Even thought the sun is shining, it is really cold outside. It is so pretty, though. Time for a walk in the woods with Sheba.
While I'm doing that, you can stay inside where it's warm and cozy and read on.
Thanks for stopping by. Maybe some winter pictures later today.

Treasure of the Sierra Madre, East.

Chapter Two

Jack leaned back in his chair and looked sideways at Henry.
"Henry," he said, "This is your idea, so go ahead."
Henry took a heavy pull on his smoke, looked up at the smoke curling up to the ceiling and began.
"Well... I took out a stack of newspapers to the barn the other night and looking at the pile of them out there reminded me of something that happened years ago and I had this idea..."
"Wait a minute," I interrupted, "let me get the coffee, I think I'm in for the long haul here."
I grabbed three mugs and the percolator and brought them to the table. As I was filling up them up, I caught Jack giving me "the look". I'd seen that look before. An over the glasses, eyes rolling back in the head sort of thing usually reserved for the most incredulous of situations, or, more often, when he was about to sucker some unsuspecting chump in a game of shoes.
Settling back into my seat I awaited the prelude to the latest adventure.
Henry took up his tale:
"Ok. About fifteen years ago, Biscuit's kid Leroy and I cleaned out the barn. I had a couple of year's worth of newspapers in there and I needed to get rid of them, so we dug a pit out back and burned them. While we were cleaning up, I found a gold nugget that my father gave me when I was a kid. It was about the size of a peach pit. I had the damned thing for all those years and it found it's way from the house to the barn somehow. It was sitting on a shelf behind some jars of nails. I remember looking at it with him before we took some junk to the dump out in Port Monmouth, but that's all I remembered until weeks later. I looked all over for the damn thing for days, but I figured we must have mixed it in with the junk we got rid of and threw it away. I gave it up for lost."
He paused to take a sip of coffee and light another smoke. I shot a look at Jack and all he did was look back and raise his eyebrows. Henry continued:
"When I was taking out the papers out to the barn the other night something struck me; I remembered setting it down on one of the piles of papers. I think we threw it into the pit with the papers and burned it with them. I'll bet it's been down there in the ground all these years. I was thinking that maybe you guys would help me dig the pit up and look for it."
He stopped at that, put his elbows on the table and folded his hands. It almost looked like he was praying.
I shot another look at Jack. All he did was smile and look back. It looked like we were going to be digging for gold in Henry's back yard.