Licking Valley courier., 1921-12-08

of property outside Of large city
could be worth any such sum as that2
| could think Of nothing hut Il mine of
some kind, unless 1t might he cattle
ranch, or a growth Of standing timber;
and in the area laid out for me, mines
would outvote cattle or timber about
hundred to one, thought.
Then there was that other phrase:
"It lies in a perfectly safe repository.
Repository" implied recep-
tacle or container Of some sort; brick
wall, or barbed-wire fence, or any In
closing thing you like to imagine. Could
mine be said to be "repositOry"f
As you see, I kept coming back to
the mine idea. In spite Of oil ! could
do; and at last, without q word Of
warning. and right out Of q clear sky,
as you may say. smack thing hit
me squarely between the shoulder:
blades -Brown-beard and his eccentric
old gentlenSaAl
After got cooled Of q bit had to
admit that there was something less
than one chance In q thousand that, at
the price Of q couple Of cigars given to
q fellow traveller In distress. l had pur-
chased any real clue to my own puzzle.
I Yet I couldn't get away from the
notion that was on the verge of a dis
covery. Oddly enough, the miraculous
part of 1.-THE one chance in million
that should run across the one per-
son In hundred million who ocOuld tell
me that particular story-didnt i'm
press me at the time. was too buslly
engaged in trying to at the puzzle
pieces together to think of anything
else at the moment
Come to sum them up, they fitted as
toundingly well. Grandfather Jasper
had always been exceedingly close
mouthed when speaking of his Invest
ments. Added to that, he would be
the last man in the world to have con-
fessed that he had been bitten, even In
directly, by "gold-brick" game. Then,
too, the course he had pursued with
the mining engineer (always granting
the truth Of Brown-beard's story was
just like him; he would have wanted a
year In which to think 1t over-or may
be longer. Also, 1t was like him to
keep all the identifying marks as
carefully hidden as nut meat In Its
shell.
At this point l began to think about
getting action. One word from Bull
ton, or Bulletin, or whatever his name
was, would settle the identities beyond
question, and that word was his "old
gentleman's' name. He hadn't men
toned 1t once In telling his yarn
which might have been by design, OF
just happen-so. But, by heavens, II
make him mention 1t!
1 happened to think Of the Mining
exchange, and to wonder II somebod!
connected with 1t might not have lis
of engineers and mining experts.
hike through the streets brought me t
the exchange and the secretary no
only had such a list, but was willlnl
to show 1t to me. In Its proper place
found the name, "Charles BullertOn.
A query shot at the man behind tn
desk elected the information that MI
Charles Bullerton was In South Amer
lea. At this, ! could have shouted TO
joy, because 1t proved concluslvel
that Charles BulleYton was my mar
and that the tale to which / had lis
tened wasn't altogether made up ou
Of whole cloth, as so many Pullma
smoke-room rOmances are.
Bullerton's usual address, when h
was in Colorado and not In Denvel
was In care of certain bank In CriI
pie Creek; or at least, that was tn
way It had been before he went I
South America.
A telegraph Office was the next thin
on the program, and when found on
1t seemed to be about a hundred-t,
one shot that I'd never touch bottom
since had no hint. that Fullerton ha
been headed for Cripple Creek. NJ
message, prepaid and answer prepai,
contained only a single question
"What was the name Of the old gei
I tleman who bought the watered mir
+ and then diedT,- An answer to tn
. would tell the story.
For two whole days, an interv
( which I spent in hither-and-yon cha
ings Of plsbald ponies and harledni
!, faced dogs about the streets Of Denv,
and found no blue-eyed girls a
= tached to any Of them-I thought
e had merely shot up into the air vii
o my telegram, and missed the who
2 face Of the earth. Then, one NOR