For a moment Jackson’s face had really brightened under the infection of enthusiasm, but it presently settled into perplexity again.

“No!  You bet the boys around Buckeye Hollow would have spotted anything like that long ago.”

“Buckeye Hollow!” repeated Rice and his partners.

“Yes!  Buckeye Hollow, that’s the place; not twenty miles from here, and a God-forsaken hole, as you know.”

A cloud had settled on Zip Coon Ledge.  They knew of Buckeye Hollow, and it was evident that no good had ever yet come out of that Nazareth.

“There’s no use of talking now,” said Rice conclusively.  “You’ll draw it all from that lawyer shark who’s coming here tomorrow, and you can bet your life he wouldn’t have taken this trouble if there wasn’t suthin’ in it.  Anyhow, we’ll knock off work now and call it half a day, in honor of our distinguished young friend’s accession to his baronial estates of Buckeye Hollow.  We’ll just toddle down to Tomlinson’s at the cross-roads, and have a nip and a quiet game of old sledge at Jacksey’s expense.  I reckon the estate’s good for that,” he added, with severe gravity.  “And, speaking as a fa’r-minded man and the president of this yer Company, if Jackson would occasionally take out and air that telegraphic dispatch of his while we’re at Tomlinson’s, it might do something for that Company’s credit—­with Tomlinson!  We’re wantin’ some new blastin’ plant bad!”

Oddly enough the telegram—­accidentally shown at Tomlinson’s—­produced a gratifying effect, and the Zip Coon Ledge materially advanced in public estimation.  With this possible infusion of new capital into its resources, the Company was beset by offers of machinery and goods; and it was deemed expedient by the sapient Rice, that to prevent the dissemination of any more accurate information regarding Jackson’s property the next day, the lawyer should be met at the stage office by one of the members, and conveyed secretly past Tomlinson’s to the Ledge.

“I’d let you go,” he said to Jackson, “only it won’t do for that d——­d skunk of a lawyer to think you’re too anxious—­sabe?  We want to rub into him that we are in the habit out yer of havin’ things left to us, and a fortin’ more or less, falling into us now and then, ain’t nothin’ alongside of the Zip Coon claim.  It won’t hurt ye to keep up a big bluff on that hand of yours.  Nobody would dare to ‘call’ you.”

Indeed this idea was carried out with such elaboration the next day that Mr. Twiggs, the attorney, was considerably impressed both by the conduct of his guide, who (although burning with curiosity) expressed absolute indifference regarding Jackson Wells’s inheritance, and the calmness of Jackson himself, who had to be ostentatiously called from his work on the Ledge to meet him, and who even gave him an audience in the hearing of his partners.  Forced into an apologetic attitude, he expressed his regret at being obliged to bother Mr. Wells with an affair of such secondary importance, but he was obliged to carry out the formalities of the law.