Here a receipt for money received, here a vari-colored map with lines and figures and conglomerate designs which Fairchild believed must relate in some manner to the location of a mining camp; all were aged and worn at the edges, giving evidence of having been carried, at some far time of the past, in a wallet.

More receipts, more blueprints, then a legal document, sealed and stamped, and bearing the words: County of Clear Creek, ) ss.
State of Colorado.

) DEED PATENT.
KNOW ALL MEN BY THESE PRESENTS: That on this day of our Lord, February 22, 1892, Thornton W.Fairchild, having presented the necessary affidavits and statements of assessments accomplished in accordance with-- On it trailed in endless legal phraseology, telling in muddled, attorney-like language, the fact that the law had been fulfilled in its requirements, and that the claim for which Thornton Fairchild had worked was rightfully his, forever.

A longer statement full of figures, of diagrams and surveyor's calculations which Fairchild could neither decipher nor understand, gave the location, the town site and the property included within the granted rights.

It was something for an attorney, such as Beamish, to interpret, and Fairchild reached for the age-yellowed envelope to return the papers to their resting place.
But he checked his motion involuntarily and for a moment held the envelope before him, staring at it with wide eyes.