Title: Greener than spruce
Author: Farris, Herbert
Language: English
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GREENER THAN SPRUCE

By Herbert Farris

Author of “Plenty Grub an’ Plenty Gold,” etc.



“Maybe greener men _have_ hit Alasky--but I doubt it!”

The speaker, a rheumy-eyed, old veteran of the trails, spoke thus
disparagingly of young Harris Benton. The old-timer’s perpetual
“sun-grin” expanded visibly as he watched Benton’s parka-clad figure
disappear around a bend in the river trail.

“Wonder how long he’ll last,” the old fellow speculated, turning to
the group on the river bank. “I’ll bet I’ve showed him a dozen times
how to tie his snowshoes to his feet, an’ I’ve told him little
things about pitchin’ his tent and makin’ camp, till I’m black in
the face. It’ll be three-four weeks yet before mushin’ll be any
good, but I’ve got a right good notion to load up the old Yukon sled
an’ take out after that young chechahco.”

“An’ why?”

The old-timer had paused for that query. The question certainly gave
pith and point to the clever thing on the tip of his tongue. The
remark would have lost its savor in the telling; the retort,
however, was pungent.

“An’ why?” he repeated. “I’ll tell you for why. I’ve been snow-blind
twice, so my eyes ain’t what they used to be. Nowadays, when I ain’t
wearin’ snow glasses--an’ blast the dang things, I hate ’em!-- I’ve
got to keep my eyes clamped on the spruce.

“Spruce is dang restful to the eyes. It’s restful because it’s
green, but to keep on lookin’ at it, a man’s got to twist his head
from one side the river to the other, an’ there’s times when I think
I’m li’ble to twist my head plum off--like a screech owl. Now,
instead of takin’ all that trouble, I _could_ start out an’ foller
after this young Benton. Instead of lookin’ at the spruce then, I
could keep my eyes fastened straight ahead on _him_. He’s greener
than any spruce that ever growed.”

If young Harris Benton could have heard this sarcastic speech, he
would have been rudely made aware of the withering contempt in which
he was held by the general run of Alaskans with whom he had come in
contact. Had he been aware of the feeling which existed, he would
not have been offended in the least; he would have been amused. He
was green but, unlike many greenhorns, he realized the fact and was
anxious to learn. Moreover, he was willing to accept the hard
knocks--a part of the curriculum of Alaska’s trail school--and come
up smiling. For Harris Benton, although he was probably the greenest
chechahco in the North, had not been raised a pet.

At noon, young Benton hauled his sled to the river bank and, with
considerable difficulty, dropped a dead spruce tree and built a
small tea fire. After his noon meal he unloaded his Yukon sled,
inverted it so that the steel-shod runners shone like twin mirrors
in the rays of the sun; then--and this is almost past believing--he
proceeded to smear the steel shoes of the sled runners with
lubricating oil.

The dealer who had sold him the oil--either unscrupulous or a
practical joker--had seriously informed him that “greased sled
runners makes mighty easy slippin’ on the trail.” Harris Benton had
innocently bought five gallons of the lubricant.

Where a musher pulls without dogs, as young Benton was doing, every
pound of excess weight is an additional check to his progress. And
besides the five gallons of lubricating oil, Harris Benton was
hauling other nonessentials. He had more clothing than he really
needed; about twenty pounds of books and old magazines, and the
merchant from whom he had bought his outfit had sold him far too
many cooking utensils. Benton’s entire outfit weighed almost twelve
hundred pounds, and, since at best he could haul but four hundred
pounds on his Yukon sled, he was relaying. He would haul from three
to four hundred pounds as far up the river trail as he could
possibly travel in a day, cache his load, and return to his camp
with his empty sled.

Early in the month of May he reached the Kentna country. He had been
on the trail four months, and he had arrived with pick, pan, and
shovel, together with ample food to last him through the mining
season. Also--as every old-timer in the Kentna country will
testify--he had arrived with the ambition and energy of a half dozen
men in spite of the grueling work on the trail.

Young Benton spent his first week after arriving at “the cricks” in
building a cache for his supplies. It was a simple box affair, built
of logs, supported high in air by four posts. He was busily stowing
his food and other supplies in the cache, when a voice at his elbow
brought him about with a start. Looking up from his work, he saw the
old-timer who had offered him many helpful suggestions back at the
trading post. The old man was surveying him, his small stock of
provisions, and his crude cache, with frank curiosity.

