“Yes, the gold, the dollars?”
“Dollars? Gold?”
“Yes, gold! ’Think I don’t know? Theseyer rocks are limestone. Who ever saw gold in limestone formation? Eh?”
“How do you know it’s limestone?”
“Yah! Ain’t I bin down to the lime-kiln, by Rubens’ wharf, and seen the lime brought over the bay? What’s the game? Tell us.”
“The thing that I’m most interested in, at this present moment,”—the goldsmith took up his heavy “swag”—“is tucker.”
Without further words, he led the way between perpendicular outcrops of rocks whose bare, grey sides were screened by fuchsia trees, birch saplings, lance-wood, and such scrub as could take root in the shallow soil. Turning sharply round a projecting rock, he passed beneath a tall black birch which grew close to an indentation in the face of the cliff. Beneath the great tree the heels of the goldsmith crushed the dry, brown leaves deposited during many seasons; then in an instant he disappeared from the sight of the lynx-eyed Jake, as a rabbit vanishes into its burrow.
“Hi! Here! Boss! Where the dooce has the ole red-shank got too?”
A muffled voice, coming as from the bowels of the earth, said, “Walk inside. Liberty Hall.... Free lodging and no taxes.”
Jake groped his way beneath the tree, surrounded on three sides by the limestone cliff. In one corner of the rock was a sharp depression, in which grew shrubs of various sorts. Dropping into this, the lad pushed his way through the tangled branches and stood before the entrance of a cave.