Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-06-10

They were four miles away He
leaped to his feet and ran down the slope with
the strength of desperation. Half falling, but
doggedlv keeping onward he emerged from the
mountains at last and forged painfully out upon
the desert
Before he came to the we'll he fell repeatedly
and crawled and again to stagger forward
And the smell of the water in his nostrils when
he was fifty yards away. Then he ran, with his last
muster of strength, and, falling athwart the horse
trough buried his head in the tepid liquid and drank
till he all but tainted with the ecstasy of taste.
While he still sat there, the team of Flooding
horses came to the place in a cloud of floating
fume The beasts were dusty, sweating, and well
nigh farnished for water They drank and the team
ster paid price of twenty five cents for everyone
to the man who owned the We'll
Maynard went into the desert house. The man
who owned it, he who had dug the well hundred
and fifty feet downward to water, was pilng up
riches rapidly that his mind was dazed. But
he recognized Maynard's exhausted condition, and
gave him food and drink and bed and told him
the place was his home.
For nearly two days Maynard rested at the place;
then teamster arrived from Gold Circle camp with
news to stir his blood. A strike had been made
the Bright Hope lease and Blake was sackng
golden worth five thousand dollars to the ton.
MAYNARD returned that day to the camp where his
hopes, funds, and energies had been ruthlessly
thrown to the winds At the claim on the hill
where he had mined with his partner there were
ore-sacks filled with precious quartz, heaPed like
a wall on the former dump and two hired miners
gouging cleft of its golden hoard as if very
hend had been goading at their backs
Blake there When Maynard confronted him
at last, he read with clearness the meaning of the
cold hard CLEAN that played in his former partners
eyes.
How's this?" he said. Are you working here
now for Folger & Company, who bought our lease?"
Don't try to get funny, Maynard" said his
former friend. You're a gutter; you've got
streak of yellow in your blood got on that's all,
and took up the lease myself.
Il see, said Maynard, cool1y enough, aware of
his helpless position And also, if l remember
correctly, Blake, you were the one who always
had the assays made, and you always reported no
gold"
Look here. What do you mean?" demanded
Blake aggressively. Do you mean to insinuate that
I've robbed you Maynard? If you do"
Don't get excited, interrupted Maynard quietly.
All I've got to say is that of your kind of friend
ship, and your kind of mining, and your kind of
honor Blake, l certainly gutter. But as to
the game-let's wait and see"
Blake watched him go. "An right" he said.
"An right, Maynard-wen see.
When the word went round that Howard Blake had
cleaned up and sacked fully eighty thousand dollars
worth of ore, and that he and the rock would go
out together a freighter to the railroad,
solitary horseman rode promptly forth from Gold
Circle camp to the station in the middle of the desert
1t was Maynard come day ahead of Blake who
would ride on a load of golden Aye, it
MAYNARD grim and hardened and with something of
exceptional Importance to discuss with the man who
owned the well
That night the leased the well and station
to Maynard for period of forty-eight hours and,