“Oh, yes,” agreed Weston, laughing. “Still, you see, I don’t intend to remain a track-grader indefinitely.”
“No?” said Ida, inquiringly. “What do you mean to do?”
Weston saw that she was interested, and he was still young enough to be willing to discuss his own plans and projects—though for that matter one comes across older men who can talk of nothing else.
“This country is full of gold and silver,” he said. “Other men strike it now and then, and I really don’t see why I shouldn’t.”
“When they do, haven’t they usually to sell it for almost nothing to somebody who gets up a company? Besides, do you know anything about prospecting?”
Weston laughed.
“A little. It’s my one dissipation; and it’s rather an expensive one. You have to work for months to save enough to buy a camp outfit and provisions, and if you mean to stay any time in the ranges you have to hire a horse. Then you come back in rags with a bagful of specimens that prove to be of no use at all; and you go to work again.”
“You have done that often?”
“Three or four times.”
“Then,” asked Ida, “isn’t it foolish to go back again?”