"The Gattineau, I have no doubt. I never saw a Lake Superior specimen half as rich."
"Eet ees not Lake Superior, you aire right. W'at you say eef I tell you it come from sout' of de Saint Laurence?"
"It will be a fortune for the owner if it does. Freight and expenses there will be so light in comparison with Fond du Lae."
"Dese specimens aire from La Hache."
"You don't----"
"Fact. Here is Professor Hammerstone's report."
"Hammerstone? I see him constantly, but he has never mentioned it. He spent a week with me at St. Euphrase last summer. My son Gerald reads with him several times a week, but he has heard nothing of this or he would have told me."
"Hammerstone was employed by me--a private survey--confidential affair."
"Ah?" said Ralph, looking at his friend the personage and man of pleasure with newborn respect. Who could have supposed it? A man he had always looked on as a fool--spending his days in losing money on race-courses, his nights in poker!--to think that such a one should have taken up with science, economies, and the intelligent development of his property!
"You see it arrived to me all unexpected to make the discovery. The young Richaud, of the Crown Lands Department, is of the relatives of madame the most intimate. He made a séjour wid us the last Septembre, and one day we go for the chasse aux oiseaux, and we stop to repose ourselves in the svamp by the river not far from Saint Euphrase--the svamp is dried up as you may know in Septembre--and Richaud, he cry out, and he say, 'M. Rouget,' he say, 'how you aire riche!--more riche as the dreams of avarice.' 'Behold!' he cry, and frappe wid a large stone ze rock laid bare by the uprooting of a fallen tree, w'ere I myself had seated. And truly the fragment broken off did shine wid a lustre as of the metals. Richaud has information of such tings in the department, and he advised me to consult the Professeur Hammerstone, w'ich, by-and-by, w'en the frosts have wizzered the herbage, I do, and you behold his report rendered."