Page:The man on horseback (IA manonhorseback00abdurich).pdf/21

Rh the Yankee Doodle Glory" as men in other places speak of "passing the buck"; and now laughing Tom Graves was the owner.

But though he had had half-a-dozen chances of palming it off on newcomers fresh from the East he had always stoutly refused to do so.

"It isn't because I don't want to stick 'em," he had said, blushing like a girl, "but I'm going to develop this here property of mine, see?" And so he had formed a partnership with "Old Man" Truex by the terms of which the latter contributed the labor, the tools, and the dynamite, while Tom ceded to him a half interest in the mine and gave an occasional sum of money whenever he could save it out of his munificent wage of sixty dollars a month.

And then, two days ago, he had received a succinct and ungrammatical telegram that read: