“They’s nawthin’ there,” he said softly.  “If thot was gold-bearin’ rock, my gorry, we’d all of us be rollin’ in wealth, fer the mountains is made of such.  Young feller, ye’re wastin’ yer time an’ ivery dollar ye’re sinkin’ in these here claims ye’ve showed me—­and thot’s no lie I’m tellin’ ye, but the truth, an’ if ye believe it I’ll soon be huntin’ another job and ye’ll be takin’ the train back where ye come from.”

The professor eyed him uncertainly.  He looked at the great, singing pines that laced their branches together high over their heads.  Fred, he thought, had made a mistake when he hired experienced miners to do this work.  It might be better to let Murphy in....

“Still the timber on the claims is worth proving up, and more,” he ventured cautiously, with a sharp glance at Murphy’s spectacles.

“A-ah, and there yer right,” Murphy assented with the upward tilt to his voice.  “An’ if it’s the timber ye be wantin’, I’ll say no more about the mine.  Four thousand acres minin’ claims no better than yer own have I seen held fer the trees on thim—­an’ ain’t it the way some of these ole fellers thot goes around now wit’ their two hands in their pants pockets an’ no more work t’ do wit’ ’em than to light up their seegars—­ain’t it wit’ the timber on their minin’ claims that they made their pile?  A-ah—­but them was the good times fer them that had brains.  A jackass like me an’ Mike, here, we’re the fellers thot went on a lookin’ fer gold an’ givin’ no thought to the trees that stood above.  An’ thim that took the gold an’ the trees, they’re the ones thot’s payin’ wages now to the likes of Mike an’ me.”

He straightened his back and sent a speculative glance at the forest around him. “’Tis long sence the thrick has been worked through,” he mused, turning his plug of tobacco over in his hand, looking for a likely place to sink his stained old teeth.  “Ye’ll be kapin’ mum about what’s in yer mind, young feller, ef ye don’t want to bring the dom Forest Service on yer trail.  Ef it was me, I’d buy me a bag of salt fer me mines—­I would thot.”

“Well, by George!” The professor stared.  “What has salt—?”

“A-ah, an’ there’s where ye’re ign’rant, young feller, wit’ all yer buke l’arnin’.  ‘Tis gold I mean—­gold thot ye can show t’ thim thot gits cur’us.  But if it was me, I’d sink me shaf’ in a likelier spot than what this spot is—­I wuddn’t be bringing up durt like this, an’ be callin’ the hole a mine!  I kin show ye places where ye kin git the color an’ have the luke of a mine if ye haven’t the gold.  There’s better men than you been fooled in these hills.  I spint me a winter meself, cuttin’ timbers fer me mine—­an’ no more than a mile from this spot it was—­an’ in the spring I sinks me shaf’ an’ not a dom ounce of gold do I git fer me pains!”

“Well, by George!  I’ll speak to Fred about it.  I—­I suppose you can be trusted, Murphy?”