Characters

John Shane:   The Hero, 25-35. A John Wayne sound-alike, never goes anywhere without his faithful horse, Sterling.

Shorty:   John’s witty, faithful sidekick, 25-35. Rides a horse named Jumper.

Gus (or Gustava) Milton: A gold prospector who comes equipped to find gold wherever it might be, with a mule named Gloria.

Setting: Border of Utah territory and Wyoming, 1895

Scene 1

(Near border of Wyoming and Utah territory, within a day or two’s ride of Fort Bridger. GUS MILTON is center stage, dressed in dirt-smudged, long-sleeved shirt, mud-spattered pants, and fairly worn boots, sitting on a small stool or log stump, while using a small metal scale to weigh assay samples. A small to medium-sized shovel that is caked with mud or painted brown to look like a mud stain is nearby, along with a large metal miner’s pick, a wire brush, and a large pan for panning gold. He (or she) sits near a mule cutout with a medium-sized pack on the mule.  Two or three artificial trees are behind him upstage. Sound of horse’s hoofbeats and a neigh or whinny offstage. )

JOHN

(Enters Stage Left, over his shoulder to SHORTY, who is still offstage.) Hey, Shorty, I think this man is a prospector. He’s got all the tools of the trade. (Sound of mule braying. JOHN looks at mule cutout directly.) Including a mule with a healthy set of lungs!

SHORTY

(Entering from Stage Left at end of JOHN’s last words.)

Well, John, let’s see if we can make a friend out of him.

JOHN

(Shakes hands with GUS. To GUS.) Howdy, I’m John Shane. And your name is?

GUS

(Sets down assay sample bottles.) They call me Gus Milton. I’m known as Lucky Gus to my friends. (Points to mule cutout.) That’s my mule, Gloria.

SHORTY

(Also extends his hand to shake hands with GUS.) I’m Shorty. (Proudly.) And my friends call me…Shorty.

GUS

Nice to meet you, Shorty! (Shakes hands with SHORTY.) These are my assay sample bottles. I’m what you call an itinerant prospector, out lookin’ for gold, silver, or other precious metals and minerals.

SHORTY

Itinerant, huh? Well, we ain’t the kind of men who would hold that against you, Mr. Lucky Gus.

JOHN

I think he means he travels around a lot, Shorty. Itinerant isn’t a bad word. (May pick up one assay bottle to examine it while SHORTY and GUS continue to talk.)

SHORTY

Oh, all right, John. (To GUS.) Gus, have you had any luck in these here parts of the country?  

GUS

(Grins.) Yep. Sure have. I can’t tell you exactly where, but I’ve been around a couple of creeks that start up in the mountains five miles north of here. Most of my most promisin’ assay samples come from there. It’s why I’m all muddied up. (Holds up his “muddy” shovel to show JOHN and SHORTY and in clear view of the AUDIENCE.) You can tell I’ve been workin’ pretty deep!

JOHN

(Hands bottle back to GUS.) Hmm. I guess you have permission to dig on private property?

GUS

Sure, when that happens to be the current job. But I mostly stick to government-owned land with a government assignment. There’s still plenty of THAT in the state of Wyoming.

JOHN

Hmm, I say it’s best never to trust a woman or a government.[1] ‘Course, it depends on the government…and who the woman is.

GUS

I agree with you there. Anyway, I’m the kind of prospector who often does follow-up diggin’ to help other people decide if they want to try startin’ a big mine operation or a little one on their own property, or maybe it’s just property they’re about to purchase.

SHORTY

Oh, that makes sense. But hey, do you think prospectors are popular, or not?

GUS

Aw, we are extremely popular! After all, we know how to ‘mine’ our own business!

JOHN

(To SHORTY.)

Gee, Shorty, you and Lucky Gus here have the same streak of corny joke humor.

SHORTY

Whaddya mean, John? My sense of humor is the real thing.

