en doing it. The outcropping you followed in from the
surface never has been in place, ma'am. It's what I'd call a wild
stringer. It pinched out forty foot back of where we're diggin' now.
That's just an iron stain we're following, and the pocket of high grade
don't mean nothin'. You went in on the strength of indications--" He
stopped there and chuckled to himself, in a way that I'd come to know as
the "indications" of a story,--which usually followed.

The Little Woman probably guessed. I suppose she was lonely, too, and the
pain of her hurts made her want entertainment. "What are you laughing at,
Casey Ryan?" she demanded. "If it's funny, tell _me."_

Casey blushed, though she couldn't have seen him in the dusky light of the
cabin. "Aw, it ain't anything much," he protested bashfully. "I just
happened to think about a little ol' Frenchman I knowed once, over in
Cripple Creek, ma'am." He stopped.

"Well? Tell me about the little ol' Frenchman. It made you laugh, Casey
Ryan, and it's about the first time I've seen you do that. Tell me."

"Well, it ain't nothin' very funny to tell about," Casey hedged like a
bashful boy; which was mighty queer for Casey Ryan, I assure you. For if
there was anything Casey liked better than a funny story, it was some one
to listen while he told it. "You won't git the kick, mebby. It's knowin'
the Frenchman makes it seem kinda funny when I think about it. He was a
good little man and he kept a little hotel and was an awful good cook. And
he wanted a gold mine worse than anybody I ever seen. He didn't know a
da--nothin' at all about minin' ma'am, but every ol' soak of a prospector
could git a meal off him by tellin' him about some wildcat bonanza or
other. He'd forgit to charge 'em, he'd be so busy listenin'.

"Well, there was two ol' soaks that got around him to grubstake 'em. They
worked it all one year. They'd git a burro load of grub and go out
somewheres and peck around till it was all et up, and then they'd come
back an' tell Frenchy some wild tale about runnin' acrost what looked like
the richest prospect in the country. They'd go on about havin' all the
indications of a big body uh rich ore. He'd soak it in, an' they'd hang
around town--one had a sore foot one time, I remember, that lasted 'em a
month of good board at Frenchy's hotel before he drove 'em out agin to his
mine, as he called it.

"They worked that scheme on him for a long time--and it was the only da--
scheme they