“I’m on,” he interrupted.  “It will do me good to put a crimp in Searle.”

CHAPTER XLI

SUVY PROVES HIS LOVE

If a single ray of far-off hope had lingered in Van’s meditations concerning Beth, and the various occurrences involving himself and his mining property, it vanished when he told her of the letter he had seen and beheld her apparent look of guilt.

One thing the interview had done:  it had cleared his decks for action.  He had lain half stunned, as it were, till now, while Bostwick held the “Laughing Water” claim and worked it for its gold.  A look that was grim and a heat that would brook no resistance had come together upon him.

That claim was his, by right of purchase, by right of discovery as to its worth!  He had earned it by hardships, privations, suffering!  He meant to have it back!  If the law could avail him, well and good!  If not, he’d make a law!

McCoppet he knew for a thief—­a “law-abiding” criminal of the subtlest type.  Bostwick, he was certain, was a crook.  Behind these two lay possibilities of crime in all its forms.  That suddenly ordered survey of the line was decidedly suspicious.  Bostwick and his fiancee had come prepared for some such coup—­and money was a worker of miracles such as no man might obstruct.

Van became so loaded full of fight that had anyone scratched a match upon him he might have exploded on the spot.  He thought of the simplest thing to do—­hire a private survey of the reservation line, either to confirm or disprove the work that Lawrence had done, and then map out his course.  The line, however, was long, surveyors were fairly swamped with work, not a foot could be traveled without some ready cash.

He went to Rickart of the bank.  Rickart listened to his plan of campaign and shook his head.

“Don’t waste your money, Van,” he said.  “The Government wouldn’t accept the word of any man you could hire.  Lawrence would have to be discredited.  Nobody doubts his ability or his squareness.  The reservation boundary was wholly a matter of guess.  You’ll find it includes that ground—­and the law will be against you.  I’d gladly lend you the money if I could, but the bank people wouldn’t stand behind me.  And every bean I’ve got of my own I’ve put in the Siwash lease.”

Van was in no mood for begging.

“All right, Rick,” he said.  “But I’ll have that line overhauled if I have to hold up a private surveyor and put him over the course at the front of a gun.”  He went out upon the street, more hot than before.

In two days time he was offered twenty dollars—­a sum he smilingly refused.  He was down and out, in debt all over the camp.  He could not even negotiate a loan.  From some of his “friends” he would not have accepted money to preserve his soul.

Meantime, spurred to the enterprise by little Mrs. Dick, old Gettysburg, Napoleon, and Dave accepted work underground and began to count on their savings for the fight.