“Well, I see you landed here all right,” he remarked by way of
greeting. “I’m camped just above here on Penny Ante Crick, an’ I
ain’t got a thing to do till the snow goes off, so I thought I’d
mush over an’ see how you’re gettin’ along. Staked yourself a claim
yet?”

Benton admitted that he had not. “I didn’t know it was lawful to
stake a claim unless you discover gold,” he added.

“Plenty of ’em stakes first an’ find the gold afterward--if there’s
any to be found.” The old man’s rheumy eyes were mildly
disapproving. “I wouldn’t worry too much about makin’ my discovery,
if I was you. Most any gravel you find around here carries _some_
gold. Trouble is to find it in payin’ quantities. So hurry up an’
stake yourself a claim or two, before some of these ground hogs
comes in on the first boat this summer an’ grabs it all. Us
old-timers takes just what we can work to good advantage, but most
greenhorns’ll wear out a pair of hobnail shoes just a-racin’ over
the country stakin’. You’re lucky to be here among the first, so
hurry up an’ get busy.”

“Thanks for the tip. I’ll----”

“It’s none of my business,” the old-timer suddenly interrupted, “but
what in thunder have you brought into the country in _that_?”

Benton had placed his five-gallon can of lubricating oil near the
cache, and it was that which had elicited the question. He was
somewhat puzzled.

“Why, that’s my oil,” he said. “How do you carry yours?”

The ancient sour dough had all he could do to keep a straight face.
This green chechahco had actually brought kerosene into this
wilderness!

“You won’t have no use for a lamp,” he said gently. “All summer you
can read fine print right in your tent--any hour of the night, too.
I thought ev’ry-body knowed----”

“I have no lamp,” young Benton interrupted impatiently. “I’m green
but I’m not quite a fool--I hope. That isn’t oil for a lamp; it’s
about four gallons of lubricating oil that I had left over from my
winter’s sledding.”

“I see.” The old man shifted his weight from one moccasined foot to
the other, swallowing his Adam’s apple twice before he once more
found his voice. “I understand you but I don’t know what you mean,”
he said. “How much of this oil did you use an’ how did you use it?”

“Well, I used about a gallon.” Young Benton was looking doubtfully
at the old man. “I think I see what you’re driving at now. I allowed
that storekeeper to sell me five gallons when one was all that I
needed.”

The old-timer lifted his tufted eyebrows. “An’ you got through the
winter with one gallon,” he said softly, wonderingly.

“Why, I only used it in the morning and again at noon. Just when
I--but maybe I didn’t use it often enough. Still, the sled came
along pretty well.”

The old-timer barked apologetically in his mittened hand. At last he
understood. It had been so many years since he had heard of the old
joke of greasing sled runners that he had forgotten. But this boy
was so very much in earnest, it wouldn’t do to hurt his feelings.
And besides, it might lead to serious trouble. This innocent youth
had dragged this worthless stuff over the trail--pounds and pounds
of it. Murder had been committed for less than a joke like that!

“The skinflint sold you too much, all right,” he said, as he reached
down and thoughtfully “hefted” the can. “But you’ve got it here--I
reckon you might as well forget it. Anyhow, you won’t have any more
use for it. You’re all through sleddin’. An’ now I’d better be
gettin’ along. If you want anything this summer, you’ll find me over
on Penny Ante Crick. Number Five Above Discovery’s the name of my
claim.”

                *       *       *       *       *

Harris Benton was highly elated when he next saw the old-timer. Not
only had he staked a claim on what he called Benton Gulch but he had
actually discovered gold and he had found it in paying quantities.
For a week he had panned the gravel on Benton Gulch, and he was now
displaying his sample to the old-timer. The old man listened
attentively to the boy’s story, but did not enthuse over the sample.

“You’ve come clean over here to Penny Ante Crick to show me this,
an’ I’m right sorry to have to disappoint you.” In spite of the old
man’s words, young Benton was grinning cheerfully. “It takes a whole
lot to discourage a young rooster like you,” he resumed, “but I’ll
soon show you why you’ve got to leave that gulch alone. I don’t
doubt what you say. You got the gold here to prove it. But how’re
you goin’ to work the ground? Answer me that.”

Harris Benton still grinned. “I know why you think I can’t work that
ground,” he said. “It’s what you old-timers call a dry gulch. I know
there won’t be drinking water there this summer. What you overlooked
is this. By digging a ditch less than a quarter mile in length I can
get one of the best sluice heads in this country. Right over that
shoulder at the head of my gulch is where I----”

“I know where you mean, all right,” interrupted the old-timer. “But
have you talked with Joe Murtry yet?”

