"Search me!" replied Overland. "They wasn't any Lucy or nobody like that. But I'd like to 'a' stayed to hear Toledo explain that to Mrs. Toledo, though. She was a hard map to talk to."
"I suppose there's a moral attached to that, or, more properly, embodied in that story. But it is good enough in itself without disemboweling it for the moral."
"You can't always go by ants, neither," said Overland.
Winthrop nodded. His eyes were filled with the awe of great distances and innumerable stars. "Gold!" he whispered presently, as one whispers in dreams. "Gold! Everywhere! In the sun—in the starlight—in the flowers—in the flame. In wine, in a girl's hair.... Gold! Mystery.... Power ... and as impotent as Fate." Winthrop's head lifted suddenly. "What shall we call the mine?" he asked.
Overland Red started, as though struck from ambush. "How did you guess?" he queried.
"Guess what?"
"That I was thinkin' about the claim?"
"I didn't guess it. I was dreaming. Suddenly I asked a question, without knowing that I was speaking."
"Mebby I was bearin' down so hard on the same idea that you kind of felt the strain."
"Possibly. That's not unusual. What shall we call it?"