"Take it from me, Jim
Ferrers, that claim on the ridge yonder is worth all kinds of
fight. Here, get the horses saddled again, while Harry and I
write our notice in record-breaking time for legible penmanship."
Tom's eyes were gleaming in a way that they had not done in months.
For, despite his former apparent indifference to the trick Gage
had played on them, Tom Reade would have staked his professional
reputation on the richness of the ridge claim.
"It's gold, Harry---gold!" he exclaimed, hoarsely, in his chum's
ear. "It's gold enough to last us through life if we work it
hard from the start."
"We'll have to kill a few men before we can get Gage off that
ridge, though," Hazelton predicted.
"It's gold, I tell you, Harry. When the gold-craze gets into
a fellow's blood nothing but gold can cure it. We won't kill
any one, and we'll hope not to be killed ourselves. But that
claim was our discovery, and now the way is clear for us to own
that strip of Nevada dirt. Gold, Harry, old chum---gold!"
Then they fell to writing.
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