The Holbrook news., 1922-09-22
By Courtney Ryley
 Cooper
Copyright by Little, Brown & Co.

Boy" came quickly, Il know Just about what you're thinking. I've spent few hours at the same kind of job myself. and I've called old Henry Beamish more kinds of a fool than you can think of for not coming right out flat-footed and making Thornton tell me the whole story. But some way when I'd look into those eyes with the fire all dead and ashen within them, and see the lines of an old man In his young face, I just couldn't do it"
 "So you can tell me nething"
 "I'm afraid that's true-in one way. In another I'm a fund of information. Tonight you and I will go to Indian apolis and probate the will-it's simple enough; I've had 1t in my safe for ten years. After that, you become the owner of the Blue Poppy mine, to do with as you choose"
 But"
 Don't ask my advice, Boy. haven't any. Your father told me what to do If you decided to try your luck-and silver's at S1.29. It means a lot of money for anybody who can produce pay ore-unless what he said about the mine pinching out was true"
 Again the thrill of a new thing went through Robert Fairchild's veins, something he never had felt until twelve hours before; again the urge for strange places, new scenes, the fire of the hunt after the hidden wealth of silver-seamed hills. Robert FairchHd's life had been a plodding thing of books and accounts, of high desks which as yet had failed to stoop his shoulders, of stuffy offices which had been thwarted so far in their grip at his lung power; the long walk in the morning and the tired trudge hOmeward at night. But the recoil had not exerted itself against an office cramped brain, a dusty ledger-filled life that suddenly felt itself crying out for the free, open country, without hardly knowing what the term meant. Old Beamish caught the light in the eyes, the quick contraction of the hands. and smiled.
 You don't need to tell me, Son." he said slowly. T can see the symp- toms. You've got the fever-you're going back to work that mine.
 "Ohadi is thirty-eight miles from Denver. That's your goal. Out there. they'll tell you how the mine caved in, and how Thornton Fairchild, who had worked 1t, together with his two men, Harry Harkins, a Cornishman, and 'Sissie' Larsen, Swede, left town late one night for Cripple Creek-and that they never came back. That's the story they'll tell you. Agree with it. Tell them that Harkins, as far as you know, went back to Cornwall, and that you have heard vaguely that Lar sen later followed the mining game farther out west"
 'Is It the truth?"
 How do I know? It's good enough people shouldn't ask questions. Tell nothing more than that-and be care full of your friends. There is one man to watch-if he is still alive. They call him 'Squint' Rodaine, and he may or may not still be there. I don't know-Pm only sure of the fact that your father hated him, fought him and feared him. The mine tun- nel is two miles up Kentucky gulch and one hundred yards to the right. A surveyor can lead you to the very spot. It's been abandoned now for thirty years. What you'll find there is more than I can guess. But, Boy" and his hand clenched tight on Robert Fairchifd's shoulder, whatever you