GUS

(Continues.) But I’m a born traveler, see? I don’t want a government or full-time job to tie me down to just one place. I tried bein’ an ordinary assayer in an office once, but I like prospectin’ better. You get to see the country this way.

SHORTY

Must be a good life!

JOHN

(Interested.) Sounds like a livin.’ Is there room in that line of work for a couple of cowboys like Shorty and me to assist you? We don’t mind gettin’ dirty.

GUS

Yep, it’s possible. You can start out with a wire brush to scour rocks in a riverbed or along the banks. I use a pick to help loosen rocks (holds up pick then replaces it), a couple of stacked shifter buckets to help sort out the big rocks from the smaller matter, and an ordinary wide pan (holds up pan then replaces it) to look for gold flakes or nuggets. It’s kind of unpredictable on the rate of return, so that’s where the diggin’ comes in. ‘Course, as I said I am often workin’ on a specific assignment.

SHORTY

Those are nice-lookin’ tools.

JOHN

Say, do you run into any competitors, or is that not an issue in our wide, open space of Wyoming?

GUS

Well, I ran into an Englishman named Ed Haggerty over in Carbon County. He’s been diggin’ up all kinds of copper there. I guess he’s about to get a mining operation goin’ soon, but he wouldn’t hire me to look for more minerals on the boundaries of his property. In fact, he wouldn’t even invite me over for one of his English tea parties.

SHORTY

Gee, maybe he just didn’t like you.

GUS

I figure it might also have somethin’ to do with his bein’ jealous of my super, lucky status! Let me tell you about one time he and I were workin’ a half mile apart. I found jade and picture agates, but he must have had bad luck that day.

SHORTY

So, Lucky Gus, what’s the luckiest streak you ever had, prospectin’-wise or some other way?

GUS

(Scratches head.) Well, one time I was beddin’ down for the night and didn’t have a pillow. After all, my mule can’t carry more than tools and a little food. It was getting’ dark, so I just grabbed a rock as a pillow and went to sleep. Come mornin’ time, I turned the rock over and found a silver streak runnin’ through it. I was sleepin’ on a silver lode and didn’t even know it!

JOHN

Wow.

SHORTY

That story sure ROCKS. (Pause for AUDIENCE response.)

JOHN

Well, Lucky Gus, it sure has been fun shootin’ the breeze with you. We have some chores to do, as always, back on our land, but feel free to stop by for dinner if you head our way. It’s about four miles that’a’way. (Points off Stage Right.)

GUS

Pleasure talkin’ to you. Thank you for the invitation, and remember my motto: Minerals well that ends well! (Starts weighing samples on the scale again.)

SHORTY

Aw. (To JOHN.) You’re right, John, he is a little corny. (Grins.) Sounds like we’re gonna all be friends!

JOHN

Either that, or we got another script comin’ up about gold and silver mines in general![2] You can take your pick.

SHORTY

(As JOHN and SHORTY walk back toward Stage Left to the sound of a whinny or neigh.)

I’ll have to buy a pick! Less’n you want to put a miner’s pick in my Christmas stocking this year, John.

JOHN

No thanks, Pilgrim. I don’t touch any socks or stockings of yours. It’s a matter of principle.

SHORTY

Gee, John, my socks are just as good as yours. What principle are you talkin’ about?

JOHN

Last night, when you took your socks off, I noticed they could stand up on their own. You might wanna wash ‘em more often, Shorty.

SHORTY

Aw, they’re my lucky socks, John. I haven’t been held up or robbed since I started wearin’ ‘em.

JOHN

That’s because they smell bad enough for robbers and thieves to steer clear!

SHORTY

But I bought these socks on sale. Three for the price of two.

JOHN

Whaddya need three socks for? You only have two feet.

SHORTY

That sock salesman said he only sold socks by the yard, and a yard is three feet, John! Everyone knows you need three socks to cover three feet. Guess that sock salesman really knew how to sell socks.

JOHN

Yeah, Shorty, I would say he socked it to ya.

(Lights down.)