“Haven’t even seen him. But why should I talk to him? What has he to
do with it?”

“Ev’rything. Joe Murtry owns ev’ry drop of water in Caribou Crick.
He recorded it last spring a year ago.”

Young Benton was on the point of interrupting, but the old-timer
silenced him. “Now don’t start to tell me that all you’ve got to do
is to go over to Caribou Crick an’ get Joe Murtry to give you the
right to take what water you want, for Joe ain’t that kind. He ain’t
only the luckiest man in Alasky--he’s the _meanest_. If he’s worth a
dime, he’s worth a half million right now, but even so, he wouldn’t
give a man daylight in a dark cellar. You just forget you ever
staked a claim on that little gulch an’ start out prospectin’ for
something that’ll do you some good.”

Young Benton thanked the old man for his advice. “But,” he added,
“I’m not going to start out prospectin’, when I’ve already
discovered gold--unless I’m forced to do so. I’m going over to see
Murtry at once.”

“All right; but be ready to run if he comes at you. He’s the meanest
man in Alasky, bar none. Joe Murtry never done no man a favor, an’
he never will. Mark what I tell you, son. He’ll chase you off his
ground just as soon as you show up an’ tell him what you want.
You’re just wastin’ your time. But, then, that’s the trouble with
all chechahcos; they won’t listen to an old-timer’s advice.”

Young Benton went at once to Caribou Creek. In spite of what he had
heard of Joe Murtry, he was not convinced. There was an abundance of
water in Caribou Creek, and surely no man would be mean enough to
refuse to allow the use of the surplus. This line of reasoning gave
him great confidence, but his first glimpse of Murtry caused his
heart to sink.

Murtry was not tall, but he was as broad as two average-sized men.
Yet he was not fat. His arms were unusually long, and, due to a
slight stoop to his powerful shoulders, his huge hands hung slightly
ahead of his knees. Young Benton looked at him and instantly thought
of a gorilla. With two others, Murtry was setting up a string of
sluice boxes.

Benton watched them for a time; twice, without waiting to be asked,
he gave them a hand. Murtry, who had barely spoken, paused at last
and sized up his caller. What he saw evidently satisfied him.

“Want a job?” he asked gruffly. “I’m taking one of these men upriver
tomorrow, an’ if you’re lookin’ for work, you can stay here an’ help
Sam. Do whatever he tells you.”

Here was a golden opportunity. Surely if he favored Murtry, he might
expect the big fellow to reciprocate. “I’m not looking for work for
the season,” he said, “but I’ll be glad to help out for a few
days--if that will do you any good.”

Murtry grunted. “All I need,” he said. “I’ve got a foreman an’
fifteen men waitin’ for me upriver. They mush in from the
coast--their time starts the first of June whether they’re here or
not. Hunderd an’ fifty miles from here. I’m goin’ up in my boat an’
bring ’em down. You stay an’ help Sam out till I come back with my
men, an’ I’ll pay you the goin’ wages--ten bucks an’ grub.”

Sam soon shuffled off to cook the evening meal, and Benton decided
to say nothing about his sluice head of water until after they had
eaten. Their pipes going, he thought it time to broach the subject.

“I didn’t tell you that I was a neighbor of yours,” he said by way
of opening the conversation. “I spent the winter sledding in my
outfit.”

“That so?” Murtry said with a mild simulation of interest. “Where
you camped?”

Benton indicated the direction. “Right over there,” he said, “I’ve
named it Benton Gulch.”

“You ain’t staked that little dry gulch?”

“Why, yes. You see, I believe there’s a little gold there--I don’t
know how much--I’ve already done quite a bit of panning and I hope
to----”

“You’re a fool!” Murtry interrupted in a rage. “If you don’t know
that I own ev’ry drop of water in Caribou Crick, it’s time you was
learnin’. How do you aim to work that gulch without water?”

“That’s what I came over to see you about,” said Benton. “I heard
that it was your water and I thought that you would be glad to spare
me a sluice head.” Benton was speaking calmly, in spite of the
other’s belligerent attitude. “Of course,” he went on, “if the water
in Caribou Crick should run low this summer or fall, I’d quit taking
it out, but----”

“You’d _quit_ takin’ it out!” Murtry cried. “You’re never goin’ to
_begin_ takin’ it out! If you ever start monkeyin’ with Caribou
Crick, I’ll drill you so full of holes you’ll look like----”

Murtry’s anger was intensified by his failure to find the word he
was seeking. “Say,” he cried, “you get clean off this claim! Beat it
quick, while you’re all together!”

