was comin' on these days.

We didn't have any great rush of customers in the office. About twice a
day some one would stray in; but gen'rally they was lookin' for other
parties, and we didn't take in money enough over the counter to pay the
towel bill. It had me worried some, until I tumbles that the Glory Be
was a mail order snap.

All them circulars we sent out told about the mine. And say, after I'd
read one of 'em I didn't see how it was we didn't have a crowd throwin'
money at us. It was good readin', too, almost as excitin' as a nickel
lib'ry. I'd never been right next to a gold mine before, and it got me
bug eyed just thinkin' about it.

Why, this mine of ours was one that the Injuns had kept hid for years
and years, killin' off every white man that stuck his nose into the same
county. But after awhile a feller by the name of Dakota Dan turned
Injun, got himself adopted by the tribe, and monkeyed around until he
found the mine. It near blinded him the first squint he got of them big
chunks of gold. The Injuns caught him at it and finished the business
with hot irons. Then they roasted him over a fire some and turned him
loose to enjoy himself. He was tougher'n a motorman, though. He didn't
die for years after that; but he never said nothin' about the gold mine
until he was nearly all in. Then he told his oldest boy the tale and
gave him a map of the place, makin' him swear he'd never go near it. The
boy stuck to it, too. He grew up and kept a grocery store, and it wa'n't
until after he'd died of lockjaw from runnin' a rusty nail in his hand
and the widow had sold out the store to a Swede that the map showed up.
The Swede swapped the map to a soap drummer for half a dozen cakes of
scented shaving sticks, and the drummer goes explorin'.

He had a soap drummer's luck. He didn't find any Injuns left. Most of
'em had died off and the rest had joined Wild West shows. The gold mine
was there, though, with chunks of solid gold lyin' around as big as
peach baskets. Mr. Drummer looks until his eyes ache, and then he hikes
himself back East to get up a comp'ny to work the mine. He'd just made
plans to build a solid gold mansion on Fifth-ave. and hire John D.
Rockefeller for a butler, when he strays into one of these Gospel
missions and gets religion so hard that he can't shake it. Then he sees
how selfish it would be to keep all that gold for himself. "But how'll
I divvy it?" says he. "And who with?"

Then he decides