"Well," continued the stranger, "the fact is this. I have a young friend over in Mexico, who is rather too fond of embarking on commercial enterprises of a decidedly risky and precarious nature, and as I am in a way his adviser, I feel a certain amount of responsibility when he asks my opinion about things. He has just written, saying he has the option of purchasing some land in which rumour says that silver maybe found, and he wants to know what I think about it. It is quite out of your beat, Mr. Field, as I know your mines are in California, so I felt it would not be trespassing on your preserves if I asked you to be kind enough to answer a few questions in a friendly way as to the risks of such a speculation, knowing what an authority you are upon the subject. I am staying with Lord Monfort, and, hearing that you resided so near, I ventured to make myself known to you, hoping that my nationality would perhaps appeal to you, seeing you have lived so long in my country."
Mr. Field's features, which at first had been decidedly forbidding, relaxed at the mention of the earl. Aloof though he held himself from the ordinary run of mankind, it was his secret ambition to mix with that society into which, except for his great wealth, he could never hope to obtain entrance. To know that he had been the subject of conversation at Lanthorne Abbey was as nectar to his aspiring soul.
"I shall be glad to do what I can for you," he said urbanely, "if you will kindly give me some particulars as to locality and the like."
After about half an hour's conference Judge Simmons rose to go.
"You will stay to lunch, won't you?" urged Mr. Field. "It's getting on towards one o'clock, and I shall be pleased to welcome you, if you will be content with merely the company of myself and my little boy."
"I've only once been down your way," remarked Judge Simmons as they were seated at table, "and that was some years ago, before you had made that corner of the world a household word. Everyone knows the Good Hope silver mine and its apparently exhaustless resources, but I wish I could locate it better in my own mind. I don't seem able to fit it in with what I remember of the place. I went with a nice young fellow named Barker who was prospecting then in those parts, and he staked out a claim somewhere thereabouts. I recollect he called it Wild Goat Gully. I've quite lost sight of him since, and have never been up there again, but I fancy he didn't strike it rich, or we should have heard of it before now."
"I was told that he went completely to the dogs, and was at last drowned when crossing one of the big rivers," replied Mr. Field. "He certainly made nothing out of his Gully, so far as I heard, and the very name he gave it has died out."
"One peculiarity about it struck me much at the time," remarked the judge. "There was a high precipice bounding it on one side, with a great orange streak right across it as if it had been daubed on with a brush. Some geological freak, I suppose."
"Why, how funny!" exclaimed Julius, who had been sitting silently listening to the conversation. "That's just like the Good Hope cliff. It looks exactly as if some enormous giant had thrown his pot of yellow paint at the rock."
"Strange," said the judge, glancing up at Mr. Field, "I heard there wasn't another formation like it in the whole country."