Page:Allan Dunn--Dead Man's Gold.djvu/28

14 get faint. He was too quick for me. I'd given up lookin' for him though I felt we'd meet up sooner or later in some mining camp. And I had to kill him without finding out what. …"

His features contracted in a spasm of pain, and stayed with a curiously pinched look upon them. Stone fed him some whisky.

"I've got to talk fast," he said, gaspingly, "and low. You boys get closer round me. You've known me as the rest of 'em have, as old Wat Lyman who never made a strike. 'Out-of-Luck Watty.' But I know where there's gold enough to make all of you millionaires. I'm not raving," he went on, as Lefty winked at Healy. "Wait and I'll show you. Stone, get me my valise."

The bag was a wrinkled, worn-out affair that weighed heavily. The three knew from previous openings that it contained some folded papers bound with faded ribbon, a batch of letters tied in the same fashion, a quantity of ore samples, a more or less precious or curious record of Lyman's work and wandering, a few articles of clothing, and an old, leather-bound volume. It had been jokingly referred to as his "war-bag."

Stone, at a weak gesture from the dying man, set it down, unopened, at the foot of the bunk.

"That skunk, Sam Lowe," said Lyman, talking in little jerks, "stole my wife. Twelve years ago. Mebbe it was my fault, in a way. She was lots younger'n me, fond of life. I was her father's pardner an', w'en he died, I sort of looked after her