ave done it with just your two hands and a
shovel and a crowbar?"

"Wal, yes,--'n a pinch o' powder now and then, 'n somethin' to drill a
hole with,--an' a little nat'ral gumption."

Wakefield liked the sound of it all uncommonly well. For a man who had
come to a rough place in his own road,--a jumping-off place he had once
thought it might prove to be,--would it not be rather a pleasant thing,
to smooth off a road for the general public? It would be a stroke in the
game, at least, and that was his main concern just now. Such a good,
downright, genuine sort of work too! He had an idea that if he could
once get his grip on a crowbar, and feel a big rock come off its bottom
at his instigation, he should have a stirring of self-respect. After
all, of all that he had lost, that was perhaps the most important thing
to get back.

Just as he had arrived at this sensible conclusion his companion came to
a halt.

"Here's my shanty; where's yours?" he asked.

"Haven't got any!"

"I'd ask you in if we wasn't packin' up to go."

"Does your wife go with you?"

"Why, nat'rally!"

"Say," Wakefield queried, as the man turned in at the gate. "How did you
go to work to get that job up in the canon?"

"Went to 'Bijah Lang, the street-commissioner."

"You haven't got any friend who would like you to pass the job over to
him?"

"No."

"Think I could do it?"

"Wal, yes,--if you've got the gumption! Your arms and legs 'pear to be
all right! Ever see any work of the kind?"

"Yes; I used to watch them on the road up Bear Mountain, at Lame Gulch."

"Know how to drill a hole in a rock?"

"Learned that when I was a boy."

"Know the difference between _joint_ powder and the black stuff?"

"Yes; though I never handled giant powder myself."

"Wal, don't be too free with it, that's all. And, say!" he called, as
Wakefield in his turn made as if to go. "Look's like as though you'd got
somethin' up to Lame Gulch. Wal, you hold on to it, that's all!"

"You believe in Lame Gulch, then?"

"Lame Gulch is all right. It's chockfull of stuff, now I tell ye! Only
folks thought they was goin' to fish it out with a rod 'n line."

"Then you really think there 's something in it?"

"Somethin' in it? I tell ye, it's chockfull o' stuff! Only folks have
got it into their heads that the one thing in this world they kin git
without workin' for it, is _gold_! If that was so, what would it be
wuth? Less than pig-iron! I tell ye, there ain't