"Boys," he said, "I think the time has come for me to tell you about the errand that has brought me so far, and that's going to take me a lot farther. I haven't said anything about the nature of it before, because it was the one that could wait longest. Sit up and look at what I'm going to show you."
They sat up on their blankets, and he took from his pocket a little package which he unwrapped and looked at a moment or two. Then he poured the contents out upon his blanket. They looked like gravel or grains of stone, but the moon was good then, and from some of the grains came a slight metallic glitter, like pin-points of light.
"That," said Bill Breakstone in deeply impressive tones, "is gold."
"It looks more like gravel to me," said John Bedford.
"It is gravel, too," said Breakstone, "gravel, and gold in the gravel."
"About how much iss your gold worth?" asked Arenberg skeptically.
"Fifty cents, maybe," replied Bill Breakstone.
"Which wouldn't carry you far."
"No, it wouldn't," said Breakstone genially. "But see here, my merry Dutchman, a man may have a million dollars in the bank, and carry only a dime in his pocket. That's me. This is my sample, my specimen. It came from a spot far away, but there's a million more, or something like it, there waiting for us. Listen to me, Sir Philip of the River and the Plain, Sir Hans of the Forest and the Snow, and even you, Sir John of the Castle and the Cell, and I will tell you a glittering tale which is true."
Every one moved forward a few inches on his blanket, and their figures grew tense with interest. The moon sent a broad shaft of light through an opening in the trees directly upon the face of Bill Breakstone, showing eyes that sparkled with the pleasure of one who held a great secret that he was willing to tell to others.