“Hooray!” yelled out the rest of the men in sympathy, the precious figure being passed round from one to another, so that each could see it in turn and judge for himself. “Hooray!”
“Hillo!” cried Captain Snaggs, noticing the commotion and coming bustling up, with his wiry goatee beard bristling and his pointed nose and keen eyes all attention. “What d’ye mean droppin’ work an loafin’ up hyar in a crowd, makin’ all that muss fur, hey?”
“We’ve just found this here figger, sir,” explained Tom Bullover; “and Hiram says it’s made o’ gold.”
“Thet’s so, cap,” corroborated the American sailor. “It air all thet; an’ goold of good grit, I reckon, too, or I’ll swaller the durned lump, I will, without sass!”
“Humph!” snorted the skipper, holding out his hand for it; “give us holt, an’ I’ll prospect it fur ye, if ye like. They usest to tell me I warn’t a bad jedge when I wer at the Carraboo diggin’s an’ went in fur minin’.”
The little image of the Madonna was accordingly handed to him, and the skipper’s nose wrinkled up, and twitched and jerked sideways, while his billy-goat beard bristled out like a porcupine’s quills, as he sniffed and examined the figure, turning it over and over in his hands and feeling it, the same as Hiram had done. He even went so far as to pinch it.
“Jee-rusalem!” he at length exclaimed; “it’s gold, sure enuff!”
“Hooray!” again burst from the men around. “Hooray!”
“I don’t see nothin’ to holler fur,” said Captain Snaggs, in response to this, bringing them up, as the saying goes, ‘with a round turn,’ as he turned round angrily. “Guess ye won’t find no more o’ the same sort skatin’ round the ranche!”
But, just then, Jan Steenbock came on the scene.