entirely unaware that old bob had regarded them with so much interest, or had been so glad to overhear the fact that they would spend the night in town, len and max hastened to finish their errands, and then to go about the principal business which had brought them on the long walk to town. in one important point their squint-eyed friend had misunderstood them badly,—sandy had remained at the mine.
as soon as possible, therefore, the two young men took their way briskly down the familiar path which led to the home of an old fellow who was known in the camp as “mr. professor.” his queer, solitary habits and sharp tongue had made him rather unpopular, but everyone acknowledged his ex{82}pertness in judging ores, and his opinion was often sought by those who dared to face him.
“are you sure you remember the shape of the specimens?” max asked, for the twentieth time.
“as certain as anybody can be,” len replied confidently.
as they approached the professor’s cabin, they saw that worthy chopping at a log beside it, whereupon they slackened their eager pace and sauntered up to his door with an air of unconcern.
“good morning, professor,” said len pleasantly.
“mornin’,” was the short reply, while the chips flew right and left.
“you must have learned how to chop in sme good school,” max observed, in a tone expressing admiration.
“raised in no’th ca’lina,” was the gruff response.
“is that so?” len exclaimed. “why, that’s not far from my home—i was raised{83} in roanoke county, virginia. sorry i didn’t know that before. i should have liked to come over and talked with you about things down in that region. don’t see many men out here that know much about the piedmont country. were you ever up in roanoke?”
“many a time.”
thus the ice was broken, and the lads won their way through the crust which this stern old miner was proud to wear, though it cut him off more and more from the society of those around him, who voted him an unsociable old curmudgeon that somehow had picked up a lot of information about rocks and ores.
max did not smoke, but he had bought the best cigar he could get in town, for the special purpose of giving it to the old man, and this gift, with len’s pleasant chat, quite thawed the professor in the course of a quarter of an hour or so. len was very diplomatic. he seemed to be in no hurry, but finally steered the conversation around{84} to rare minerals. then, as if by chance, he recalled a package he had brought to the professor from denver, on his return from that recent journey which bob had alluded to in his conversation with scotty, and asked the old man to show him the specimens again, and to tell him more about them than he had done on the evening when they were delivered.
ordinarily a request like this would have met with refusal; but now the old man consented at once, and led the way into his cabin.
many rude little shelves were stuck up against the log walls, upon which were heaped dusty rows of minerals and various other objects. one shelf contained several cigar-boxes. these the professor took down and opened one after another. rummaging through half a dozen he finally found the one he wanted, and unfolded from their wrappings the five small bits of rock which lennox had brought to him from denver.{85}
selecting three of the specimens the professor took them to the light and began to talk about what they represented.
“that’s an ore of tellurium,” he said, holding one of the pieces between his thumb and finger, “and it carries gold,—or may sometimes—a right smart percentage of it, too—in the shape of a telluride. it is a very nice smelting ore and a valuable one.”
“is there much of it in the rockies?” he was asked.
“mighty little’s been found yet, worse luck. it almost always occurs in veins with a lot of lead and other stuff, and everywhere i have ever seen it, it’s alongside a porphyry dyke.”
this last remark made len’s heart jump, but he showed no excitement. in a well-controlled voice he remarked that he wished they had a magnifying glass so that the professor might point out to them more effectively the peculiarities of the mineral, which he was turning over in his fingers.
“i’ve a good one,” the old miner answered.{86}
“i’ll get it,” and he stepped back into the cabin.
instantly len drew from his pocket three fragments of the brown rock taken from the deepest part of the last chance lode, and slipped the denver specimens out of sight. he thought the change would not be noticed; certainly there was no difference between the former and latter specimens discernible to a careless eye, and if they deceived this expert, he might feel sure that his pieces of ore were as truly tellurium as were the others.
the professor came out wiping the lenses of a small but powerful magnifier upon the lining of his old coat. taking one of the changed specimens unsuspectingly from len’s hand, he began to scrutinize it very carefully under the microscope.
“by george,” he exclaimed, “that’s a bully specimen! i wonder where pete,”—his denver acquaintance,—“got it. i never saw anything richer in tellurides.”{87}
then he took the other pieces and examined those in the same way. “guess the glass must ’a’ been dusty when i looked at ’em before,” he muttered, as he handed them and the magnifier to len that he might study them; and then he went on to say what were the particles to be seen in the rusty rock which denoted the presence of telluride of gold, and that certain other black spots, filling small cavities, seemed to be carbonate of lead, which might contain silver.
“well,” he remarked, as the boys finished their examination, “if pete’s got a mine of that stuff he ought to be a rich man pretty soon. it’ll assay mighty high, or i don’t know coals from chalk.”
to re-exchange the specimens and give the professor his own back again, was a matter of no great difficulty while they talked, and as both the lads were eager to get away by themselves and sing a song over their tokens{88} of success, it was not long before they took their leave,—the warmth of that proceeding causing the old miner considerable astonishment.
“darned queer fellows, them,” he said to himself, as he watched them go down the road very sedately for a little way, then suddenly fall to shaking one another by both hands and slapping one another’s backs.
“bet you they’ve been a leetle too long at the el dorado,” he suggested aloud to himself, as there was no other auditor; and himself quite agreed with the speaker. “now just look at that!”
they danced and chorused their yah, yahs! till they were out of breath, an ending not long delayed in the thin air of the high rockies. and as the aged and weather-beaten wanderer looked at them, he felt such an attack of memory, and suffered such twinges of boyish feeling, as had not pierced his cynical old frame in many and many a day.{89}
“they’re way-up boys!” he exclaimed to himself. “i hope they’ll get the drop on that cantankerous old female they call fortune,—and i reckon they will!”
