Just what Garry would do with these few thousands he did not know. His education had been a classical one. He had taken up nothing special save mineralogy, and that only because of Uncle Terry’s lifelong interest in “prospects.”
“I boned like a good fellow,” he told Ned, “on that branch just to please the old fellow. Of course, I’d tagged along with him on a burro on many a prospecting trip when I was a kid, and had learned a lot of prospector’s lore from the dear old codger.
“But what the old prospector knows about his business is a good deal like what the old-fashioned farmer knows about growing things. He does certain things because they bring results, but the old farmer doesn’t know why. Just so with the old-time prospector. Uncle Terry’s scientific knowledge of minerals wasn’t a spoonful. I showed him things that made his eyes bug out—as we say in the West,” and Garry laughed reminiscently.
“I shouldn’t have thought he’d ever have quarreled with you,” said Ned, having heard this fact from the girls. “You must have been helpful to him.”
“That’s the reef we were wrecked on,” said Garry, shaking his head rather sadly.
“You don’t mean it! How?” queried Ned.
“Why, I’ll tell you. I don’t talk of it much. Of course, you understand Uncle Terry is one of the old timers. He’s lived a rough life and associated with rough men for most of it. And his slant on moral questions is not—well—er—what yours and mine would be, White.”
“I see,” said Ned, nodding. “You collided on a matter of ethics?”
“As you might say,” admitted Garry. “There are abandoned diggings all over the West, especially where gold was found in rich deposits that can now be dug over and, by scientific methods, made to yield comfortable fortunes.
“Why, in the early rush the metal, silver, was not thought of! The miners cursed the black stuff which got in their way and later proved to be almost pure silver ore. Other valuable metals were neglected, too. The miners could see nothing but yellow. They were gold crazy.”