mote from anywhere, another band was busily engaged in an attempt to
trace it back across the dried-up lake. How they had heard of it at
all was not very evident, but as the eagles gather round the carcass
and the flies about the fallen deer, so men with shovels and axes
appear as by enchantment when gold is struck. Distance counts as
nothing, and neither thundering rivers nor waterless deserts can deter
them.

Saunders listened with great contentment to the ringing of the axes
and the sharp clink of the drills. Men who labor strenuously from dawn
to dark in the invigorating mountain air consume provisions freely,
and, as the storekeeper was quite aware, those engaged on that lode
would be compelled to purchase their pork and tea and flour from him.

"It was quite a smart idea to give Jim a commission on the sales,
though I was kind of wondering if he'd have the sense to stay where he
is and run the store," he said. "If he hasn't been fool enough to
outfit the boys on credit he must have been raking in money."

Then he took up the lump of stone the prospector handed him and
knocked most of it to pieces with the hammer; after which he handed
one or two of the fragments to Devine, who grinned more broadly.

"Since Weston wants more specimens I guess he's got to have them," he
explained. "I don't know any reason why we shouldn't send him the best
we can. This lot should assay out, anyway, several ounces to the ton."

The prospector made a little grave sign of agreement, for this was a
game to which he was more or less accustomed. Lode ore now and then is
of somewhat uniform quality, but at times it varies in richness in a
rather striking manner; and the storekeeper had spent six or seven
hours picking out the most promising specimens. From these he had
trimmed off every fragment in which, as far as he could discern, the
precious metal was not present, with the result that any mineralogist
to whom they might be handed could certify to the richness of the
Grenfell Consolidated. Saunders was a business man, and quite aware
that the vendor of any kind of goods, when asked for samples, does
not, as a rule, submit indifferent ones.

"I guess," he added, probably referring to prospective investors,
"this lot ought to fetch them. You asked the boys to come along,
Devine?"

Devine said he had done so, and in a few more minutes several little
groups of men, in dilapidated long boots and somewhat ragged duck, who
had ceased w