THE FACE AT THE WINDOW.
“Then you actually own the mine you have been speaking of?” said Jack
Howard, regarding Gideon Prawle with a fresh interest.
Had the boy at that moment looked toward the window of the surgery,
which had been raised a couple of inches a few moments before by
Charlie Fox, he might have noticed that there was an uninvited listener
outside.
This eavesdropper was Otis Clymer, late dispensing clerk for Dr.
Fox, who had been discharged for his irregular habits and pilfering
propensities.
The man had made himself unpopular in Sackville, and, but for the
softness of the doctor’s heart, would have long since been sent away.
He had an evil heart, and instead of leaving town, where he could not
hope to get suitable employment, he had hung about the lowest drinking
resorts in the place and meditated upon revenge.
At this moment he was somewhat under the influence of liquor, and had
made his way to the rear of the drugstore for the purpose of setting it
on fire if he could find the chance to put his dastardly project into
effect.
He was somewhat surprised to find that the little surgery was occupied,
and he hung about and listened, hoping the coast would soon be clear.
What he heard through the opening at the bottom of the window, however,
completely changed his purpose.
“Yes, siree, bob! I own the ground that there mine is located on,”
said Prawle, with his mouth full of food, in answer to Jack Howard’s
question. “At least I’ve a sixty-day option on it, which amounts to the
same thing.”
“Then you didn’t have the money to buy it out and out?” asked Jack.
“No, I didn’t. Didn’t I tell you I’ve been in hard luck? I had just
$100 in my clothes when I discovered that there ground was worth
the buying, so I gave it up on account to the feller that owned the
diggings. He wanted to sell so bad that he chucked in his shanty with
it; not that it’s worth a sight more’n so much kindling wood.”
“How much ground did you buy?”
“I should think he had about four acres staked out.”
“And what did the whole thing cost you, Mr. Prawle?” asked Jack, full
of curiosity.
“Well, it cost me $100 down, with $200 to come when I get back with the
dust.”
“Pretty cheap for a real copper mine,” spoke up Charlie.
“You don’t s’pose he’d have sold it for that if he’d known as much
about it as I did? Not by a jugful.”
“Was he a prospector, too?” inquired Jack.
“Jim Sanders wasn’t much of anything that I know. An old pard of his
owned the ground and turned it over to Jim when he died. Sanders
thought more of his booze than anything else; that’s why he wanted
to realize. He had no use for the ground, and as it hadn’t cost him
anything it was like finding money to sell it for anything at all.”
“And you’re going to Chicago to raise money to work the mine--is that
your plan?”
“That’s the idea exactly. And I shan’t forget you two chaps in the
deal, neither. You saved my life. If I had petered out here on that
there table I shouldn’t have got any good out of the Pandora.”
“The Pandora!” exclaimed Charlie.
“Exactly. That’s the name I’ve given to the mine. It’ll look good on
the engraved certificates when the company is formed: ‘The Pandora
Copper Mining Company,’ Gideon Prawle, president. Maybe you’d like to
be secretary, young man?” and he looked keenly at Jack Howard.
“I should rather enjoy the sensation of being secretary to a successful
enterprise of that kind.”
“Would you? Well, perhaps you shall, for I’ve taken a liking to you.
That reminds me you haven’t either of you told me your names.”
“Mine is Jack Howard, and this is my friend and chum, Charlie Fox. His
father owns this store, and is the doctor who was going to hold the
inquest on you when he got back to town.”
“I’m afraid he’ll be disapp’inted,” chuckled Gideon Prawle, taking a
long drink at the milk jug.
“He’ll be rather pleased than otherwise,” ventured Charlie.
“Is that a fact?” said the stranger from the West. “I always thought
doctors enj’yed cutting folks up so as to get at their innards.”
“There are exceptions,” replied Charlie, grinning at Jack.
“What’s the name of this town?”
“Sackville.”
“S’pose you get me a piece of paper, so’s I can put that down along
with your names. I want to do what’s right by you young gents.”
Charlie got him a sheet of note-paper and a pencil.
Prawle set to work to jot down what he wanted to preserve for future
reference; but it was easy to see that he was more used to handling
a shovel or a pick, or something of that sort, than a pen or pencil,
though he seemed to be a fairly well educated man, for his language was
uncommonly good for a man of his appearance.
“If you were only going west now instead of east I should be tempted to
go along with you,” said Jack, with a new-born enthusiasm for the great
Northwest.
“Would you now?” replied Prawle, laying down his pencil and regarding
Jack attentively.
“Yes. I came out West for my health, and have made myself a new man in
a year. My people, who live in New York, look for me to return soon,
but I’d rather rough it awhile longer, though not at farming, which is
the way I’ve been putting in my time since I came out here. I always
had a liking for mining. And I should fancy nothing better than getting
an interest in a mine and putting in some big licks, if they would pan
me out a fortune. Such things come to some people; why not to me?”
