Page:The man on horseback (IA manonhorseback00abdurich).pdf/24

8 there. You can surround yer bow-legged self with Chink cooks and autermobiles and baskets of champagne and Say, what d'you call them things full o' small bones that tastes like punk chicken and sticks in yer throat?"

"Fishes?" suggested Tom sleepily.

"No! Not fishes! I had it once when I sold that there Sally Miller prospect hole to that Eastern guy. Wait! I have it! Terrapin—that's the name! Why, man," he continued seriously, sitting down on the edge of his narrow bunk and scratching his shins, "there's so much gold down there in that hole it makes me afraid at times, Afraid!" he repeated in a strangely sibilant whisper.

"Say, you're locoed!" Tom laughed. "'What's the matter with you, old-timer? Afraid of gold?"

"I ain't afraid of the gold. Gold is all right." Truex shook his head. "But, Tom" he crossed the room and put his hand on the younger man's shoulder, "when you were down there, in that tunnel of the Yankee Doodle Glory, didn't you—oh—hear something?"

Tom looked up sharply.

"I did. But it wasn't exactly hearing. It was more like" he hunted for the right word. "Well, something like I don't know what!"

"All right. You did notice it then!" Truex broke in triumphantly. "And so did I!"

"Isn't it always so ina mine? Ina tunnel? Like an echo?"

"No, It isn't. And it wasn't like an echo. Nor did I notice it until my pickaxe knocked off that bit o' sure-enough quartz, the morning I sent you that wire! Say, Tom," he went on, very earnestly, "it's maybe because I am an old fellow and sorta