“Raised in No’th Ca’lina,” was the gruff response.
“Is that so?” Len exclaimed. “Why, that’s not far from my home—I was raised in Roanoke county, Virginia. Sorry I didn’t know that before. I should have liked to come over and talked with you about things down in that region. Don’t see many men out here that know much about the Piedmont country. Were you ever up in Roanoke?”
“Many a time.”
Thus the ice was broken, and the lads won their way through the crust which this stern old miner was proud to wear, though it cut him off more and more from the society of those around him, who voted him an unsociable old curmudgeon that somehow had picked up a lot of information about rocks and ores.
Max did not smoke, but he had bought the best cigar he could get in town, for the special purpose of giving it to the old man, and this gift, with Len’s pleasant chat, quite thawed the professor in the course of a quarter of an hour or so. Len was very diplomatic. He seemed to be in no hurry, but finally steered the conversation around to rare minerals. Then, as if by chance, he recalled a package he had brought to the professor from Denver, on his return from that recent journey which Bob had alluded to in his conversation with Scotty, and asked the old man to show him the specimens again, and to tell him more about them than he had done on the evening when they were delivered.
Ordinarily a request like this would have met with refusal; but now the old man consented at once, and led the way into his cabin.
Many rude little shelves were stuck up against the log walls, upon which were heaped dusty rows of minerals and various other objects. One shelf contained several cigar-boxes. These the professor took down and opened one after another. Rummaging through half a dozen he finally found the one he wanted, and unfolded from their wrappings the five small bits of rock which Lennox had brought to him from Denver.
Selecting three of the specimens the professor took them to the light and began to talk about what they represented.
“That’s an ore of tellurium,” he said, holding one of the pieces between his thumb and finger, “and it carries gold,—or may sometimes—a right smart percentage of it, too—in the shape of a telluride. It is a very nice smelting ore and a valuable one.”
“Is there much of it in the Rockies?” he was asked.