And yet, what could be done?
Dan Anderson presently made the situation more specific.

"May old Jack Wilson just be damned!" said he.

"If he hadn't found that gold prospect up on the Homestake, we might have lived here forever.
Besides, there's the coal fields yonder on the Patos, no one knows how big." Coal! That meant Eastern Capital.

I could have guessed the rest before he told it.
"Oh, of course, we've got to sell our coal mines, and get a lot of States men in here monkeyin' around.

And, of course, it couldn't have been anybody else but the particular daddy of this particular girl who had to come pokin' in here to look at the country! He's got money literally sinful." "But, man," I cried, "you don't mean to say that the girl's coming, too ?" He nodded mutely.