"Not many about town this time of year," she commented. "Did you get so cuckooed Jo had to leave you behind to sober up, Wild Cat? And now you've got to chase her, eh? 'Fraid Heine or some of 'em'll get her away from you if you don't stick around--that it?"
To this Hiram smiled with cold politeness, but, made no reply, passing on down the street.
He would be forced to wait until morning. Then, provided Tweet had not returned, he would have to ride Babe over the mountains and reach Jerkline Jo at least before she had started back. After all, there was no great hurry. The gold had lain where it did for countless centuries. It would continue to lie so for a few days more, perhaps.
Tweet did not return that night, and at dawn Hiram was away toward the mountains on the black mare, the precious paper secreted in his shirt. He was ten miles from Ragtown before it occurred to him what a fool he had been in not making a copy of it. Any one of a hundred things might happen to it. Still, the crazy prospector had carried it through all the years and had lost it.
He wondered if it would not be a practical idea to commit it to memory. Why, certainly--that was the thing to do.
He was nearing such foothills as the abrupt mountain range boasted when he decided not only to memorize it, but to make a copy on an envelope which was in his pocket. It had covered a letter from Uncle Sebastian Burris, Hiram's benefactor, up there in Mendocino County. He had found it awaiting him the night before at Ragtown. He and Uncle Sebastian had kept up a correspondence ever since Hiram had come south.
Although he had no pencil, it occurred to him that he could write with the lead bullet of one of his revolver cartridges, which simple feat he had often performed in idle moments in the woods up home.
Dismounting, he lowered the bridle rein over Babe's head, and sat down on the ground. He took out Uncle Sebastian's letter, and with his pocket-knife slit the envelope till it provided him with a square of paper. He laid the worn original--a yellow piece of tough sheepskin paper--on a flat rock beside him. He took a cartridge from his belt and began to copy the reddish writing.
He had just completed the task when there came a sudden terrific roar in his ears, and before he knew what was happening a desert twister had swept down upon him in all its fury.