"I'll fix 'm yet!" he muttered in camp one evening, over on Gold Bottom.
"Whom?" Corliss queried.
"Who? That newspaper man, that's who!"
"What for?"
"Aw--general principles. Why'n't you let me paste 'm that night at the
Opera House?"
Corliss laughed at the recollection. "Why did you strike him, Del?"
"General principles," Del snapped back and shut up.
But Del Bishop, for all his punitive spirit, did not neglect the main
chance, and on the return trip, when they came to the forks of Eldorado
and Bonanza, he called a halt.
"Say, Corliss," he began at once, "d'you know what a hunch is?" His
employer nodded his comprehension. "Well, I've got one. I ain't never
asked favors of you before, but this once I want you to lay over here
till to-morrow. Seems to me my fruit ranch is 'most in sight. I can
damn near smell the oranges a-ripenin'."
"Certainly," Corliss agreed. "But better still, I'll run on down to
Dawson, and you can come in when you've finished hunching."
"Say!" Del objected. "I said it was a hunch; and I want to ring you in
on it, savve? You're all right, and you've learned a hell of a lot out
of books. You're a regular high-roller when it comes to the
laboratory, and all that; but it takes yours truly to get down and read
the face of nature without spectacles. Now I've got a theory--"
Corliss threw up his hands in affected dismay, and the pocket-miner
began to grow angry.
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