Jeffard turned to go, slinging the lightened haversack over his shoulder. At the door he bethought him of the curious fragment of quartz picked up on the dump of the abandoned tunnel. It was in his pocket, and he rummaged till he found it.
"Can you tell me anything about this?" he asked. "It seems to be a decomposed quartzite, matted on a base of some sort,—a metal, I should say."
The little German snatched the bit of quartz, and ogled it eagerly through his eye-glass.
"Mein Gott im Himmel!" he cried; and the eye-glass fell to the floor and rolled under the bench. "Iss it possible dot you know him not? Dot iss golt, mein lieber freund,—vire golt, reech, reech! Vere you got him? Haf you got some more von dis?"
Jeffard took it in vaguely, and tried to remember what he had done with the handful of similar fragments gathered at the same time. It came to him presently. He had emptied his pocket into the haversack on the morning of the departure from the valley what time Garvin was seeking the strayed burro.
He unslung the canvas bag and poured the handful of gravel on the bench. The assayer, trembling now with repressed excitement, examined the snuff-colored quartz, bit by bit, with a guttural ejaculation for each. "Donnerwetter! He gifs me feerst der vorthless stones to maig of dem de assay, und den he vill ask me von leedle qvestion about dis—dis maknificend bonansa! Ach! mein freund! haf you got viel of dis precious qvartz?"
"Why, yes; there's a good bit of it, I believe," replied Jeffard, still unawake to the magnitude of the discovery.
"Und you can find der blaces again? Dink aboud it now—dink hardt!"
Jeffard smiled. "Don't get excited, mein Herr. I know the place very well, indeed; I left it only three days since."
"Gut; sehr gut! Now go you; go und leef me to mein vork. Come you back in der morgen, und I vill tell you dot you are reech, reech! Go, mein freund, mit der goot Cherman in your moud—und Gott go mit you."