“Now you are talking nonsense. We have found it.”
“You have found alluvial gold. There are few fast-running streams in the world which do not contain gold in that form. The denudation of the Andes is so extraordinarily rapid that it would be a singular fact if this river did not yield float gold. But the metal is not, and cannot be, present in paying quantities. The primary sources of gold are reefs, either in quartz or in metalliferous veins of galena and the various pyrites. There are none of these in the lower Andean range, which is composed almost exclusively of crystalline schist with a slight blend of basalt. I am a mining engineer, Mr. Sinclair, and I know what I am talking about. If you could put the entire southern Cordillera through a mill, you would not secure a pennyweight of gold to the ton.”
Sinclair, of course, could not appreciate the remarkable way in which Power’s tongue loosened in dealing with the familiar jargon of his profession. For the time he was far more concerned with what he deemed a real marvel.
“A mining engineer, and your name is Power! Surely you can’t be the Mr. Power who sailed from San Francisco to Valparaiso on the Panama seven years ago?” he cried.
“I am.”
“But, excuse me, there must be some mistake. My daughter, Marguerite Sinclair, who was on board that vessel, spoke of a Mr. Power; but he was a young man. Of course, time does not stand still for any of us; but this Mr. Power would now be thirty-five, or thereabouts.”
“That is my age.”
“Thirty-five?”
“Yes.”
Sinclair bent forward and peered into his visitor’s eyes; it was difficult to detect any play of expression in the bearded face. “Are you really the man my daughter met on that steamer?” he asked, and there was a note of solemnity, almost of awe, in his voice. This anchorite seemed nearer sixty than thirty-five.