He 'd come on float up Kentucky Gulch and was trying to follow it to the vein.
Squint saw him--and what's more, he saw that float.

It looked good to Squint--and late that night, I heard him and his two drinking partners, Blindeye Bozeman and Taylor Bill--they just reverse his name for the sound of it--talking in Blindeye's room.

I 'm a woman--" Mother Howard chuckled--"so I just leaned my head against the door and listened.

Then I flew downstairs to wait for your father when he came in from sitting up half the night to get an assay on that float.

And you bet I told him--folks can't do sneaking things around me and get away with it, and it was n't more 'n five minutes after he 'd got home that your father knew what was going on--how Squint and them two others was figuring on jumping his claim before he could file on it and all that.
"Well, there was a big Cornishman here that I was kind of sweet on--and I guess I always will be.