Benton was sitting at the rough table; he rose slowly. “Why
certainly--if it’s your claim--I’ll leave.” He was speaking
hesitantly but he was not afraid of the glowering bully who had
commanded him to leave. He was simply surprised at the man’s
unreasonable anger. “But even if I have no water, that gulch belongs
to me, and I mean to hold it.”

“Hold it as long as you want to!” Murtry was shouting after him.
“Hold it till you get good an’ tired of doing assessment work on it!
Wait a minute till I tell you something you’d just as well know now
as later!” Benton paused and Murtry continued. “There ain’t any gold
in that gulch, but even if there was, _you’d_ never get to work it.
I’ve got the water an’ I aim to keep it!”

The old-timer was right. He was right about everything! He had said
that Joe Murtry was the meanest man in Alaska; he had said that no
matter how much gold the tiny gulch might carry, Murtry would never
allow it to be worked. Benton considered the various things that the
old-timer had told him until he reached his camp in Benton Gulch.
Well, he decided, he would follow the old man’s advice and quit the
gulch on the following day.

Benton had been prospecting the gulch every day for more than a
week. Through force of habit he took his pick, shovel and gold pan,
and went to work in the narrow cut which he had been running into a
shoulder of the hill near his tent. He was far from an expert with
the gold pan, but he enjoyed the beginner’s thrill, which always
came when he “tailed off” the residue in the pan, and saw the streak
of yellow trickling behind the black sand.

Young Benton extended his cut three feet into the hill. He was
following along the disintegrated slate bed rock; although he did
not realize it, the bedrock was totally different. Before it had
been “slick,” now it was rough and “rotten.”

He filled his pan with gravel and carried it to a hole which he had
dug in the gulch’s channel. Now the hole was filled with water from
the melting snows; in a week, perhaps, it would be dry. At least the
old-timer had said that it would, and Benton was now a firm believer
in the wisdom of the old man.

It is a maxim with old-timers that “many things are mistaken for
gold, but gold is never mistaken for anything else.” A greenhorn is
often fooled, for example, by iron pyrites and “cube” iron, but when
he discovers gold, the real thing, he knows. So it was with Benton.
For a week he had been panning “pinhead stuff” that would “rattle in
the pan.” Now, as he “tailed off” the pan he had taken from the
disintegrated bed rock, he saw that a half-dozen dull-yellow pieces
of gold were in the bottom of the pan. Benton’s old-timer would have
pronounced them slugs.

Benton was excited. He held the slugs in the palm of his hand, while
he attempted to estimate their value. The smallest of them, he
decided, was fully twice as large as a five-dollar gold piece; the
largest was surely worth more than twenty dollars. The six slugs
would total almost a hundred dollars. Chechahco that he was, Benton
still knew that he had uncovered bonanza dirt.

Young Benton went again to his cut. This time he worked feverishly
for two hours. His pay streak was rich, extremely so, but there was
a heavy overburden to handle. In other words, above the pay he had
discovered on bed rock, lay ten, twenty, possibly as much as fifty
feet of muck and gravel. Undoubtedly the ground was rich enough that
he could take out hundreds of dollars that summer without water, but
if he could only manage to get that sluicehead from Caribou Creek,
he could with a pressure hose, run that overburden off like so much
soup. He _must_ have that water? But how?

At five o’clock next morning young Benton was seated on the stump of
a spruce where the clear waters of Caribou Creek gushed into the
brown foam-flecked river. He looked at Murtry’s river boat which was
beached near by. It rested on two fresh-peeled logs, and Benton saw
that all preparations had been recently made to launch the vessel.
At six o’clock, Murtry and one of his men put in an appearance.
Benton had no time to lose; he spoke to Murtry at once.

“Murtry,” he said, without rising from his stump, “I’ve been
thinking the matter over and I wonder if you would consider
_selling_ me a sluice head of water from Caribou Crick. I’ll pay you
what it is worth.”

Murtry paid him no attention. He and his man put their shoulders at
the stern of the boat and skidded the vessel into the river. Murtry
made a line fast to a convenient “dead man,” while his man leaped
into the stern of the boat and started the engine. No sooner did he
have the engine purring rhythmically, than he shut it off.

