of officialdom would or could obtain the recording of it. Lederer compromised with these none-too-roseate considerations by letting Kibble do the work. One of them was enough to stampede about the country and look for chances of a coup.
Kibble didn't know what a coup was. He was a kind of Martha, a useful camp keeper and worker; reliable, steady, giving in always to the better judgment of Lederer the educated, the clever, the brilliant, the fine fellow. So Kibble had plugged away for months on the fraction, working alone—for Lederer saw to it that he was seldom in camp long enough to lend a hand—slaving in a narrow tunnel and a deep, slimy shaft in air that had killed three men in Gold Hill since the benches were opened up. Colors, another name for mere hopes, were all he had garnered thus far.
While Lederer sat holding his head and planning more desperately than ever before—the chill in the air frightening him—Dick Kibble sat on his empty box, waiting for a question. It did not annoy him in the least that the question was so slow in coming. That only prolonged the joy with which he anticipated it—and his answer.
“Well, Dick, my boy, anything new?” asked the man with the headache, finally. He had thrust out a hand for the steaming coffee cup.
Dick slyly parried the question. “How was the stampede?” he asked. “Get anything?”
“Staked a claim. Just to be doing something. I cannot find that there has been any gold produced. Colors, Dicky. You know colors, deah boy. That is Eureka Creek, which means, the Californians tell me, 'I have found it!' How absurd to call it that. Colors! Colors everywhere. How dare they start stampedes on colors!” Doctor Lederer glared balefully at the slice of bread he had seized. “I am very, very weary, Dicky—quite worn out!”
“Well, take it easy, doc,” replied Kibble genially. “What's that question you asked me?”
“Question?” Lederer thought. ”Oh, yes. Oh, nothing but—anything new? That was all.”
“Five dollars, seven fifty, three seventy-five, and near four dollars in four pans, doc. That's all that's new!”
“Where? Not here? Us?” Lederer sprang to a sitting posture.
“You're blooming right it's ours, doc. Leastways on the fraction that ought to be ours!”
Whereupon Doctor Lederer, painfully rising, gave his plannings the single direction of the fraction. It was a pitifully small fraction, but with such pans surely there was somebody, somebody who could bring influence enough now
Having verified Kibble's news, and admiringly patted that young fellow on the back accompanied with many flattering words, he prepared to depart, though his headache was no better. He took medicines. He believed in strong medicines—quick action. He possessed an affinity with them—with their exaltings or depressings. In an hour he was on his way to Dawson City, seething caldron of the Klondike. He borrowed the last two ten-dollar bills that Kibble possessed, pressed flat in a combination diary and pocketbook which the New Zealander. kept in the bottom of his waterproofed dunnage bag. The fortunes of the partnership were at a very low ebb.
In four days he was back on Gold Hill trailing a quiet, businesslike person who knew how to pan gravel after taking it from a part of a tunnel face which could not by any chance have been salted. There was no doubt of it: the fraction, though small, was equally rich with the adjoining claim. It belonged to the Canadian central government. But the Canadian central government was in Ottawa, which was a long, long way off.
Dick Kibble, always tired, latterly, with his hard drilling and poor food—for the fellow saved the best of everything for his pardner the doc—was an interested observer of these testings. He had been introduced to the quiet, businesslike person as the partner, the man who had done most of the work on the fraction. He was interrogated. He exhibited the avails of the previous pans—bed-rock pans, of course, but a fine showing. The businesslike person said to Lederer, “All right. It seems to be as you say. Let's go back to town.”
Doctor Lederer called Dick to one side. “I think there's a big chance of getting our child christened, baptized and recorded,” he said in his facetious way, which usually puzzled Kibble, who laughed good-naturedly anyhow. But this allusion to their child and the recorder's office was very plain to the junior partner.
