“I ain’t partic’lar,” was the response. The left eye followed Jack as he disappeared into the tent, while the right eye continued to regard Hal and Bee unblinkingly. Jack returned with several big slabs of bread and a generous square of butter. The teapot proved good for another cup of tea and soon the stranger, seated on an inverted bucket, was lunching. He ate slowly, consuming the bread in huge bites and washing it down with draughts of the luke-warm tea. If he was really as hungry as he had led them to suppose he disguised the fact well. “I cal’ate you’re going to build,” he observed between mouthfuls of the bread and butter.
“Build?” echoed Jack. “No, I guess not.”
“Oh? Well, I see you’d been a-diggin’ of a hole down there.”
“Yes,” replied Hal, who had taken a violent dislike to the visitor, “we were digging for clams.”
Both eyes turned toward Hal and the ends of the ragged mustache quivered in what was apparently a smile. “Fond of a joke, you be, ain’t ye?” he inquired with a rumble that might have been a laugh.
“Yes, I be,” answered Hal, in spite of a warning look from Jack. “Be n’t you?”
“Oh, yes, son, oh, yes!” rumbled the man. “I be mighty fond of a good joke—on t’other fellow! I cal’ate what you’re diggin’ for is yellow clams, eh?”
“Yellow clams?” repeated Jack questioningly.
The left eye closed in a portentous wink. “Aye, gold clams, mate. Ho, they all try it. Man an’ boy, I been around this place fifty year or more, on an’ off, an’ I’ve seen ’em diggin’ an’ diggin’ an’ diggin’, but I never seen nothin’ come up, mates. Big Verny hid it well.”
“Did you ever see him?” asked Bee eagerly.