, I know. But what's a gove'ment? They go busted, don't they,
sometimes? Same as folks? Gold don't go busted. There ain't nothin' else
like gold. You can tie to it. It won't burn on you an' it won't rust."
He shook his head stubbornly. "There ain't nothin' like gold. If that
was all in twenty-dollar gold pieces, now----"

"I'll get a car here," said King. "We'll drive down to Auburn and take a
train to San Francisco. And there I'll undertake to get you the whole
thing in gold. Three thousand dollars. That is one hundred and fifty
twenty-dollar pieces."

But old Honeycutt, sucking and mouthing, shook his head.

"I couldn't leave here, an' you know it. I--I got things here," he said
with a look of great cunning, "I wouldn't go away from. Not if horses
was pullin' me."

"You can bring those things along----"

Honeycutt cried out sharply at that.

"You know I wouldn't durst! With the world full of robbers that would
be after me like hounds runnin' down a rabbit. I won't go; you cain't
make me. No man cain't."

King's patience deserted him.

"I am not going to make you do anything. Further, I am not going to put
in any more time on you. I have offered to pay you three thousand
dollars for what you know--and there is the very strong likelihood that
you don't know a bit more than I do----"

"Don't know!" shrieked Honeycutt. "Wasn't I a boy grown when the dyin',
delerious man stumbled in on the camp? Didn't I hear him talk an' didn't
I see what he had in his fist? Wasn't I settin' right side by side with
Gus Ingle when that happened? Wouldn't I of been one to go, if it hadn't
of been that I had a big knife-cut in my side you could of shoved a cat
in--give to me by a slant-eyed cuss name of Baldy Winch. Didn't I watch
'em go, the whole seven of 'em, Baldy Winch, rot him, jeerin' at me an'
me swearin' I'd get him yet, him an' Gus Ingle an' Preacher Ellson an'
the first Brodie an' Jimmy Kelp an' Manny Howard an' the Italian? Wasn't
I there?" He was almost incoherent.

"Were you?" said King. "And Baldy Winch, the one who knifed you----?"

The sucking old mouth emitted a dry chuckle.

"An' didn't I keep my promise? That very winter after Baldy was the only
man to git back. With my side just healin' didn't I make my way through
the snow out to where he was----"

"His cabin on Lookout?"

"With an axe I got there! An' him havin' a gun an' pistol an' knife.
Phoo! What good did it do him? An' didn't I square with him by