driver."

"Mars Tom, how much is we gwyne to be worth?"

"Well, I don't know yet. It's got to be ciphered, and it ain't the
easiest job to do, either, because it's over four million square miles of
sand at ten cents a vial."

Jim was awful excited, but this faded it out considerable, and he shook
his head and says:

"Mars Tom, we can't 'ford all dem vials--a king couldn't. We better not
try to take de whole Desert, Mars Tom, de vials gwyne to bust us, sho'."

Tom's excitement died out, too, now, and I reckoned it was on account of
the vials, but it wasn't. He set there thinking, and got bluer and bluer,
and at last he says:

"Boys, it won't work; we got to give it up."

"Why, Tom?"

"On account of the duties."

I couldn't make nothing out of that, neither could Jim. I says:

"What IS our duty, Tom? Because if we can't git around it, why can't we
just DO it? People often has to."

But he says: