“Oh, yes, hunters—eastern sportsmen—” Mr. Dill nodded. “But I thought I recognized an old-time prospector in you.”
“They’s no better in the hull West,” Yankee Sam declared generously, while Uncle Bill murmured that there was surer money in dudes. “Show Dill that rar’ mineral, Uncle Bill.” To Dill in an aside: “He’s got a mountain of it and it’s somethin’ good.”
Uncle Bill made no move.
“I aims to hold it for the boom.”
“And what’s your honest opinion of the country, Mr. Griswold?” Dill asked conciliatingly. “What do you think well find when we reach the secondary enrichment?”
A pin dropping would have sounded like a tin wash boiler rolling downstairs in the silence which fell upon the office of the Hinds House. Uncle Bill, looking serenely at the circle of tense faces, continued to smoke while he took his own time to reply.
“I’m a thinkin’,”—puff-puff—“that when you sink a hundred feet below the surface,”—puff-puff—“you won’t git a damn thing.”
Involuntarily Yankee Sam reached for the poker and various eyes sought the wood-box for a sizable stick of wood.
“Upon what do you base your opinion?” asked Mr. Dill, taken somewhat aback. “What makes you think that?”
“Because we’re in it now. The weatherin’ away of the surface enrichment made the placers we washed out in ’61-’64.”