Whereat Mike, who was silly from being struck on the head with a railroad tie somewhere down the long trail of years behind him, gulped his lean Adam's apple into a laugh, and began to gobble a long, rambling tale about a feller he knew once in Minnesota who could locate mines with a crooked stick, and wherever he pinted the stick you could dig....
Murphy sat down upon him then—figuratively speaking—and reminded Mike that they were not talking about crooked sticks ner no kind of sticks, ner they didn't give a dom what happened in Minnesota fifty year ago—if it ever had happened, which Murphy doubted. So Mike left his story in the middle and went off to the water jug under a stubby cedar, walking bowlegged and swinging his arms limply, palms turned backward, and muttering to himself as he went.
"A-ah, there goes a liar if ever there was one—him and his crooked sthick!" Murphy brought out a plug of tobacco the length of his hand and pried off a corner with his teeth. "Mebby it was a railroad tie, I dunno, that give him the dint in his head where he should have brains—but I misdoubt me if iver there was more than the prospect of a hole there, and niver a color to pay fer the diggin'." He looked at the professor and winked prodigiously, though Mike was out of earshot. "Him an' his crooked sthick!" he snorted, nudging the professor with his elbow. "'S fer me, I'd a dom sight ruther go be yer buke, young feller—and more I cannot say than thot."
The professor went back to his ledge on the hillside and began to peck away with his pick, getting a sample for Murphy to look at. He rather liked Murphy, who had addressed him as young feller—a term sweet to the ears of any man when he had passed forty-five and was still going. By George! an old miner like Murphy ought to know a fair prospect when he saw it! The professor hoped that he might really find gold on his claim. Gold would not lessen the timber value, and it would magnify the profits. They expected to make somewhere near six thousand dollars off each twenty acres; perhaps more, since they were noble trees and good, honest pine that brought the best price from the mills. Six thousand dollars was worth while, certainly; but think of the fortune if they could really find gold. He would have a more honest right to the claim, then. He wondered what Murphy thought of the shaft he was sinking over there, where Fred had perfunctorily broken through the leaf mold with a "prospect" hole, and had ordered Murphy and Mike to dig to bed-rock, and stop when they had the assessment work finished.
What Murphy thought of it Murphy was succinctly expressing just then to Mike, with an upward twinkle of his thick, convex glasses, and a contemptuous fling of his shovelful of dirt up over the rim of the hole.
"My gorry, I think this mine we're workin' on was located by the bake," he chuckled. "Fer if not that, will ye tell me why else they want 'er opened up? There's as much gold here as I've got in me pocket, an' not a dom bit more."
"Well, that man I knowed in Minnesota, he tuk a crooked sthick," gobbled Mike, whose speech, as well as his mind had been driven askew by the railroad tie; but Murphy impatiently shut him up again.
"A-ah, an' that's about as much as ye iver did know, I'm thinkin', le's have no more av yer crooked sthick. Hand me down that other pick, fer this wan is no sharper than me foot."
He worked steadily after that, flinging up the moist soil with an asperated "a-ah" that punctuated regularly each heave of his shoulder muscles. In a little he climbed out and helped Mike rig a windlass over the hole. Mike pottered a good deal, and stood often staring vacantly, studying the next detail of their work. When he was not using them, his hands drooped helplessly at his sides, a sign of mental slackness never to be mistaken. He was willing, and what Murphy told him to do he did. But it was Murphy who did the hard work, who planned for them both.
Presently Mike went bowlegging to camp to start their dinner, and Murphy finished spiking the windlass to the platform on which it rested. He still whispered a sibilant "a-ah!" with every blow of the hammer, and the perspiration trickled down his seamed temples in little rivulets to his chin that looked smaller and weaker than it should because he had lost so many of his teeth and had a habit of pinching his lower jaw up against his upper.