WHAT DRIVES PROSPECTORS CRAZY

After all it was Doris Hunter who called breakfast while Bill was yet busy with her horses and Tommy was profanely spreading damp blankets upon dry rocks that would presently be hot to the palm, when the sun had stared down at them for a few hours.

There were hot cakes as good as Bill could have made, and bacon and coffee and potatoes sliced raw and fried just right. The eyes of Mr. Rayfield glistened when he saw them, and Bill drew his underlip between his teeth when he looked at the girl's flushed face bent solicitously over the coffee she was pouring; it was so like a daydream come true that he could scarcely trust himself to speak, for fear his tone would not be so normal as he meant it to be. But he had his part to play nevertheless.

"Morning! I meant to get breakfast myself, but I didn't want to get you out too early. You had a hard trip——"

"Oh, fudge! That wasn't a commencement to being caught out in a blizzard. Luella woke me about daylight. She came crawling up on the pillow, and the first I heard was 'What the'—something—in the most surprised tone you ever heard." Doris laughed at the memory of it. "Imagine hearing a man's voice saying that in your very ear when you're dreaming about putting up peaches! And that reminds me, Bill. Mother sent over a jar of preserves. If you'll watch these cakes, I'll get them out of the pack. I saw you had brought up the horses. Sit right down and eat, folks, I won't be a minute."

Bill's table was small, but Doris had somehow crowded a sufficient number of plates and cups upon it. Mr. Rayfield voiced his opinion of her efficiency as he seated himself on Bill's neatly spread bunk and drew the potatoes toward himself.

"My, my, what a difference there is in women nowadays!" he said cheerfully. "Take these Western-raised girls—you can't match them anywhere in the world for downright common sense and capableness. Seems to be a great climate for the growth of brain. Now a city girl out in a storm like that—well," he chuckled, "think of the hundreds of plays and stories that have been built around the fainting forms of beautiful maidens carried in from right center, just rescued by the hero from the falling dew! And here's a girl can come out of it smiling, with a breakfast fit for a steel king! Mr. Dale, if you can beat these cakes, I'll resign from government employ and be your burro puncher for life!"

Into the responsive laugh walked Doris with a quart jar of peach preserves carried proudly in her two hands.

"I heard that about the cakes, Mr. Rayfield," she announced gravely. "And all I can say is, you come down to the ranch where we have real milk, and thick yellow cream, and fresh eggs. I'll show what hot cakes can be like!"

Mr. Emmett, pulling a box out of a corner for a seat, had stooped and picked up something from the ground,—something which the edge of the box had dragged forward. He turned it to the side where the sun was shining brightly on the canvas wall and examined the piece of ore interestedly.

"Good-looking rock, that," he observed, glancing up at Bill. "Didn't pick it up in this neighborhood, did you?"

Bill slanted a glance at the rock, and another at the sly, watchful eyes of Al Freeman. Mr. Emmett was holding in his fingers a bit of the richest ore Bill had taken from his vein on Parowan Number One. He had concealed it under some sacks in the corner, and its appearance at the breakfast table was, to say the least, inopportune.

"That? That's a specimen I've been packing around for luck," he said carelessly. "Wish I had a mountain of it; then I could have fresh eggs and cream for breakfast too."

Mr. Emmett laid the rich specimen in Rayfield's outstretched hand and seated himself on the box, his hard, brown eyes glancing sharply now and then at Bill. Mr. Rayfield set down his cup of coffee and pursed his lips over the sample. His pleasant face glowed with professional admiration for a pretty bit of ore.

"Yes-s—a mountain of that would insure a man against canned milk for life!" he chuckled. "If you had even a good vein of ore like that, Mr. Dale, your friends would need to pray that millions wouldn't make you money-mad."

Doris held out her hand for it, and Mr. Rayfield smiled as he placed it in her palm. He did not say anything at all.

Doris bent her brown head over the sample, then looked up quickly at Bill, her eyes wide and questioning.

"O-oh—that's gold—is that gold, Bill? All those yellow patches? It—it doesn't look just like pyrites——"

"That's gold, Doris." To save his life Bill could not have kept the tenderness, the deep exultation out of his voice.

"Gold! Why, it—it's almost solid gold! Why, where——"

Bill pulled himself together, laughed lazily and helped himself to the fried potatoes.

"That's what drives prospectors crazy," he drawled. "Looking for more of the same. You keep that, Doris, if you like it. If I ever get hold of enough of that, I'll call it a mine." He laughed again disarmingly. "You know folks call me Hopeful Bill," he added quaintly.

"You'd be Sure-thing Bill, if you ever found a mine of that." Mr. Rayfield's good eye dwelt hungrily upon the sample. "I suppose you're on the trail of it. You wouldn't be human if you weren't looking for more of the same. Well, I hope you locate it. I do, for a fact. I know I wouldn't rest until I located that."

Bill's laugh betrayed nothing more than amusement, but his eyes forgot to twinkle. They were fixed rather intently on Mr. Rayfield's smooth, smiling face.

"And when you had it located—then what would you do?"

"Do?" Mr. Rayfield looked up, astonished. "What would a man do, with a gold mine like that?" He returned to the spreading of peach preserves carefully between two hot cakes. "Organize a company and avail myself of the most modern methods of mining it. A good, clean corporation, Mr. Dale, is the most efficient, the most satisfactory methods I know of to-day. I certainly would organize at once and start out right to get the gold cheaply as possible and market the product as profitably as possible. There is no other intelligent method, these days."

Mr. Emmett looked up dissentingly. "There you go on your hobby," he remarked. "The country's been done to death with wild-cat organizations that found a showing of mineral and hustled a corporation together. Look at the companies we've been sent to investigate, Walter! I should think that would sicken you of corporations."

