Graining a door in the dining-room he
was, with a ham rind and a stocking over one thumb nail, doing little
curlicues in the brown wet paint to make it look like what the wood was
at first before it was painted at all. 'Well,' he says, 'I suspected
from the assays that we might get a bit more, but if he had experts
with him you better let him have it for twelve hundred. After all,
twelve hundred dollars is a good bit of money.'
"'Twelve hundred thousand,' says Snowstorm, still grouchy.
"'Oh,' says Angus. 'In that case don't let him have it. If the shark
offers that it'll be worth more. I'll go into the mining business myself
as soon as I've done this door and the wainscoting and give them their
varnish.'
"He did so. He had the International finished in three more days, turned
down a job in the new bank building cold, and went into the mining
business just like he'd do anything else--slow and sure, yet impetuous
here and there. It wasn't a hard proposition, the stuff being there
nearly from the grass roots, and the money soon come a-plenty. Snowstorm
not only got things trimmed up but had 'em dyed black as a crow's wing
and retired to a life of sinful ease in Spokane, eating bacon and beans
and cocoanut custard pie three times a day till the doctors found out
what a lot of expensive things he had the matter with him.
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