“And you are direct from California?” continued Landray.
“I left there five months ago, Mister.”
“You don't remember us, perhaps, I am Bushrod Landray, and this is my brother, Stephen,” and he held out his hand. “You have reasons for believing this news of Captain Gibbs to be true?”
“Mighty good reasons, too; that's what brought me here, fetched me all this distance, when I wa'n'. fit to travel.”
“You know the gold to be there?” and Landray regarded the Californian with quickened interest.
Rogers hesitated a moment; concealment had become second nature to him. At last he said, “I reckon I know as much about that as any man alive,” and now his sunken eyes began to flash, and the colour came and went on his waxen cheeks, his long fingers opened and closed convulsively. “I've seen it with my own eyes. I thought I was the only one who knew it was there, but the word must have come around the Horn on the next ship that sailed after the one I took, Sutter's Fort—that's a good hundred miles from where I found it.”
“What I'd like to know,” and Mr. Tucker cleared his throat impressively, “Is how you found it?”
“It's in small nuggets, or like fine dust.”
“The gold is?” said Mr. Tucker.
“Yes.”