"We investigated a lot of crooked corporations, yes." Mr. Rayfield admitted it calmly. "We helped the government send more than one bunch of crooked officers to the penitentiary—where they belong. But crooks always will take advantage of the best machinery invented, John. And those very investigations taught me the details of organizing and operating corporations. They proved to me that a man is a fool to potter along by himself with any mine—I don't care how rich it is! You can't work a mine as you would a farm. Why? Because your potential harvest is all there, in the ground, waiting for you to gather it. A farm yields its wealth season by season—on the installment plan, we'll say. Whereas the mineral in a mine is there; all of it. It was put there long before it was ever discovered. The faster and the cheaper you take it out, the greater your profit. That stands to reason. What man of intelligence would spend ten, twenty years, we'll say, taking out a million dollars, when an efficient corporation will get it for him in less than half that time?"

He held up his cup for more coffee and smiled blandly at Doris, who was listening to him with flattering attention.

"Miss Hunter, you see the point, don't you? I'll venture to say that you'd want your millions dug out by machinery, in the shortest time possible."

Doris laughed and looked again at the gold ore beside her plate.

"If I knew where there was a lot of that in the ground, and you could get a million dollars worth of it out in fifteen minutes," she said, "I'd—why, I'd probably stand around and abuse you because you weren't getting my million in ten minutes instead of fifteen!" She blushed a little as she met Mr. Rayfield's understanding smile. "That's just human nature, isn't it?"

"That's human nature." Mr. Rayfield sugared his coffee with the satisfied air of a man who has gained his point with less difficulty than he had anticipated.

Then appeared Luella, walking offendedly out from under Bill's bunk, where she had retreated from the presence of strangers.

"Aw, cut it out!" Luella complained gruffly. "Let's eat! Git a move on, there!"

"And here we are, trying to starve poor Luella!" Doris stooped to her, and the bird eyed her hand sidewise and decided to trust it for once. She stepped solemnly upon the slim, brown wrist and so was lifted to a perch on the foot of the bunk where she gravely accepted a slice of fried potato. The advantages of a corporation over an individual miner got no further attention from any one, for a parrot is very much like a baby in its unfailing ability to monopolize attention. Luella would not talk, save now and then a curt ejaculation that was hailed with laughter. She was a temperamental bird and her manners were inhospitable; for which Bill was vaguely thankful.

Furthermore, he was grateful when Doris proceeded as a matter of course to clear away the breakfast. That little hint of hers, of rising and picking up Bill's plate and cup, scattered the group. They went, ducking their heads under the flaps, and Bill followed them with the thought in his mind that he would see the three strangers safely off about their business before he made any move toward his own claims with Doris.

But the jovial Mr. Rayfield stuck to him like a burr, talking idly of many things save mineral. Bill wondered what he had on his mind; and as soon as they were out of hearing of the others, Mr. Rayfield proceeded to the subject uppermost.

"You'll pardon my apparent presumption, Mr. Dale, I know. We government fellows are instructed to help miners in any way we can, and—well, this man of yours; have you had him with you long enough to be sure of him?"

"I never," said Bill in his easy drawl, "consider that I'm sure of any man. Why?" And then he gave no time for an answer, but put a question of his own.

"How long have you had your pot-walloper?—if I may ask a question that's none of my business."

"Al Freeman? We picked him up just the other day. Our cook that we hired in Las Vegas was taken sick just as we struck the highway down there. We laid over, and did what we could; but he wasn't recovering, so when this Al Freeman came along with three other men in a car, headed for Las Vegas, we just made an exchange. Sent our man in to a doctor, and hired Al in his place." He laid his fingers lightly on Bill's arm, and lowered his voice confidentially. "He told us last night that your man, Tommy, is one of the toughest men out of Goldfield. They call him Slippery Tom up there, I believe. Al says he came near getting lynched, at one time—some murder and robbery, I believe."

"Then there's a pair of them," Bill observed imperturbably. "Al's a liar and a thief, according to Tommy."

Mr. Rayfield considered for a moment, then threw out his hands in a gesture of helplessness.

"Might be a good idea to watch 'em both, don't you think?" He chuckled. "Pot is very likely calling the kettle black. And I don't know of anything worth stealing in our camp. Just thought I'd give you a hint for what it may be worth, in case you don't know your man. And we'll keep an eye on Al."

"Aw, there's nothing they can do—but earn their wages," Bill dismissed the subject indifferently. "Time Tommy wrangles the burros and does the dirty work and slings a muck stick eight hours a day, crime won't look half so good to him as his blankets. Same with Al Freeman, if you handle him right."

Nevertheless, Bill stopped at the corner of the tent and unobtrusively watched Mr. Rayfield when he joined his companions.

So far as he could determine, Mr. Rayfield was concerning himself at present with the preparations for a day's fieldwork. Emmett was already waiting with his sample bag over his shoulder, his canteen at his feet ready to pick up at the last minute. Al, apparently, would be left in camp. Bill turned suddenly and beckoned to Tommy, who was glumly examining a dull pick.

"You say you can sharpen steel, Tommy. I'll just let you do a little blacksmithing, this fore-noon, while I show Miss Hunter a claim I located for her," he said, when Tommy had come close. Then he lowered his voice. "You can keep an eye on camp, too. I saw Al Freeman looking hungry at that sample of gold ore, Tommy. You'll know what to do if he makes a break. Only—don't kill him. I don't want to take in boarders, and those experts can't cook."

"I'll watch 'im, Mr. Dale. I will that!"

Bill grinned, took a last pull at his cigarette, and went in to wipe the dishes for Doris and watch the dimple in her left cheek.

And Destiny, that invisible, inscrutable companion whom men sometimes fear, sometimes curse and obey inevitably, smiled and waited to see how these souls would work out the problems she had set for them.