The assayer puckered up his mouth.

“Briggs has skipped—­gone East.”

“I know.  Well—­all in a lifetime, I suppose.  Pay you, Frank, when I can.”

“That’s all right,” his friend assured him.  “Forget it if you like.”

Van started off, but returned.

“Say, Frank,” he said, “don’t hawk this around.  It’s bad enough for me to laugh at myself.  I don’t want the chorus joining in.”

“I’m your clam,” said Frank.  “So long, and better luck!”

CHAPTER X

THE LAUGHING WATER CLAIM

A man who lives by uncertainties has a singular habit of mind.  He is ever lured forward by hopes and dreams that overlap each other as he goes.  While the scheme in hand is proving hopeless, day by day, he grasps at another, just ahead, and draws himself onward towards the gilded goal, forgetful of the trickery of all those other schemes behind, that were equally bright in their day.

Van had relinquished all hold on the golden dream once dangled before him by the Monte Cristo mine, to lay strong hands on the promise vouchsafed by the “See Saw” claim which he had purchased.  As he walked away from the assayer’s shop he felt his hands absolutely empty.  For the very first time in at least four years he had no blinding glitter before his vision to entice him to feverish endeavor.  He was a dreamer with no dreams, a miner without a mine.

He felt chagrined, humiliated.  After all his time spent here in the world’s most prodigious laboratory of minerals, he had purchased a salted mine!  A sharper man, that sad-faced, half-sick Selwyn Briggs, had actually trimmed him like this!

Salted!  And he was broke.  Well, what was the next thing to do?  He thought of the fine large bill of goods, engaged for himself and partners to take to the “See Saw” claim.  It made him smile.  But he would not rescind the order—­for a while.  His partners, with his worldly goods, the Chinese cook and all the household, save Cayuse, would doubtless arrive by noon.  He and they had to eat; they had to live.  Also they had to mine, for they knew nothing else by way of occupation.  They must somehow get hold of some sort of claim, and go on with their round of hopes and toil.  They had never been so utterly bereft—­so outcast by the goddess of fortune—­since they had thrown their lots together.

He dreaded the thought of meeting various acquaintances here in camp—­the friends to whom he had said he was going that day to the “See Saw” property, far over the Mahogany range, near the Indian reservation.  He determined to go.  Perhaps the shack and the shaft-house on the claim, with the windlass and tools included by Briggs in the bill of sale, might fetch a few odd dollars.

Slowly down the street he went to the hay-yard where his pony was stabled.  He met a water man, halting on his rounds at the front of a neat canvas dwelling.  The man had three large barrels on a wagon, each full of muddy, brackish water.  A long piece of hose was thrust into one, its other end dangled out behind.