"No, an' doesn't want to; but Jack Ford did."
"And where is he?"
"Ask Sam Wilkins. He's the only glory prospector here."
"What has he to do with it?"
"Lor'! stranger, if he doesn't know where Jack went, no one here does. Jack was as fine a mate as iver I met; but whether he staked off a claim up aloft, or pegged out in the other place, I'm darned if I knows. He saw the Bunyip one full moon, an' croaked the next day."
I now noticed that all the men had gathered round our little group, and before I could further question the speaker, Long Tom broke in. "Is ye in a hurry to git up to the Gulf country?" he said.
"Not particularly," I answered.
"Yer mate tells us you is a great mineralogist?"
"Oh, no,—not great; but I know a little of the science."
"Does ye know what that is?" Tom opened a sack as he spoke and took out a greenish mass of something.