"Oh, I'll look around here—I suppose there's not much beyond this?"
"No; the next claim is Gabriel Conroy's."
"Not much account, I reckon?"
"No? It pays him grub!"
"Well, dine with me at three o'clock, when and where you choose—you know best. Invite whom you like. Good-bye!" And the great man's escort, thus dismissed, departed, lost in admiration of the decisive promptitude and liberality of his guest.
Left to himself, the stranger turned his footsteps in the direction of Gabriel Conroy's claim. Had he been an admirer of Nature, or accessible to any of those influences which a contemplation of wild scenery is apt to produce in weaker humanity, he would have been awed by the gradual transition of a pastoral landscape to one of uncouth heroics. In a few minutes he had left the belt of sheltering pines and entered upon the ascent of a shadowless, scorched, and blistered mountain, that here and there in places of vegetation had put on the excrescences of scoria, or a singular eruption of crust, that, breaking beneath his feet in slippery grey powder, made his footing difficult and uncertain. Had he been possessed of a scientific eye, he would have noted here and there the evidences of volcanic action, in the sudden depressions, the abrupt elevations, the marks of disruption and upheaval, and the river-like flow of débris that protruded a black tongue into the valley below. But I am constrained to believe the stranger's dominant impression was simply one of heat. Half-way up the ascent he took off his coat and wiped his forehead with his handkerchief. Nevertheless, certain peculiarities in his modes of progression showed him to be not unfamiliar with mountain travel. Two or three times during the ascent he stopped, and, facing about, carefully resurveyed the path beneath him. Slight as was the action, it was the unfailing sign of the mountaineer, who recognised that the other side of the mountain was as yet an undetermined quantity, and was prepared to retrace his steps if necessary. At the summit he paused and looked around him.
Immediately at his feet the Gulch which gave its name to the settlement, and from which the golden harvest was gathered, broadened into a thickly wooded valley. Its quivering depths were suffused by the incense of odorous gums and balms liberated by the fierce heat of the noonday sun that rose to his face in soft, tremulous waves, and filled the air with its heated spices. Through a gap in the cañon to the west, a faint, scarcely-distinguishable line of cloud indicated the coast range. North and south, higher hills arose heavily terraced with straight colonnades of pines, that made the vast black monolith on which he stood appear blacker and barer by contrast. Higher hills to the east—one or two peaks—and between them in the sunlight odd-looking, indistinct, vacant intervals—blanks in the landscape as yet not filled in with colour or expression. Yet the stranger knew them to be snow, and for a few moments seemed fascinated—gazing at them with a fixed eye and rigid mouth, until, with an effort, he tore himself away.
Scattered over the summit were numerous holes that appeared to have been recently sunk. In one of them the stranger picked up a fragment of the crumbled rock, and examined it carelessly. Then he slowly descended the gentler slope towards the west, in the direction of a claim wherein his quick eye had discovered a man at work. A walk of a few moments brought him to the bank of red clay, the heap of tailings, the wooden sluice-box, and the pan and shovel which constituted the appurtenances of an ordinary claim. As he approached nearer, the workman rose from the bank over which he was bending, and leaning on his pick, turned his face to the new-comer. His broad, athletic figure, his heavy blonde beard, and serious, perplexed eyes, were unmistakable. It was Gabriel Conroy.
"How are ye?" said the stranger, briskly extending a hand, which Gabriel took mechanically. "You're looking well! Recollect you, but you don't recollect me. Eh?" He laughed curtly, in a fashion as short and business-like as his speech, and then fixed his eyes rather impatiently on the hesitating Gabriel.
Gabriel could only stare, and struggle with a tide of thick-coming remembrances. He looked around him; the sun was beating down on the old familiar objects, everything was unchanged—and yet this face, this voice.