The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-06-27
got something to say"

Johnny and I turned on him with a certain belligerency mingled with sur prise Yank had so habitually acted the part of taciturnity that his decided air of authority confused us. His slouch had strengthened; his head was up; his mild eye sparkled. Suddenly l felt like a bad small boy, and believe Johnny was the same. After mo- ment's hesitation we sat down on the log.
 NOW said Yank firmly, tits about time we took stock. We been here now five days. We ain't had a decent meal of vittles in that time. We a1n't fixed up our camp mite. We amt been to town to see the sights. We don't even know the looks of the man that's camped down below us. We've been too danged busy to be decent. Now we're goin' to call a halt. l should jedge we have a pound of gold or tharabouts. How much is that worth, Johnny? You can fgger in yore head.''
 "A1ong about $25o," said Johnny aft CT moment.
 "Well, keep on figgerin'. How much 1 does that como to apfeceF'
 | About $50, of course.'
 "And dividin' eighty by fve?" per sisted Tank.
 'Sfxteen.''
 "WelI,'' drawled Tank, bis steely blue 1 eye softening to twinkle, ''$16 day I is fair wages, to be sure, but noth1n' | to get wildly excited over." He sur veyed the two of us with some humor. l Hadn't thought of it that way, had | you?' he asked. "Nuther had l until | last night I was so dog tired I l c1a <n T11 a little on my own hook.''
 "Why, I can do better than that in San Francisco, with half the work! ] cried.
 | Maybe for awhile,'' said Tank, "but here we got chance to make big l strike most any time and in the mean time to make good wages. But we ] ain't goin' to do it any quicker by kill in ourselves. Now, today is Sunday. i I ain't no religious man, but Sunday is a good day to quit I propose we 1 go back to camp peaceable, make decent place to stay, cook ourselves up ] a squar' meal, wash out our clothes, l visit the next camp, take look at ] town and enjoy ourselves"
 Thus vanished the first and most i wonderful romance of the gold. Re | duced to wages it was somehow no l uncertainty was always there, to be sure, and an inexplicable fascination, but no longer had we any desire to dig up the whole place immediately. suppose we moved nearly as much 1 earth, but the fbers of our minds were relaxed, and we did it more easily and 1 with less nervous wear and tear. Also, as Yank suggested, we took 1 pains to search out our fellow beings. | The camper below US proved to be Don Gaspar, velvet brooches and all He received us hospitably and proffered perfumed cigarettes, which we did not
 like, but which we smoked out of DO liteness. Our common ground of meet ing was at first the natural one of the
 gold diggings. Don Gaspar and his
 man, whom he called Vasquez, had
 produced somewhat less flake gold
 than ourselves, but exhibited a half ounce nugget and several smaller
 Jumps. We could not make him out.
 Neither his appearance nor his per
 sonal equipment suggested necessity,
 and yet he 1abored as hard as the rest
 of us. His gaudy costume was splash
 ed and grimy with the red mud, al
 though evidently he had made some
 attempt to brush it. The linen was,
 of course, hopeless. He showed us
 the blisters on his small aristocratic
 looking hands.
 ''It is the hard york; he stated
 simply, "but one gets the gold.''
 From that subject we passed on to
 horses. He confessed that he was un-
 easy as to the safety of his own mag
 nificent animals and succeeded in
 alarming US as to our own.
 ''Thos' Indian,'' he told us, ''are al.
 ways out to esstea1, and the paisanos
 It has been tole me that Andreas Ami
 jo and his robbers are near. Some day
 we lose our horsen'
 Our anxiety at this time was given
 an edge by the fact that the horses
 having fed well and becoming tired o1
 the same place, were inclined to stray It was impossible to keep them always
 on picket lines-the nature of thG
 meadow would not permit it-and they soon learned to be very clever witt their hobbies Several mornings we put in an hour or so hunting them III
 and bringing them in before we could start work for the day. This wasted both time and temper. The result was
 that we drifted into partnership witl Don Gaspar and Vasquez. I do not re member who proposed the arrange ment. Indeed, I am inclined to thinl it just came about naturally from ou many discussions of the subject. Un der the terms of it we appointed Vas | quez to cook all the meals, take full care of the horses, chop the wood
 draw the water and keep camp gener ally. The rest of us worked in couple at the bar. We divided the gold int five equal parts.