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“By the living hookey! it is SO!”

“B’gosh! he HAS got ’em!” echoed Stacy.

“Twenty shares,” continued Demorest breathlessly, “at ten thousand dollars a share–even if it’s only a foot–is two hundred thousand dollars! Jerusalem!”

“Tell me, fair sir,” said Stacy, with sparkling eyes, “hast still left in yonder casket any rare jewels, rubies, sarcenet, or links of fine gold? Peradventure a pearl or two may have been overlooked!”

“No–that’s all,” returned Barker simply.

“You hear him! Rothschild says ‘that’s all.’ Prince Esterhazy says he hasn’t another red cent–only two hundred thousand dollars.”

“What ought I to do, boys?” asked Barker, timidly glancing from one to the other. Yet he remembered with delight all that day, and for many a year afterward, that he saw in their faces only unselfish joy and affection at that supreme moment.

“Do?” said Demorest promptly. “Stand on your head and yell! No! stop! Come here!” He seized both Barker and Stacy by the hand, and ran out into the open air. Here they danced violently with clasped hands around a small buckeye, in perfect silence, and then returned to the cabin, grave but perspiring.

“Of course,” said Barker, wiping his forehead, “we’ll just get some money on these certificates and buy up that next claim which belongs to old Carter–where you know we thought we saw the indication.”

“We’ll do nothing of the kind,” said Demorest decidedly. “WE ain’t in it. That money is yours, old chap–every cent of it–property acquired before marriage, you know; and the only thing we’ll do is to be damned before we’ll see you drop a dime of it into this Godforsaken hole. No!”

“But we’re partners,” gasped Barker.

“Not in THIS! The utmost we can do for you, opulent sir–though it ill becomes us horny-handed sons of toil to rub shoulders with Dives–is perchance to dine with you, to take a pasty and a glass of Malvoisie, at some restaurant in Sacramento–when you’ve got things fixed, in honor of your return to affluence. But more would ill become us!”

“But what are YOU going to do?” said Barker, with a half-hysteric, half-frightened smile.

“We have not yet looked through our luggage,” said Demorest with invincible gravity, “and there’s a secret recess–a double FOND–to my portmanteau, known only to a trusty page, which has not been disturbed since I left my ancestral home in Faginia. There may be a few First Debentures of Erie or what not still there.”

“I felt some strange, disklike protuberances in my dress suit the other day, but belike they are but poker chips,” said Stacy thoughtfully.

An uneasy feeling crept over Barker. The color which had left his fresh cheek returned to it quickly, and he turned his eyes away. Yet he had seen nothing in his companions’ eyes but affection–with even a certain kind of tender commiseration that deepened his uneasiness. “I suppose,” he said desperately, after a pause, “I ought to go over to Boomville and make some inquiries.”

“At the bank, old chap; at the bank!” said Demorest emphatically. “Take my advice and don’t go ANYWHERE ELSE. Don’t breathe a word of your luck to anybody. And don’t, whatever you do, be tempted to sell just now; you don’t know how high that stock’s going to jump yet.”

“I thought,” stammered Barker, “that you boys might like to go over with me.”

“We can’t afford to take another holiday on grub wages, and we’re only two to work today,” said Demorest, with a slight increase of color and the faintest tremor in his voice. “And it won’t do, old chap, for us to be seen bumming round with you on the heels of your good fortune. For everybody knows we’re poor, and sooner or later everybody’ll know you WERE rich even when you first came to us.”

“Nonsense!” said Barker indignantly.

“Gospel, my boy!” said Demorest shortly.

“The frozen truth, old man!” said Stacy.