“What?”
“Come and listen.”
“Ya-as,” Blumpitty was saying, ostensibly to Governor Reinhart, but really to a distinguished and rapidly increasing circle, “Ya-as, queerest feller ever I see.”
“Who was?”
“Why, the feller I found dyin’ on the coast up above Cape Polaris. The man that gave me the tip. I can see that feller now. Couldn’t get his face out o’ my head fur months. His eyes—used t’ see them eyes in my sleep.” Blumpitty paused, and seemed to struggle feebly with an incubus. “Never see such eyes in any man’s head ’fore nor since.” Again he paused an instant to think out something. “Reckon it makes a man look like that.”
“What does?” demanded the Governor.
“Knockin’ up agin the Mother Lode.”
“Oh, the Mother Lode!” said Reinhart, slightingly.
“Ya-as; those of us that’s practical miners”—his look weeded out the Governor—“guess we all know that every bit o’ gold that’s found its way to the creek bottoms and the coast, it’s all come from the Mother Lode, off there in them low ground—down hills to the North.”