allowed that he couldn't have been worse than Slim, anyway. String Beans
did not make so much of a hit as a cowpuncher. Bill watched some of his
efforts, and said that though he was a bad puncher he was a good liar
for saying he'd ever seen a cow before. So String Beans was sent to the
mine to work.

This quartz mine, up in the mountains, was the one near which Injun and
Whitey had had so many exciting adventures. Now they owned an interest
in it, as has been told, though Mr. Sherwood and a tribe of Dakota
Indians were the principal shareholders. During the summer the mine had
been undergoing development, and the first shipment of ore was soon to
be made.

With String Beans working at the mine, and Ham improving the men's
digestion as a cook, it began to look as though Whitey's idea that they
were desperate characters was ill-founded. In fact, the thought had
almost passed from his mind, and was quite forgotten on a certain
Saturday. On that day Injun and Whitey were free from the teachings of
John Big Moose, and were out on the plains for antelope. They didn't get
an antelope, didn't even see one. All they got were appetites; though
Whitey's appetite came without calling, as it were, and always excited
the admiration of Bill Jordan. After dinner that evening Whitey went to
the bunk house. Some of the cowpunchers were in from the range, and
Whitey loved to hear the yarns they would spin.

So he lay in a bunk and listened to a number of stories, and wondered
if they were all true--and it is a singular fact that some of them were.
But Whitey's day's hunt had been long, and his dinner had been big, and
his eyes began to droop.