Some days passed. The new-comer did not appear to find anything to do. He had sauntered out to the claim worked by Grant and Tom, and looked on, but had made no discoveries. He did not know whether to think they were prospering or not. He determined to obtain some information, if possible, from his landlord.
One morning, after the two friends had gone to work, he lingered at the table, asking for an extra cup of coffee as a pretext for remaining longer.
“Do you think my friend Grant and his chum are doing well?” he remarked carelessly.
“They can’t be making much,” answered Paul. “I think they are fools to waste their time here.”
“They must be making something,” said 247Mrs. Crambo. “They pay their board bills regularly.”
“Do they pay in gold-dust?”
“No; in coin.”
“Humph! what do they do with the gold-dust they get from the mine?”
“I don’t know. I never inquired.”
This was meant as a hint that Benton was unnecessarily curious, but he never took such hints.
“Is there any place in the village where they can dispose of it?”
“No,” answered Paul; “not that I know of. They would have to send it by express to Sacramento or San Francisco.”
“Where did you know Mr. Colburn?” asked Mrs. Crambo.
“We were employed together in Sacramento.”
“He seems to be a fine boy—or young man, perhaps I ought to call him. So steady, so regular in his habits.”
Benton shrugged his shoulders.
“Oh, he’s well enough,” he answered, “but he’s mighty close with his money.”
248“I approve of young men being economical,” said Mrs. Crambo.
“But not tight. Why, I once asked Grant to lend me five dollars and, would you believe it, he wouldn’t do it.”
“Did he receive more pay than you?”
“I should say not. I received a good deal higher pay than he, as I ought to, being older and more experienced.”
“Then,” said Mrs. Crambo shrewdly, “I can’t understand why you should need to borrow money from him.”
“A man is sometimes hard up, no matter how large his income may be.”
“It ought not to be so,” said Mrs. Crambo dryly. “Our income isn’t large, but I never ask any one to lend me money.”
“Oh, well, I suppose you are a good manager.”
“Yes, I flatter myself that I am a fair manager. I think it my duty to be.”
“What a tiresome woman!” thought Benton. “I hate people who are always talking about duty.”
This was not surprising, for Benton concerned 249himself very little about duty in his own case.
When he left the table, he said to himself, “It seems pretty certain that Grant and Cooper haven’t parted with any of their gold-dust. The question is, where do they keep it?”
That day Benton strayed into a restaurant and boarding-house in the village, kept by a man named Hardy, and learned incidentally that he wanted to sell out.
“What do you want to sell out for?” asked Benton.
“I have got tired of the place. It is too quiet for me. I want to go to San Francisco. There’s more life there, and more money can always be made in a city like that.”
“How has the restaurant been paying?” questioned Benton.
“I can’t complain of it. It has paid me about forty dollars a week, net; perhaps a little more.”
“I have been in the restaurant business myself,” continued Albert.
“Then you are just the right man to buy me out.”
250“Will you sell out for the money I have in my pocket?”
“How much have you?”
“‘I have fifteen dollars in my inside pocket,’ as the song has it.”
Hardy shook his head.
“I want a thousand dollars for the place,” he said.
“I will buy it, and pay you on instalments,” said Benton.
“Well, I might agree to that for half the purchase money. Pay me five hundred dollars down, and the rest you can pay at, say, twenty dollars a week. I am sure that is a liberal offer.”
“I don’t think so. Besides, I haven’t got five hundred dollars.”
“Can’t you borrow it?”
“I don’t know.” And then it occurred to Benton that perhaps Tom Cooper and Grant might be induced to advance that sum of money.
“Well, perhaps so,” he resumed, after a pause.
“Find out, and then come and talk to me.”
251“Won’t four hundred dollars do?”
“No. I shall need to take five hundred dollars with me to San Francisco.”
“Is this the best you can do?”
“Yes.”
“I will think of it, and let you know.”
Albert Benton walked thoughtfully out of the restaurant. He had tried gold-digging, and didn’t like it. His old business seemed to him more reliable, and this seemed a good opportunity to go back into it.
“Hardy hasn’t much enterprise,” he soliloquized. “If he can clear forty dollars a week, I shouldn’t be surprised if I could carry it up to sixty. I have never had a chance to show what I could do, always having had some one over me. I should just like to try it once.”
Benton waited till his two fellow boarders got home from their day’s work, and then opened the subject.
“I can tell you of a good investment for your money, Grant,” he said.
“How do you know I have any money to invest?”
252“I suppose you have been making some, and you never spend any.”
“I never spend any foolishly, if that is what you mean.”
“You don’t seem to have much idea of enjoying life.”
“Not in your sense. I enjoy life in my own way.”
“I am glad you do, because you must have some money to lend me.”
“To lend you?”
“Yes; I have a chance to buy out a fine restaurant in the village, but must pay five hundred dollars down. I am almost sure I can clear sixty dollars a week, net profit, from it. You know yourself that I understand the business.”
“Yes, you ought to understand it.”
“I understand it better than digging for gold. I soon tired of that.”
“It is tiresome work,” admitted Grant.
“And doesn’t pay much.”
“It used to pay better—in the early days, I should think.”
“Well, Grant, what do you say? I can 253give you the restaurant as security, and pay you back at the rate of twenty dollars a week. I’ll pay you one per cent. a month interest.”
“How much of the sum are you going to furnish yourself?”
“Why,” said Benton, embarrassed, “I am not so fixed that I can pay anything at present. I’ve got an old uncle, over seventy years old, who is sure to leave me five thousand dollars, so that is additional security.”
“I haven’t five hundred dollars to lend.”
“I didn’t suppose you had, but your friend Cooper could chip in with you on the loan, and just draw his one per cent. a month regular. If that isn’t enough, I would pay fifteen per cent. It would pay me, for it would put me into a good business.”
“I don’t know how Cooper will feel about it, Mr. Benton, but I prefer to keep what little money I have in my own hands.”
“I think you might oblige a friend,” said Benton crossly.
“There’s a limit to friendship. I shall need my money for my own use.”
254Cooper said the same, and Benton saw that he must get the money in some other way. He dropped the subject, in order to avert suspicion, and began to consider the scheme which all the time he had in view to fall back upon.
The next day, when the coast was clear, he went upstairs, and entered Grant’s room. There was no lock on the door, for in California people were not suspicious.
“Now I wonder where they keep their gold-dust?” Benton asked himself. “It must be somewhere in this room, for they have no other place.”
He looked about him. The room was very simply furnished. There was a bureau, with three drawers, which Benton was able to unlock, for he had a key that would fit it. There were only articles of underclothing inside, as, indeed, Benton anticipated.
“I think it must be in the chest,” he decided, as he fixed his glance upon it. “Let me lift it.”
He raised it, and found that it was quite heavy.
255“That’s the weight of the gold-dust,” he reflected. “If I could only open it!”
He tried the different keys he had in his pocket, but none of them would answer.
“I must hunt up some more keys,” he said to himself. “It will pay.”