The Tenderfoots by Francis Lynde

THE level rays of the morning sun were struggling in through a dusty and begrimed bed-room window when Bromley awoke to find Philip in the room; a Philip haggard and hollow-eyed for want of sleep, but nevertheless fiercely, exultantly jubilant.

"Wake up! " he was shouting excitedly. "Wake up and yell your head off! We've struck rich pay in that hole in the gulch! -- do you hear what I'm saying? -- pay rock in the ‘Little Jean'!"

Bromley sat up in bed, hugging his knees.

"Let's see where we left off," he murmured, with a sleepy yawn. "I was headed for bed, wasn't I? And you were chasing back to the assay shop to hang, draw, quarter and gibbet the outfit if it shouldn't give us a fair shake. I hope you didn't find it necessary to assassinate anybody?"

"Assassinate nothing! " -- the news-bringer had stripped off coat and shirt, and was making a violent assault upon the wash-stand in the corner of the room. "Didn't you hear what I said? We've struck it -- struck it big! " Then, punctuated by vigorous sluicings of cold water: "The ‘Little Jean's' a thundering bonanza. six separate assays. one hundred and sixty-two dollars to the ton is the lowest . the highest's over two hundred. And it's free-milling ore, at that! Harry, we're rich -- heeled for life -- or we are going to be if we haven't lost everything by acting like two of the most footless fools on God's green earth."

"‘We have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have done, and there is no health in us," quoted the play-boy, thrusting his legs out of bed and groping for his clothes. "For what particular sin do we pray forgiveness?"

"For leaving that claim of ours out of doors with nobody to watch it," -- this out of the mufflings of the towel. "It gives me a cold sweat every time I think of what may have happened since we left; what may be happening right now, for all we know!"

"What could happen? " Bromley queried. "It is our discovery, isn't it? And we have posted it and are here to record it and file on it according to law."

"Yes, but good Lord! Haven't you been in these mountains long enough to know that possession is nine points of the law where a mining prospect is concerned? I knew it, but I took a chance because I thought we had that country over across the range pretty much to ourselves."

"Well, haven't we?"

"No; the woods are full of prospectors over there, so they told me at the sampling works; we just didn't happen to run across any of them. Did you ever hear of a man named Drew?"

"You mean Stephen Drew, the man who bought the ‘Snow Bird' for five millions?"

"That's the man. He happened to be down at the sampling works this morning when our assays were handed out. I guess I made a bleating idiot of myself when I saw what we had. Anyway, Mr. Drew remembered meeting me in the railroad offices in Denver and he congratulated me. One word brought on another. He asked me if we wanted to sell the claim, and I told him no -- that we were going back to work it through the winter. He said that was the proper thing, if we could stand the hardships; that if we did this and pulled through, he'd talk business with us next spring on a partnership or a lease."

"Good -- immitigably good! " chirruped Bromley. "And meanwhile?"

"Meanwhile, we take out our legal papers and get back to that gulch as quick as the Lord will let us. Mr. Drew shook his head when I told him how we had left things. He said we'd be lucky if we didn't find a bunch of mine jumpers in possession when we got back; that there were plenty of thugs in the mountains who wouldn't scruple to take a chance, destroy our posted notice and stick up one of their own, and then fight it out with us when we turned up, on a basis of might making right. I mentioned our rights and the law, and he smiled and said: ‘You are a long way from the nearest sheriff's office over there, and you know the old saying -- that possession is nine points of the law. Of course, you could beat them eventually, but the courts are slow, and you would be kept out of your property for a long time. Take my advice, and get back there as soon as you can. ' I told him we'd go back right away and be there waiting for him next spring."

"Oh, Lord! " Bromley groaned in mock dismay; "have we got to hit that terrible trail again without taking even a couple of days to play around in?"

"Hit it, and keep on hitting it day and night till we get there! " was the mandatory decision. "If you are ready, let's go and eat. There is a lot to be done, and we are wasting precious time."

It was at the finish of a hurried breakfast eaten in the comfortless hotel dining-room that Bromley took it upon himself to revise the programme of headlong haste.

"You may as well listen to reason, Phil," he argued smoothly. "The land office won't be open until nine o'clock or after; and past that, there is the shopping for the winter camping spell. You are fairly dead on your feet for sleep; you look it, and you are it. You go back to the room and sleep up for a few hours. I'll take my turn now -- do all that needs to be done, and call you when we're ready to pull our freight."

Philip shook his head in impatient protest. "I can keep going all right for a while longer," he asserted obstinately.