for that matter. You can’t tell anything about these Chinks. He may have been run out of Rocky Gulch, for all we know.”
The more they sized up Meen Fun the more they began to distrust the Mongolian—at least Gideon did, and he had had a long and varied experience with the moon-eyed foreigners.
After a good bath in the creek Prawle and the boys sat down to supper, Meen Fun taking his just out of earshot. ”

“ Otis called for whisky, and poured out such a stiff dose that Plunkett looked at him in some surprise.
He swallowed it at a single gulp, and then asked Dave if he could see him in private.
“Cert,” answered Plunkett, regarding his customer with a suspicious stare. “But what’s up? You looked excited. You ain’t been doin’ nothin’ that’ll get you into limbo, have you?”
“Never mind what I’ve been doing,” retorted Clymer, shortly. “I’ve got something to tell you that you’ll be glad to learn.”
“Will I?” said Plunkett coolly. “Well, go into my little room, at the back of the office. ”

“ The bright almond eyes twinkled as he answered:
“Malysville.”
“Marysville, eh?”
“Sule, Mikee,” with a grin.
“And you walked all the way here from that town?”
“Yep, me ’spect so.”
“What made you come out here into the wilderness?”
“Wantee wolkee.”
“You could get all the work you wanted in Marysville, couldn’t you?”
“Not muchee.”
“I know better, John.”
“You know bettee?”
“That’s what I do. Don’t imagine you can fool me, you almond-eyed Mongolian. If you don’t tell us the truth we’ll run you out of this camp in a brace of shakes.”
“Whatee fo’ lun out? Me wolkee lots. Like stay.” ”