that, forty years ago, I'd be a rich man now," said
Jim, regretfully.

"You'd have been a millionaire, ten times over," Owens agreed, "but,
since it hadn't been found out, you couldn't have known it. But did
you always stick to gold, Jim? That Carson River country has got more
silver in it than it has gold."

"Don't I know it? 'Ain't it been rubbed into me, good an' hard? Father
wasn't a cussin' man, noways, but he couldn't keep his tongue in order
like a man should, when he got to talkin' about silver. He threw away
any amount o' high-grade silver ore, while huntin' for gold. The
richest silver mine in the whole world, I reckon, was found less'n a
hundred yards from where he'd been pannin'.

"It was the same ol' story--he didn't know enough! Workin' hard may
bring a man some money, but havin' savvy will bring him a lot more.

"Right where Father was workin', he was havin' all sorts o' trouble
wi' a heavy black sand that kep' on fillin' up the riffles like it was
gold. He shoveled away cubic yards of it! An' do you know what that
was? That dirty black sand was nigh pure silver, an' Father was
pannin' less'n quarter of a mile away from the richest section in all
Nevada. He was campin' right on the Comstock Lode! I reckon you've
heard o' that, Mr. Owens!"

"Every mining man has heard of the Comstock," the mine-owner replied.
"Personally, I don't know a great deal about silver, although the
Broken Hill mine, New South Wales, which is nearly as rich as the
great Nevada deposit, is located not far from my home. I went straight
from gold to coal. So I never did hear the real story of the Comstock.
But you ought to know about it, Jim. Was it found by accident, too?"

"Rank good luck an' rotten bad luck mixed," Jim answered. "Do I know
that story! The first week's pay I ever drew was on the Comstock. An'
I was born, as I told you, near enough to throw a stone right on to
the Comstock outcrop. This was how it begun!

"There was two prospectors, Patrick McLaughlin an' Peter O'Riley,
Irishmen both, what had been pannin' gold on Gold Canyon, where, I
told you, Father had been. Luck was poor. Grub was hard to get. The
water o' the Carson had a strong taste, an' wasn't none too healthy.
So the two pardners started diggin' a water-hole down in the gulch,
near where they was workin'. What come up out o' the hole was a yellow
sand, all mixed up with bits o' quartz an' a crumblin' black rock,
much the same as the black sand Fathe