"Tell us about it," we said.
He found a stone to rest his back against, and threw open his shirt at the throat.
"These hot summer days sizzle just as they did then—crisp your throat like coals curl bacon. I'd mined all this country in the gold days, and held my own with the dizziest dog of 'em all in findin' the color and epicuring the liquids. I run a drinking fountain in opposition to the Dead Falls, up Mokelumne way, and counted on Joaquin and his band for makin' a pot for me regular once a week—but t'aint what I started out to say."
The old man fell into a reverie. He seemed to see only the ends of his toes.
"About the Archangel," Crawford prodded.
"Yes—the Archangel. That's a matter of three short years aback."
This gentle old man stood up, and hitched savagely at his trouser band before he sat down again.
"Adolphe—his name'd tell you, wouldn't it? Chin beard—juicy voice—and hands a-curvin' through the air. Well, Adolphe and me set up backin' and minin' together five years aback. I stayed on and on with him because his bread'd make you hungry in your sleep.
"'Twas flour for that very bread that I went a-ridin' into town for, one summer day. There was a real estate dude'd come up. 'Socks' we called him. Actual—he went round in wormy-lookin' things held up by garters! Well, Socks, he tucked a folded newspaper under my saddle-flap, just as I was tightening up to go home.
"'Read that,' says he. 'It's time all you fellers settled down to raisin' families, so's we could have a population, and school districts, and churches, and sich. Never no hope of doin' anything with a lot of bachelors.'