CHAPTER V

Old John Sprague launched into his narrative with evident zest.

"I hung round Greaves' store most of two days.  An' I heerd a heap. Some of it was jest plain ole men's gab, but I reckon I got the drift of things concernin' Grass Valley.  Yestiddy mornin' I was packin' my burros in Greaves' back yard, takin' my time carryin' out supplies from the store.  An' as last when I went in I seen a strange fellar was thar. Strappin' young man--not so young, either--an' he had on buckskin.  Hair black as my burros, dark face, sharp eyes--you'd took him fer an Injun.  He carried a rifle--one of them new forty-fours--an' also somethin' wrapped in paper thet he seemed partickler careful about.  He wore a belt round his middle an' thar was a bowie-knife in it, carried like I've seen scouts an' Injun fighters hev on the frontier in the 'seventies.  That looked queer to me, an' I reckon to the rest of the crowd thar.  No one overlooked the big six-shooter he packed Texas fashion.  Wal, I didn't hev no idee this fellar was an Isbel until I heard Greaves call him thet.

"'Isbel,' said Greaves, 'reckon your money's counterfeit hyar. I cain't sell you anythin'.'

"'Counterfeit?  Not much,' spoke up the young fellar, an' he flipped some gold twenties on the bar, where they rung like bells.  'Why not? Ain't this a store?  I want a cinch strap.'

"Greaves looked particular sour thet mornin'.  I'd been watchin' him fer two days.  He hedn't hed much sleep, fer I hed my bed back of the store, an' I heerd men come in the night an' hev long confabs with him. Whatever was in the wind hedn't pleased him none.  An' I calkilated thet young Isbel wasn't a sight good fer Greaves' sore eyes, anyway. But he paid no more attention to Isbel.  Acted jest as if he hedn't heerd Isbel say he wanted a cinch strap.

"I stayed inside the store then.  Thar was a lot of fellars I'd seen, an' some I knowed.  Couple of card games goin', an' drinkin', of course. I soon gathered