“It can’t be Tom, himself, can it?”
“No, I’m pretty sure it isn’t Tom either. Tom is a big, powerful fellow, all right, but he’s not more than five feet ten, while this man, I think, is extra-tall—see the length of his stride where he came down the bank. Whoever he is, though, Phil, he’s an experienced prospector. He hasn’t wasted his time, as we have, trying unlikely places, but has chosen this spot and gone slap down through snow and everything, just as if he knew that the black sand would be found at the bottom.”
“That’s true,” said I. “I wonder who it is. We must find out if we can, Joe, so that we may be able to tell Tom who his competitor is. Let’s follow his tracks.”
Getting out of the creek-bed again, we walked along the bank for nearly a mile, until Joe, stopping short, held up his finger.
“Hark!” he whispered. “Somebody chopping.”
There was a sound as of metal being struck against stone somewhere ahead of us, so on we went again, making as little noise as possible, until presently Joe stopped again, and pointing forward, said softly, “There he is, look!”
The man was down in the creek-bed again, and all we could see of him above the bank was his hat. We therefore went forward once more, timing our steps by the blows of the hatchet, until we could see the man’s head and shoulders; but we did not gain much by that, as he had his back to us and was too intent upon his work to turn round. At length, however, he ceased chopping, and gathering the chips of frozen sand in his hands, he cast them to one side. In doing so, he showed his face for a moment, and in that brief glimpse I recognized who it was.
Joe looked at me with raised eyebrows, as much as to say, “Do you know him?” to which I replied with a nod, and laying my hand on my companion’s arm, I drew him back until only the top of the man’s hat was visible again, when I whispered, “It’s Long John Butterfield.”
“What! The man they call ‘The Yellow Pup’? How do you suppose he came to hear of the black sand?”