e. Among the numerous unworked
claims lying higher up the gulch, beyond and adjoining our proposed
location, we found three whose ownership we traced, through a number of
transfers apparently designed to hide something, to the Lawrenceburg.

Barrett, a fine, keen-witted young fellow whose real name, if I might
give it, would be familiar to everybody in the West, was the first to
draw the probable inference.

"Jimmie, you've got the longest head in the bunch," was his comment;
this because I had chanced to be the one to make the discovery of the
well-concealed ownership. "At some period in the history of the
Lawrenceburg, which is one of the oldest mines on Bull Mountain, its
owners have had reason to believe that their pay streak was going to
run the other way--to the northeast. They undertook to cover the
chance by making these locations quietly, and through 'dummy' locators,
on the other side of the spur."

"But how did they come to overlook this patch we're figuring on?" asked
Gifford, the carpenter.

"That was somebody's blunder," Barrett offered. "These section plats
we have been studying may have been made after the locations were
staked out; in all probability that was the case. That sort of thing
happens easily in a new country like this. It was an oversight; you
can bet to win on that. If those Lawrenceburg people had any good
business reason for locating these claims beyond us, they had precisely
the same reason for covering this intervening bit of ground that we are
going to grab."

Gifford took fire at once; and if I didn't it was only because we were
not yet in possession, and I thought there might be many chances for a
slip between the cup and the lip. This talk took place at night in
Barrett's room in town, and before we separated our plans were fully
made. Gifford and I were to start at once--that night, mind you--for
Bull Mountain to locate a claim which should cover as completely as
possible the entire area of the irregular triangle. The location made,
the carpenter and I were to work the claim as a two-man proposition.
Barrett was to retain his place in the bank, so that the savings from
his salary might add more capital. We even went so far as to christen
our as yet unborn mine. Since we were picking up--or were going to
pick up--one of the unconsidered fragments after the big fellows had
taken their fill of the loaves and fishes, we proposed to call our
venture "The Little Clean-Up