“He came up yesterday—with fish for Pete, he said, and of course he really did have some—and sent a wire to Shoshone. I found it on file when I came back. That was perfectly innocent, too. It was:
“‘Expect to land big one tonight. Plenty of small fry. Smooth trail.’
“I’ve an excellent memory, you see.” She laughed shortly. “Well, I’ll go and hunt up that book, and we’ll proceed to glean the wisdom of the serpent, so that we won’t be compelled to remain as harmless as the dove! You won’t mind waiting here?”
He assured her that he would not mind in the least, and she ran out bareheaded into the hot sunlight. Good Indian leaned forward a little in his chair so that he could watch her running across to the shack where she had a room or two, and he paid her the compliment of keeping her in his thoughts all the time she was gone. He felt, as he had done with Peppajee, that he had not known Miss Georgie at all until today, and he was a bit startled at what he was finding her to be.
“Of course,” she laughed, when she rustled in again like a whiff of fresh air, “I had to go clear to the bottom of the last trunk I looked in. Lucky I only have three to my name, for it would have been in the last one just the same, if I’d had two dozen and had ransacked them all. But I found it, thank Heaven!”
She came eagerly up to him—he was sitting in the beribboned rocker dedicated to friendly callers, and had the rug badly rumpled with his spurs, which he had forgotten to remove—and with a sweep of her forearm she cleared the little table of novel, newspaper, and a magazine and deck of cards, and barely saved her box of chocolates from going bottom up on the floor.
“Like candy? Help yourself, if you do,” she said, and tucked a piece into her mouth absent-mindedly before she laid the leather-bound book open on the table. “Now, we’ll see what information Mr. Copp can give us. He’s a high authority—General Land Office Commissioner, if you please. He’s a few years old—several years old, for that matter—but I don’t think he’s out of date; I believe what he says still goes. M-m-m!—‘Liens on Mines’—‘Clause Inserted in Patents’—‘Affidavits Taken Without Notice to Opposing’—oh, it must be here—it’s got to be here!”
She was running a somewhat sticky forefinger slowly down the index pages. “It isn’t alphabetically arranged, which I consider sloppy of Mr. Copp. Ah-h! ’Minerals Discovered After Patent Has Issued to Agricultural Claimant’—two hundred and eight. We’ll just take a look at that first. That’s what they’re claiming, you know.” She hitched her chair closer, and flipped the leaves eagerly. When she found the page, they touched heads over it, though Miss Georgie read aloud.
“Oh, it’s a letter—but it’s a decision, and as such has weight. U-m!
“SIR: In reply to your letter of inquiry. . . I have to state that all mineral deposits discovered on land after United States Patent therefor has issued to a party claiming under the laws regulating the disposal of agricultural lands, pass with the patent, and this office has no further jurisdiction in the premise. Very respectfully,”
“‘Pass with the patent!’” Miss Georgie turned her face so that she could look into Grant’s eyes, so close to her own. “Old Peaceful must surely have his patent—Baumberger can’t be much of a lawyer, do you think? Because that’s a flat statement. There’s no chance for any legal quibbling in that—is there?”
“That’s about as straight as he could put it,” Good Indian agreed, his face losing a little of its anxiety.
“Well, we’ll just browse along for more of the same,” she suggested cheerfully, and went back to the index. But first she drew a lead pencil from where it had been stabbed through her hair, and marked the letter with heavy brackets, wetting the lead on her tongue for emphasis.
“‘Agricultural Claimants Entitled to Full Protection,’” she read hearteningly from the index, and turned hastily to see what was to be said about it. It happened to be another decision rendered in a letter, and they jubilated together over the sentiment conveyed therein.
“Now, here is what I was telling you, Grant,” she said suddenly, after another long minute of studying silently the index. “‘Eight Locaters of Placer Ground May Convey to One Party’—and Baumberger’s certainly that party!—‘Who Can Secure Patent for One Hundred and Sixty Acres.’ We’ll just read up on that, and find out for sure what the conditions are. Now, here”—she had found the page quickly—“listen to this:
“‘I have to state that if eight bona-fide locaters’
(“Whether they’re that remains to be proven, Mr. Baumberger!”)
‘each having located twenty acres, in accordance with the congressional rules and regulations, should convey all their right, title, and interest in said locations to one person, such person might apply for a patent—’
“And so on into tiresomeness. Really, I’m beginning to think Baumberger’s awfully stupid, to even attempt such a silly thing. He hasn’t a legal leg to stand on. ’Goes with the patent’—that sounds nice to me. They’re not locating in good faith—those eight jumpers down there.” She fortified herself with another piece of candy. “All you need,” she declared briskly, “is a good lawyer to take this up and see it through.”
“You seem to be doing pretty well,” he remarked, his eyes dwelling rather intently upon her face, and smiling as they did so.
“I can read what’s in the book,” she remarked lightly, her eyes upon its pages as if she were consciously holding them from meeting his look. “But it will take a lawyer to see the case through the courts. And let me tell you one thing very emphatically.” She looked at him brightly. “Many a case as strong as this has been lost, just by legal quibbling and ignorance of how to handle it properly. Many a case without a leg to stand on has been won, by smooth work on the part of some lawyer. Now, I’ll just jot down what they’ll have to do, and prove, if they get that land—and look here, Mr. Man, here’s another thing to consider. Maybe Baumberger doesn’t expect to get a patent. Maybe he means to make old Peaceful so deucedly sick of the thing that he’ll sell out cheap rather than fight the thing to a finish. Because this can be appealed, and taken up and up, and reopened because of some technical error—oh, as Jenny Wren says in—in—”
“‘Our Mutual Friend?’” Good Indian suggested unexpectedly.
“Oh, you’ve read it!—where she always says: ’I know their tricks and their manners!’ And I do, from being so much with daddy in the office and hearing him talk shop. I know that, without a single bit of justice on their side, they could carry this case along till the very expense of it would eat up the ranch and leave the Harts flat broke. And if they didn’t fight and keep on fighting, they could lose it—so there you are.”
She shut the book with a slam. “But,” she added more brightly when she saw the cloud of gloom settle blacker than before on his face, and remembered that he felt himself at least partly to blame, “it helps a lot to have the law all on our side, and—” She had to go then, because the dispatcher was calling, and she knew it must be a train order. “We’ll read up a little more, and see just what are the requirements of placer mining laws—and maybe we can make it a trifle difficult for those eight to comply!” she told him over her shoulder, while her fingers chittered a reply to the call, and then turned her attention wholly to receiving the message.
Good Indian, knowing well the easy custom of the country which makes smoking always permissible, rolled himself a cigarette while he waited for her to come back to his side of the room. He was just holding the match up and waiting for a clear blaze before setting his tobacco afire, when came a tap-tap of feet on the platform, and Evadna appeared in the