just thinkin' about it. Why, this mine of ours was one that the Injuns had kept hid for years and years, killin' off every white man that stuck his nose into the same county. But after awhile a feller by the name of Dakota Dan turned Injun, got himself adopted by the tribe, and monkeyed around until he found the mine. It near blinded him the first squint he got of them big chunks of gold. The Injuns caught him at10 it and finished the business with hot irons. Then they roasted him over a fire some and turned him loose to enjoy himself. He was tougher'n a motorman, though. He didn't die for years after that; but he never said nothin' about the gold mine until he was nearly all in. Then he told his oldest boy the tale and gave him a map of the place, makin' him swear he'd never go near it. The boy stuck to it, too. He grew up and kept a grocery store, and it wa'n't until after he'd died of lockjaw from runnin' a rusty nail in his hand and the widow had sold out the store to a Swede that the map showed up. The Swede swapped the map to a soap drummer for half a dozen cakes of scented shaving sticks, and the drummer goes explorin'. 10 He had a soap drummer's luck. He didn't find any Injuns left. Most of 'em had died off and the rest had joined Wild West shows. The gold mine was there, though, with chunks of solid gold lyin' around as big as peach baskets. Mr. Drummer looks until his eyes ache, and then he hikes himself back East to get up a comp'ny to work the mine. He'd just made plans to build a solid gold mansion on Fifth-ave. and hire John D. Rockefeller for a butler, when he strays into one of these Gospel missions and gets religion so hard that he can't shake it. Then he sees how selfish it would be to keep all that gold for himself.11 "But how'll I divvy it?" says he. "And who with?" 11 Then he decides that he'll divide with ministers, because they'll use it best. So he gets up this Glory Be Mining Company, and hires Mr. Pepper to sell the stock at twenty-five cents a share to all the preachers in the country. Blamed if it wa'n't straight goods! I looked on the letters we sent out, and every last one of 'em was to ministers. Talk about your easy money! This was like pickin' it off the bushes. Mr. Pepper shows 'em how they can put in fifty or a hundred dollars and in three or four years be pullin' out their thousands in dividends. You'd thought they'd came a runnin' at a chance like that, wouldn't you? There we was
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