ore long.
Now, I want someone to my likin' to be first on the ground, an' that
someone is you. Ye kin then make yer choice an' stake two claims as
discoverer. Tharfore, which will ye choose, that gal proposition or
the gold? It's up to you. Is it hard to decide?"

"Not at all," was the reply. "I shall take the girl. One might run
across gold any time, but a girl like that one won't find again. And,
besides, what good would the gold be to me without her? I, therefore,
take the girl proposition."

Samson looked at his companion in surprise, as if he had not heard
aright. Here was a phase of character beyond the bounds of his
experience.

"An' ye don't want the gold?" he asked.

"Certainly I want the gold, who wouldn't? But you told me I had to
choose it or the girl, didn't you?"

"I surely did, though I never imagined ye'd throw down the gold. Now,
all the fellers I ever met up here would have taken the gold first."

"Feeling sure of getting the girl later; is that it?"

"That's about the gist of it. They'd tackle what's sartin first, but
you're willin' to try the unsartin."

"I am, and when can we start?"

"In the morning if it's all the same to you. We'll need some extry
grub, which we kin git from Shorty. We won't want much, as we'll find
plenty of meat along the way. We'll hit out before the camp's astir,
so nobody'll know what's become of us."

"How long will it take us to cross the Golden Crest?" Reynolds asked.

"That depends upon many things. We might do it in three or four days
by the way we're goin', or, again, it might take six months, an' mebbe
longer. In fact, we might never git thar at all."

"I planned to do it in a couple of days," Reynolds declared.

"I s'pose ye did. But things don't allus turn out as ye plan,
'specially if ye undertake to cross the Golden Crest. Ye see, things
happen thar quick as lightnin' sometimes, an' if yer lucky enough to
git off alive, the patchin'-up process might take a long time. See?"

"I see," Reynolds replied, as he took the sketch from the improvised
easel, "I have a number of patches on my body already, so a few more
won't make much difference."

CHAPTER IX

THE OUTER TRAIL

A profound silence lay over Big Draw mining camp as Frontier Samson and
Tom Reynolds slipped quietly away among the hills. The sun had not yet
lifted itself above the horizon, but the speediness of its coming was
heralded in the eastern sky, and the tal