Page:Allan Dunn--Dead Man's Gold.djvu/29

Rh an' then I married her. She come to me cryin' one day about some gossip in the camp, clung round my neck an'—well, we was married. I tried to do the best I could, worked in the camp awhile, but I'm a prospector, a mining tramp. I got her sort of worked up over my dreams, I reckon. She'd sit with her eyes sparkling, an' plan what we'd do, an' where we'd go, when I struck it rich. So I got to trampin' the hills again. Mebbe she'd have gone with me only the babby was expected. I never told her about the Madre d'Oro. That was too much of a risk for me, seein' as I was to be the father of a babby.

"Lowe was assayer, a handsome devil, before he let his beard grow long. It was that that fooled me, for a breath, w'en he stood in the door. Wal', he got to entertainin' her while I was gold chasin'. I never suspected anything wrong. How could I, w'en he'd meet me open-handed, an' both of 'em 'ud tell me of the rides they took, with the little 'un, as she growed up, always with 'em? I wanted to find pay-dirt worse than ever an' went rainbow chasin' hard an' long."

His voice grew fainter and more laboured and Stone gave him some more whisky. He lay still for a while after taking it, his eyes closed. They would have thought him dead but for the horrid whistling that seemed to come, partly through his closed teeth, partly through the wound in his chest. Presently he opened his eyes again.

"I've got to get ahead," he said. "Time's gettin'