Page:The man on horseback (IA manonhorseback00abdurich).pdf/48

32 "Me? God, no! I'm going to British Columbia up the Elk River a-ways. A fellow told me last night there's a splotch of sure-enough quartz land up yonder an' I want to have a dig at it."

And so the old prospector packed his telescope grip and was off to the border on the next Spokane & Northern train, leaving Tom Graves entirely in control of the Yankee Doodle Glory.

Given Newson Garrett's report and Wedekind's loyal help, he had little trouble in raising money for the initial development work, and Gamble, the young Pennsylvania engineer whom Wedekind had recommended, went into the task with such speed, zest and efficiency that within a few weeks even the most doubting Thomas on the local mining stock exchange, which met every forenoon in a room of the Hotel Spokane appropriately and conveniently next to the bar room, became convinced that the ore strike in the Yankee Doodle Glory was not an elaborate hoax, with a bait for suckers attached. Consequently there was many a man who groaned at the remembrance that once he had been the possessor of the prospect and that he had been in a hurry to pass it on to the next greenhorn.

Contrary to the accepted and time-honored traditions of Northwestern mining men who have made their fortunes unexpectedly and over night, who come to town on a roaring, tearing celebration, who strike the more unchecked components of local society with the strength and enthusiasm of a flying blast and gather around them a festive crowd of both sexes primed with exuberance and thirst and expectation, Tom Graves leaned instinctively towards the more sober, the more conservative set of which Martin Wedekind was the accepted leader.