Page:Allan Dunn--Dead Man's Gold.djvu/207

Rh afore. I 'member lookin' at their specimens. Much like what you had, for placer stuff, but there was quartz, too, onless I'm mistaken. It was fear of the 'Paches kep' 'em off an' hope of the gold thet took 'em to their death like it nigh did us. They was busted most of the time, bein' prospectors. It ain't often the gold-digger gits in on the dividends. Chap named Castro staked 'em."

It was Stone's turn for astonishment.

"The same Castro who's running a gambling and dancing joint at Mexicali?" he asked. "Joe Castro?"

"Shouldn't wonder. This Castro I mean was a young chap then but he was in the same game. A slick one and a crook but smooth enough to get by. So it's Wat Lyman's mine. Well, well."

He fell to musing. Stone did not say anything about the specimens of quartz that the partners of Lyman had exhibited. He, too, was thinking. Castro had grubstaked Dave and Lem to find this mine. And he had, through Healy, attempted to grubstake them in the same endeavour. It was a strange tangle and he groped for the end of the thread. Then Harvey spoke again.

"'Twouldn't take very long to test each of them dry crick-beds," said Harvey, "once you found the rock. Once you knew it was somewhar near the headwaters, for that matter. Yore man wasn't over and above smart in hiding his information, I figger."

"It doesn't seem so," admitted Stone, a little puzzled at the seeming simplicity of the second move.