Part 11 (1/2)

After that Tom did not sleep very soundly, for at times it seemed to him that some of the fierce animals had come to the door, which stood wide open all this while, and were about to come in Once he was sure he heard them on top of the cabin, but the others slept on and paid no attention to it, and finally Tom became somewhat accustomed to it He did not think he had closed his eyes at all in slu on, he found that there were only two men left in the cabin, Mr Parsons and his cook The for on his boots, and the cook was busy with his frying-pan

”Hallo, youngster!” said Mr Parsons cheerfully ”You'll have to get up earlier than this if you're going to strike a gold mine Why, it must be close on to six o'clock”

”I fully tired last night, and the wolves kept me awake,” said Tom ”I don't see how anybody can sleep with such a din in his ears”

”The tilad to hear them If there are any Indians around, you won't hear them; just the o into their holes; but when the Indians are whipped, they are out in full force”

Tom noticed that thehis outfit He ate breakfast when Mr Parsons did, sitting down to it without any invitation fro hot, saddled his horse, and rode away, leaving the cook to straighten affairs in the dugout; and all the while it seemed to him that he hadn't had any breakfast at all He couldn't see anything of the cattle; but Mr Parsons put his horse into a lope and proceeded to fill his pipe as he went

”I suppose you know your cattle have gone this way, don't you?” said To pull at his pipe to hted ”They are ten ot to make that up”

”Do you always drive your cattle into the mountains in winter?”

”Yes, sir We have had so out if you could have seen theht in them Some of the cattle ahead of us have been driven forty miles by a blizzard that struck us last fall, and I have just succeeded in finding thehbor hadn't been as honest as they ot them at all It would be very easy for hiain, and then tell me that if I could find an arrow brand in his herd I could have thehbor live from you?”

”Just a jump--fifteen or twenty miles, maybe”

Fifteen or twenty miles! None nearer than that! Tom had found out by experience that distances didn't count for anything on the prairie

”You said last night, in speaking of your gold find, that, unfortunately for you, you got it,” Tom reminded him ”I would like to knohat you meant by that Were you cheated out of it?”

Mr Parsons replied, with a laugh, that he was not cheated out of it, but, on the whole, it didn't much matter He took a party of experts up there, and, after working over the ave him twenty thousand dollars for it, of which five thousand went to him and the balance to his eo to work He spent three thousand dollars in grub-staking men to look up claims for him until the end of the year, when he found out that he wasn'tby it, so he took the balance of his ave me my start,” said Mr Parsons in conclusion ”In four years I had o into it again; but here I a you to thetoby it?”

”Well, yes,” said Mr Parsons, with another laugh ”But I have got to do so to help you You ride pretty well, and I should think you ought to go into the cattle business”

”Who will take me? Will you?”

”Well, no; I can't I have had to discharge so work for them to attend to, and I don't kno I could use you I will tell you this ive you a show”

”Thank you,” replied Toement I have had

But you say it took you four years toto stay here four years”

”You aint? What are you going to do?”

”I aet that Elam Storm has lost”

”Oh, ah!” said Mr Parsons, the expression on his face giving way to one of intense disgust ”Well, you'll never find it”