“What’s the matter?” Murtry, who was about to cast off and leap
aboard, made the line fast again. “Anything wrong with that engine?”

“No, but----” The man was looking at Murtry in wide-eyed alarm. He
was afraid to tell what was wrong, and yet he dared not remain
silent. “Mr. Murtry,” he said, speaking swiftly, as if anxious to
break the news as quickly as possible, “there ain’t a single drop of
engine oil. I spoke to Sam about it last night after we’d loaded the
other stuff aboard, an’ he said there was plenty of oil here. But I
just looked an’ there’s nothin’ but gasoline. There’s more gasoline
than we need, but there ain’t a drop of----”

“You idiot!” Murtry exclaimed. “Chase right up to camp an’ get some
out of the cache an’ hurry!”

Murtry’s man leaped ashore, but stood hesitantly, shifting his feet
as if in a quandary.

“Hurry! I don’t want to wait here all day!”

“I’ll go look again, but I looked last evenin’ an’ there wasn’t any
there. At least I didn’t see it. That’s why Sam was so sure there
was plenty on the boat.”

“Of course it’s there. If you don’t find it in the cache, look in
the tool shed.”

At this the man shuffled off. Young Benton was much pleased at
Murtry’s unexpected delay, but he was somewhat nettled at the manner
in which he had been ignored. He decided to try again, and this time
he would do his utmost to make Murtry answer him.

“I suppose you didn’t hear me a bit ago,” he began, “but----”

“I heard you the first time,” Murtry interrupted with an oath. “Now
shut your yap an’ get out!”

Benton did not move. Seeing this, Murtry’s great hamlike hands
twisted about convulsively; his lips drew back against his uneven
teeth, and with an enraged snarl he quickly rushed at the youth.

“I’ll show you if you move or not!” he shouted. “Once I get a hold
of you, I’ll----”

Murtry suddenly brought up with a sharp exclamation. Ten feet from
Benton, he had stopped with an expression of bewilderment on his
broad face. He was gazing like a man fascinated into the barrel of
an automatic.

“I came ready for you,” said young Benton coolly. “I’m not on your
claim, and I don’t see you or anybody else throwing me off of
government land. And now, you can at least listen to what I have to
say, even if you don’t care to----”

“I’ll listen, you young pup,” Murtry said, “but there’s a day
comin’. You’ll wake up some day an’ learn that what I say goes in
this neck of the woods.”

Murtry advanced a step as he said this. “And you,” said Benton as he
menaced Murtry with his weapon, “may _never_ wake up, if you come
another step in this direction. There, that’s better,” he went on as
Murtry retreated a step. “From what I’ve been told, Murtry, you’re a
mighty rich man. It won’t bother you in the least to sell--or give
me, for that matter--some of your water. You’ve got your pile made.
Now be decent and give me a chance to get out of this country with a
little money for all the hardship I’ve gone through. Will you listen
to a sensible proposition?”

“Rave on,” said Murtry sullenly. “You’ve got me dead to rights. Talk
away if it does you any good, but you’ll get nothin’ out of me.”

“I’ll give you a third of all the money I take out,” said Benton,
speaking slowly and distinctly. “If you’ll give me the water to work
the ground. Is it a go?”

Murtry opened his lips as if he intended to reply; then closed them
tightly. A minute passed and he seemed to reconsider. “You might as
well trot along,” he said contemptuously. “Use your brains. Why
_would_ I take a third? If there’s any money there, I can have it
all after you starve out; an’ if there ain’t anything there, what’s
the idee of my takin’ a third!”

Benton said nothing more. Argument seemed such a futile thing, so
far as Murtry was concerned. Five minutes passed and Murtry’s man
appeared empty handed. His manner was apologetic.

“It ain’t there,” he said, whining. “An’ there ain’t any on the
boat. Sam or some of the other boys must’ve used it all up last fall
before the boat was laid up. I don’t know what to do unless I mush
up there an’ have the boys come down in a boat or on a raft.”

For almost a minute, Murtry raved like a maniac. “An’ ev’ry day that
my men stay up there, it’s costin’ me a hunderd an’ sixty-five
dollars.” He groaned. “Fifteen men at ten a day an’ my foreman at
fifteen a day. That’s what comes of puttin’ a man like you in charge
of my boat. Say, how long do you think it’d take you to mush up
there?”

