sent down South for assay, receiving in return very rude letters about them which puzzled him. But Hughes did stumble across something once, though by accident. An old German prospector died and left behind a small lease which he had been working. The water had been bad in the well he sank, and the old fellow had grown worse and worse, dying eventually of arsenical poisoning.
Now arsenical poisoning meant very little to Hughes, but a great deal to Cameron and Pegus, who were always sniffing around for anything "good," and quickly scented arsenical pyrites. So Cameron, Pegus, Hughes and a borrowed Chinaman soon had the old German's lease looking as though a lot of Gullivers had been playing cribbage on it and using gigantic matches for pegs. And they wern't satisfied.
Higgins was a quiet old chap who knew a good bit about mining. He had been out to Buchanan several times nosing round. He pegged out 75 acres at Mount Madden—more as a blind, I think, than anything else—and one day drove his pegs home on Buchanan, when no one was about. But Hughes and his gang disputed him and Pegus, one of them, being Warden of the Field, had laid official hands upon it.
Higgins was a hard-faced old man, who looked at life between the lies and the jokes as rather a serious thing. He lived at Ahlers' but never drank anything, so he was referred to when out of earshot disrespectfully as "Dot damned old Higgins." He came in to meals regularly and never passed anything. When Ahlers wanted to be satirical he would refer to the climate as being "Splendid for yong beebles und old men," and with a look at Higgins that it "gaf, yon healthy abetites."
"I'll trouble you for a bit more of that steak, Jimmy," was all the answer old Higgins gave, and Jimmy, the Chinese cook, would laugh serenely and bring the steak.
