Licking Valley courier., 1921-12-08

liberty to do so by forfeitlng his ante
of thousand dollars to the other. If
neither of us withdrew by or before
the end of the year, was to be ut lib
erty to go ahead with my drainage
project, and the agreement bound the
owner to turn over One-fourth inter-
est in the property to me upon the
completion Of the job and the unwater-
ing Of the mine.
"At the moment was under engage
ment to 60 to Peru for Chicago syn
dicate, and expected to be out Of the
United States for at least six months,
and maybe longer. As 1t turned out,
the South American job was lot big
ger than l had anticipated, and for
that reason the time limit Of year
expired week ago, on the day that I
landed In New York. Yesterday l
called upon the Omaha banker, and he
gave me the cheering information that
my old man was dead--had died Just
a few days earlier"
"Still, l don't see how you have lost
out" put in.
"Wait; here comes the funny part
Of 1t. Mr.. Banker tells me solemnly
that am remembered In my old gen.
tleman's disposition of some cash lega-
cies made just before his death, and
I'm to have the thousand dollars which
he put up as forfeit. took the prize
down and spent some Of 1t within the
next few minutes wiring the old mans
home lawyer, whose name and address
the banker had given me. briefed
the situation for the lawyer, said l was
ready to fulfill my part of the con-
tract, and asked him to wire me the
name and location Of the mine. You'd
never guess In thousand years the
kind Of an answer l got"
shook my head.
"No; probably not. What was itr"
ut was a bolt from the blue, all
right. Mr.. Home Lawyer wired thai
his client had never owned share o.
mining stock in his life, that there wa.
nothing in his papers or records bear
ing upon the subject Of my telegram
and that l must be either drunk o.
crazy. OF course, he didn't put It jus
that way in his reply, but that is wha
he meant"
"How do you sort II out?" inquired
"The lawyers telegram? put 1t III
that my cautious, secretlve old gentle
man never told anybody at home abou
his mining investments; kept them Ii
separate pocket, SO to speak: Quit
possibly he didn't have any other ex
cepting the one I've been telling 70,
about, and the one he regarded as
dead cock In the pit. That would eS
plain the situation nicely, don't yo
thinkf"
The story had left me a bit fogge
as to the present state and standin
Of the thing, and I said so.
"Well, II stacks up about this way,
said Brown-beard. "There Is a PEE
fectly good mine somewhere west {
us that is worth anywhere from
quarter to half million, and at tn
present moment 1t Is kicking aroun
without an owner. So far as can Sc
I'm the only man on top Of earth VII
!. has a claim on any part of 1t. And
have no more idea than the man In II
moon where 1t is at No; I'm afrai
: my handsome fortune is lost dog, (
far as I'm concerned"
t His mention of a lost dog hit n
r right in the center Of the solar plexl
h and / laughed like fool.
n "What struck your funny-bone?" |
K demanded, sort Of obviously, fancie
/ Nothing" l gurgled; "nothil
: worth mentloning-only I'm huntll
a for lost dog, too"
d But didn't tell him any more. Aft
n we'd smoked a while longer, al
S Brown-beard had apologlzed for ma
a ing me listen to his rather longish tn
d of woe, we took the porter's hint tn
h he'd like to have the smoking room f
l, his nightly shoe-shine, and turned In