“A hunderd an’ fifty miles is a good ways--goin’ through the brush
like I’ll have to do,” the man said. “I’ll do my best though to make
it in ten days.”

“Sixteen hunderd an’ sixty-five dollars!” Again Murtry groaned. “An’
maybe a whole lot more--if you _don’t_ make it in ten days. Well,
what are you standin’ there for? Get a move on!”

“Wait just a minute, Mr. Murtry. I’ve just thought about somethin’
that may save you a whole lot of money, an’ save me that long trip
upriver on foot. An old-timer over on Penny Ante Crick has been
tellin’ all around that this young Benton sledded in nearly five
gallons of oil last winter. He was laughin’ about him usin’ it to
grease his sled runners, an’ he’s got upward of four gallons of it
left. Now, if you could buy it off him----”

“Why, of course,” Murtry interrupted briskly. “I heard about it a
month ago. Just forgot it.” He turned to Benton. “How much do you
want for that oil?” he asked in a pleasant voice.

Young Benton was thinking fast. He, too, had forgotten all about the
oil that he had bought to make slippin’ easy. He had considered the
stuff worthless, but now----

“I’ll tell you, Mr. Murtry,” he said thoughtfully, “I had a lot of
work sledding that oil in here last winter. I really hadn’t thought
about selling it, but since you need it, and I don’t, I’ll let you
have it.”

“You mean for nothin’?” Murtry asked incredulously.

“Of course not. I mean for a fair price.”

Murtry became suspicious. “What do you call a fair price?” he
countered. “It’s worth nothin’ whatever to you, an’ I’ll give
you--let’s see, I’ll give you two dollars a gallon for it an’ allow
you a dollar a pound for freightin’ it into the country. Fair
enough, ain’t it?”

Benton grinned. “That’s one way of looking at it,” he said amiably,
“but I really can’t think of letting it go for what you offer. Two
dollars a gallon is more than the oil is worth, but--the freighting
the stuff into this country. Man, that was the hardest work I ever
did in my life!”

“I get you.” Murtry spoke thickly. “You’ve got me where the wool’s
short an’ you aim to gouge me. All right--tell you what I’ll
do--I’ll give you a hundred dollars cash on the nail. How ’bout it?”

“That _would_ be gouging, as you call it.” Benton seemed to be
considering the matter. “No,” he said at last, “I can’t take that
much money. Four gallons of oil isn’t worth a hundred dollars.”

“Say, what in thunder are you drivin’ at?” Murtry cried angrily.
“Are you tryin’ to kid somebody?”

“Not at all. You’ve made your offer, and now I’ll make mine.” Benton
spoke slowly and distinctly. “As you said a moment ago, that oil is
really worth nothing at all to me, so I’ll tell you what I’ll do.
I’ll just give you the oil, provided that you’ll give me something
that’s worth nothing whatever to you. In case you don’t know, I mean
a sluice head of water from Caribou Creek. Are you on?”

Murtry was thinking hard. There was not one chance in a thousand of
this confident youngster finding gold on that little dry gulch.
There was water to spare, lots of it going to waste, but oil--there
was only four gallons of lubricating oil in the country! With a
scowl, Murtry nodded his head in the affirmative.

                *       *       *       *       *

It was a month later before the old-timer visited young Benton on
his dry gulch. Fully a half dozen men were bustling about on the
claim. Benton himself was closely watching two men who were holding
the nozzle of a pressure hose trained against a bank of gravel. The
old-timer stood aghast until Benton came over to greet him.

“Well, how in the name of Sam Hill,” said the old man, “did you ever
make a deal with Joe Murtry to get this water!”

For reply Benton fished a bit of paper from his pocket, and passed
it over. “Read it,” he said with a grin.

The old-timer slowly spelled out the brief document.

    In consideration of four gallons of engine oil, I hereby
    agree to sell, assign, and transfer to Harris Benton,
    a full sluice head of water to be taken from the waters
    of Caribou Creek, and I agree to allow him or his agents
    to go on my claim or claims to dig the necessary ditch
    to carry said water.

                                                  Joe Murtry.

“You’re the first man that ever got the best of Joe Murtry,” gasped
the old-timer. “How in thunder did you do it?”

Benton explained.

“And now,” he went on, “I’ve got some good miners working for me,
but--you’re an old-timer--do they seem to be working the ground all
right?”

“Listen, son,” said the old-timer solemnly. “You don’t need the
advice of an old-timer.”


[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the June 5, 1926 issue
of Western Story Magazine.]



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