CHAPTER XXX

SUNSET

“The reason I didn’t want to talk about shares, last night,” Tom told his sister, late the next afternoon, “was because we don’t actually own a dollar’s worth of that mine.”

They were sitting outside the mine shack. Henry and Mort had been lodged in a Mexican prison. They were merely waiting until Mr. Gray would be ready to leave the mines. Bill and Jack had attended to the necessary legal formalities. But Mr. Gray learned that the mine superintendent had discovered a regular hoard of old Aztec relics in the fastness of the hills and Mr. Gray proposed to go with him to inspect them the next day. He might decide to remain the rest of the late summer and collect and arrange the relics.

“Why, don’t she own a dollar of the mine?” Nicky demanded. “She hid the paper. Her father paid for half the mine.”

“But he paid Mort, and Mort can’t return the money, and he had no right to sell the mine. It was really Jack’s——”

“Well,” said Jack, ambling up, “did I hear my name mentioned?”

“You certainly did,” declared Cliff. “Tom says he can’t touch the mine at all because it’s all yours and what his father paid——”

“Please—please!” gasped Mort’s former beach combing partner of Porto Bello. “Don’t make me weep. Don’t make me laugh.”

“Just the same,” said Tom, “it wouldn’t be right.”

“Well,” said Jack, “let’s look at it this way. Your father paid in good earnest.”

Tom nodded, and Margery, beside him, smiled and gave vigorous assent.

“And because Mort was greedy and all, his greed and lust has turned against him and has brought me back to being a man through you folks. But that don’t pay for the mine, of course. And it’s a shame, too.” He looked over toward the mountains. The sun, declining, was taking on the rich, golden hue, and the sky was dyed, above a blood-red line just over the hills, with a vast, swimming, pulsating light, a vivid golden sea of beauty.

“It’s too bad,” Jack added. “Don’t you think so, Bill?” as Bill came up. “What with us finding that the Dead Hope vein has been struck again, and they’ve got their gold dust back and our own mine has a vein of ore as thick as your arm, about two feet under the rock—ain’t it too bad we can’t sell shares to our friends?”

“Sell, yes! But not give!” said Tom.

“Well,” said Jack, “how about making me an offer. If you was to want the half-interest, say, I might consider taking that—let me see—yes! That cigar lighter that saved you in the Chucunaque country. You don’t smoke. It’s no good to you.”

“It’s a keepsake,” Tom said—and then started—“Golly! It isn’t even mine to keep. I took it from Bill.”

“I now and here make you a present of it!” said Bill magnanimously, “and you keep it, too. Jack may own that mine, but he’s traded half to me for my ranch, and he don’t know which half he’s traded, so I guess nobody owns the other half—so, why not claim it from him!”

“Would that be right?” asked Margery, her eyes big and interested.

“Little sister,” said Bill kindly, “for lads like Tom, and Cliff, and Nicky—and a girl like you!—anything a decent fellow can do is—right!”

“Thanks,” said Nicky.

“Same here,” said Cliff.

Margery wasn’t ashamed to hug Bill.

As for Tom, with just a little lump in his throat for the fine chum Bill always was—Tom couldn’t think what to say.

So, as Bill dragged out a cigarette, Tom said nothing.

And lit the cigarette with his life-saving lighter.

THE END

FOOTNOTE

[1]This is not impossible for a clever and adept person who has the strange ability to identify his mind with that of another, to “see his pictures,” as Cliff’s father explained it to Tom later.

Transcriber’s Notes

--Copyright notice provided as in the original—this e-text is public domain in the country of publication.

--Silently corrected palpable typos; left non-standard spellings and dialect unchanged.

--In the text versions, delimited italics text in _underscores_ (the HTML version reproduces the font form of the printed book.)