There was the ghost of a gleam in his eyes. But it was not offensive. His courtesy was perfect.
"Is it a mine? A lost mine?"
"The product of a mine. In bullion. Probably a little over two thousand pounds of bullion. Virgin gold. More than a ton of virgin gold."
"A ton of gold and more. The way gold is jumping, that should mean close to three quarters of a million!" Sheridan could not keep the excitement out of his voice. But Quong's even tones did not vary.
"Between six and seven hundred thousand dollars. I think there is fully that amount. Waiting to be taken away. Belonging to no one. Once the sole property of a man who was killed in defense of it, who has left no heirs, no claimants, though, I think, their claims would have been idle. Beside myself—and you—only a man close to death, living in an opium heaven far superior to the one he will ultimately inhabit, or has so been taught to believe, knows the secret.
"This shipment of gold"—Quong had dropped his tones so that he exactly gauged the hearing distance between him and Sheridan, bending eagerly forward—came from a placer mine that yielded up this shipment and failed. Petered out, is the expression. It is now buried in the heart of one of the cliffs in the Painted Rocks, El Pueblo del Silencio. In return for what you have done, for what you will do as the ostensible leader of the enterprise, which would not be tolerated in me, I offer you half of the proceeds. Three hundred odd thousand dollars to be turned into water, alfalfa, beef, altruism!
