Page 161 - In A New World

CHAPTER XXIX.

SELLING THE CLAIM.

"Let's adjourn to the mine," said Tom Lewis, a short, sturdy Englishman.

"Yes, let's see the place where the nugget was found," echoed another.

"All right! I'm agreeable," said Obed.

Followed by a crowd of miners, Obed Stackpole strode to the claim where

he had "struck it rich." In spite of his homely face and ungainly form there
was more than one who would have been willing to stand in his shoes,

homeliness and all. The day before little notice was taken of him. Now he
was a man who had won fame at a bound.

They soon stood around the lucky claim.

"It isn't much to look at, gentlemen," said Obed, "but looks is deceptive, as
my old grandmother used to tell me. 'Handsome is as handsome does,' and
this 'ere hole's done the handsome thing for me and my partners, and I

venture to say it hasn't got through doin' handsome things. It's made three
of us rich, and it's ready to make somebody else rich. Who'll be the lucky

man? Do I hear a bid!"

"Fifty pounds," said Tom Lewis.

"That'll do to start on, but it won't do to take. Fifty pounds I am offered.

Who says a hundred?"

A German miner offered a hundred, and Tom Lewis raised ten pounds.

A Scotch miner, Aleck Graham, offered a hundred and twenty-five.

From that time the bids rose slowly. Obed showed himself an excellent
auctioneer--indeed he had had some experience at home--and by his dry