“That’s right, young man. I calculate you’re the man for my money. I’m
going to give you an interest in my mine.”
“I’m willing to work for my share,” said Jack, earnestly.
“Oh, there’ll be plenty of work for you, I dare say, by and by when the
company’s formed.”
“And how about my chum here?”
“He shall have an interest, too.”
“By shinger!” interrupted Meyer Dinkelspeil from the background, where
he had been an interested listener and observer of the proceedings,
“vhere don’t I come in in dose deals? Off Yack und Sharley pulled
you togedder wit der battery, I put someding better as dot in your
stomyack.”
“Haw, haw, haw!” roared the man from the West as he looked at the
full-moon countenance of the German boy.
“Haw, haw, haw, yourseluf!” snorted Meyer indignantly. “I don’t see
nottings funny in dot. Vot’s der madder mit you, any vay?”
“Would you like to rough it out in the mines, Meyer?” asked Jack, with
a wink at his chum.
“Off dere vos plenty off moneys in dot I rough it yust as well as der
next fellow, I ped you.”
“Why, they wouldn’t do a thing to you out there,” grinned Charlie.
“Is dot so?” retorted Meyer, incredulously. “Don’d you dink dot I took
care off mineseluf yust so well as you or Yack?”
“S’pose you ran up against a bad man with a gun, what would you do?”
asked Jack, with a wink at Prawle.
“Vot vould I done? I toldt you petter after I found me one off dose
kind of snoozers.”
“I’m thinking if you acted as sassy as you do to us he’d fill you full
of lead.”
“Is dot so-o-. He vould I don’d dink.”
“Well,” laughed Prawle, “I guess I’ll take you in with us--that is, if
you’ll agree to go out to the mine and make yourself useful.”
“I done dot purty quick, I ped you,” said Meyer, eagerly. “I’m dot sick
of dese places dot I shump der ranch so soon as now off you spoke der
vord.”
“Why, I thought you wanted to become a doctor, Meyer?” grinned Jack.
“Vell, you know vot thought done, ain’d it?”
“My father wouldn’t want to lose so valuable an assistant as you,
Meyer,” said Charlie.
“Off I vos you I vould forget id,” retorted the German boy, a bit
crustily, for he could see that the doctor’s son was chaffing him.
“I tell you what,” said Jack, enthusiastically, “why couldn’t we go
out to this place in Montana and take a look at the mine? This is your
vacation, Charlie. You have more than four weeks yet ahead of you
before you have to be in Omaha. We can let Mr. Prawle have the money to
complete the purchase of the ground, so there won’t be any hitch about
that. Then we could pay his way on to Chicago after that, and I would
go with him to see that the mining promoter he picks out doesn’t do him
up.”
“B’gee!” exclaimed Charlie, alive at once to the proposal, “it will be
just the thing. If I represent the matter right to my father, he won’t
object.”
“What do you say to that, Mr. Prawle? Will you go back with Charlie,
myself----”
“Und dis shicken, don’d forget dot, off you blease,” piped Meyer.
“And Meyer Dinkelspeil,” continued Jack. “We’ll put up the $200 and all
expenses; and afterward I’ll see you through to Chicago.”
“Do you mean it, young gentlemen?” said Gideon Prawle, interested in
the proposal.
“Certainly we mean it,” replied Jack.
“Then it’s a bargain. I look on you now as my partners in the
enterprise. Now, I’ll show you the paper by which I hold claim to the
mine.”
Whereupon Prawle took out an old red pocketbook, extracted a not
overclean bit of paper, which he unfolded and spread out on the slab
which had lately been his bed.
“There’s my option on the ground,” he said, complacently. “The mine is
situated at the head of Beaver Creek, three miles southeast of Rocky
Gulch mining camp, and a mile eastward of the trail. The creek runs
into the north branch of the Cheyenne River, which flows past Trinity,
a railroad town, so that the copper can be easily shipped by rail
East. Here’s a map, with all the points named, which I drew up to show
its location in the State. Young gentlemen, it was a lucky day for you
that you came to know Gideon Prawle.”
“And it was a lucky thing for you, Mr. Prawle, that I thought of
applying the galvanic battery to your body,” replied Jack Howard, with
a significant smile.
“Well, you shan’t never regret it,” answered the prospector heartily.
At that moment the clock in the surgery struck midnight.
Hardly had the last stroke died away when Meyer Dinkelspeil suddenly
started to his feet and, pointing toward the window, exclaimed
excitedly:
“By shinger! Look, vunce by der vinder--quick! Somepody vos looking in.”