human
What did he say, Jim demanded,
gpt
As I remember it, he said that during his delirium Winters talked constantly of his rich find, that he seemed to be going over the whole thing again. He would exclaim, 'There, just look at that! As big as my fist and solid gold!' 'Look at that seam! There's ten thousand dollars there if there's a cent!' and many other such things. He would jump up in bed and yell in his excitement. If he was really repeating what he had seen and done while he was working his strike, Bill Frank said that he must have taken out a big pile, probably up near a hundred thousand dollars. That he really had found gold was proved by the nuggets in his pockets.
human
Did Winters tell him what he'd done with the ore?
gpt
Frank told me that at the very last he seemed to be rational. He realized that he was about to die and tried to tell Frank how to find the gold he had taken out. He said he had hidden it in several places and had tried to conceal the lead in which he had worked. It is likely that the strike, whatever it was, had upset his head a little and made him do queer things before he got lost and heat-crazed on the desert.
human
Well, did this man tell you where he'd hid the dust?
gpt
Do you know where it is?
human
My informant, Bill Frank, said that Winters was very weak when he came to his senses and could only whisper a few disconnected sentences before he died, and part of those, Wellesly went on, smiling at the recollection,
gpt
Frank said 'the darn fool wasted on gratitude.' But he gathered that the Winters mine was somewhere in the southern part of the Oro Fino mountains, not far from a canyon where there was good water, and that he had hidden the nuggets and dust and rich rock that he had taken out, in tin cans and kettles and bottles in another canyon not far away.
human
Why didn't your chap go and 'unt for it 'imself?
gpt
He did spend several weeks trying to find it, and nearly died of thirst, and broke his leg falling off a precipice, and had a devil of a time getting out and getting well again. Then he wanted me to grubstake him for another hunt for it, but I think a man is more likely to find a new mine than he is a lost one and so I sent him to the San Juan instead.
human
Lots of men have gone into these mountains hunting for the Winters mine, said Jim,
gpt
Yes, said Wellesly, as easily as if it were not an inspiration of the moment,
human
Bill Frank told me that when he talked about it he always made people think that Winters had said it was in the northern part of the range, but that it was really in the southern part.