From rock to rock the gray old miner's gaze went wandering. So undisturbed had been the surface of the earth since he had owned the claim that a shallow channel, sluiced in the earth by a freshet of the spring long past, remained as the waters had cut it. Slowly up the course of this insignificant cicatrice old Jim ascended, his hands still held beneath his arms, his long mustache and his grizzled beard blown awry in the breeze. The pick he left behind.
Coming thus to a deeper gouge in the sand of the hill, he halted and gazed attentively at a thick seam of rock outcropping sharply where the long-gone freshet had laid it bare. In mining parlance it was "quartzy." To Jim it appeared even more. He stooped above it and attempted to break away a fragment with his fingers. At this he failed. Rubbing off the dust and sand wherewith old mother nature was beginning to cover it anew, he saw little spots, at which he scratched with his nails.
"Awful cold it's gittin'," he drawled to himself, and sitting down on the meagre bank of earth he once more thrust his hands beneath his coat and looked at the outcropping dismally.
He had doubtless been gone from the cabin half an hour, and not a stroke had he given with his pick, when, as he sat there looking at the ground, the voice of Keno came on the wind from the door of the shack. Arising, Jim started at once towards his home, leaving his pick on the hill-side a rod or two below.
"What is it?" he called, as he neared the house.
"Calamerty!" yelled Keno, and he disappeared within the door.
Jim almost made haste.
"What kind of a calamity?" said he, as he entered the room. "What's went wrong?"
"The lemon-pie!" said Keno, whose face was a study in the art of expressing consternation.
"Oh," said Jim, instantly relieved, "is that all?"