A YANKEE TRICK. 789
price of three or four weeks' labor." Turning to the Yankee he said: '* Let a friend of mine work with you, you giving him eight dollars a day should you take out less than $200, and put it all in writing and I'll do it."
- A11 right, stranger," replied the Yankee, and in a few minutes the thing was done.
The purchaser immediately went to work, and by noon next day had taken out $180. Then he paused; he considered; he looked at his little pile, then quietly laying down his pick he w^ent to the owner of the claim.
" I guess I'll stop now," he remarked meekly.
'Stop," said the other, "why you've only just begun! "
"I know," replied the Yankee, "but I think I had better knock off now, so there is your claim whenever you want it. I have paid your friend eight dollars for one day's work, for I always do as I agree and pay my debts, I don't ask any odds of anybody. My father is a deacon, and we all keep Saturday night. I was brought up never to tell a lie, nor to let any one get the start of me swapping jack-knives; stranger, there's your claim."
In vain the shaft-owner insisted that the Yankee should work out the claim thoroughly, and finally brought suit to compel hhn to do so. The terms of the contract were plain, and it was decided that the Yankee had the right to stop working whenever he pleased. It was a very fair return for the first day's work, but the deacon's son was obliged to continue his perigrinations, as the diggers of Rough and Ready felt hardly at home in company with a genius so superior to themselves.
A reckless youth of twenty-two, named Prudon, whose home was in Louisiana, being put financially upon short allowance by his father for havmg lost money betting on Clay's election—a game the boy
