“It’s wonderful,” said he to himself, softly.  “It’s just wonderful what human bein’s can do!  If I, hadn’t ever seen this mill, I wuddn’t have believed it!  But I’ll say at this point meself, that I’m not looking a gift mill in the mouth.  Moreover, this runnin’ of your own mill, not bein’ beholden to any sordid capitalist, nor yet depindent on anny inefficient labor, is what I may call a truly ijeel situation in life.  I’ll stay here till the wood runs out.  Not that I’ll cut wood for annybody.  Capital must draw the line somewhere!”

No one noticed the smoke from the abandoned gold mill.  McGinnis ran it by himself and undisturbed until his woodpile waned.  Then he disconnected, blew off, and set to work to scrape his plates, whereon to his experienced eye there now appeared a gratifying roughness in the coating.  He got off a lump of amalgam as big as his fist, and was content.  “It’s ojus there’s no retort here,” said he, “but like enough I’ll find some way to vollituize this mercury.”

He crossed the arroyo, and went to the cabin which had once been the office of the assayer.  The latter was now an emigre, but he had left his crucibles and his furnace behind him; because it is not convenient to carry such things when one is afoot.  McGinnis found a retort, adjusted it, set it going, volatilized the mercury from his amalgam, and in time had his button of dirty but quite valid gold.  It lay heavy in his hand and rested heavy in his pocket.  “As a captain of industhry,” said he, “I must see what I can do for poor sufferin’ humanity.”  He chuckled, and passed out into the street.

“As capital,” said McGinnis to himself, walking on in the moonlight, “I am entitled to the first drink meself, and after that to one or two as a laborer.  Then, if there’s anny left, after treatin’ all round, I’ll buy the town a public liberry, pervidin’ the town’ll make it sufficiently and generally understood that I’m a leadin’ and public-minded citizen that has reached success by the grace of God and a extraordinary brain.”

But McGinnis in his philanthropic intentions met difficulty.  He wandered into the Lone Star, and placing his crude bullion upon the counter, swept about him a comprehensive hand.  To his wonder there was no response.  A few of the assembled populace shifted uneasily in their seats, but none arose.  “Do you take this for a low-down placer camp?” asked Billy Hudgens, with a dull show of pride, when McGinnis demanded the gold scales.

“No,” said McGinnis, “it’s a quartz camp right enough, and all it needs is developin’.  At this speakin’, I’m capital and labor both, and crew of the Nancy Brig.  What’s the matter?”

A sigh escaped from the audience, as Billy Hudgens made reply.  “Not a drop,” said he; “all gone.  Nothing till Tom Osby gets back from Vegas, and maybe not then.  I owe Gross & Blackwell over two hundred now.”