“I've fetched my own proofs,” said Rogers. “Some of the gold. If it's proof you want, I reckon you can't better that,” and he took from his pocket a small glass vial filled with a dirty yellow substance. “There's over three ounces of gold dust there. It's worth sixteen dollars an ounce. I reckon you can't beat that. Want to hold it?” he added indulgently, and passed the vial to the innkeeper, who took it gingerly, caressingly, in his fat fingers.
At least two of his auditors were rich men, according to the easy standard of the times, while Tucker was well-to-do, and the editor fairly prosperous; but the romance of it all had taken a powerful hold on them. A subtle excitement was in the mind of each. Here, shorn of the vexations and delays of trade, and within reach of the strong arm of the willing digger, was that which was the measure of the world's necessity, that by which men guaged success or failure in life. In the presence of so simple a process, each felt a sudden distaste for his own task.
“I wish I was ten years younger and free-footed,” said Mr. Tucker, at last. “I'd pull out of here to-morrow, blamed if I wouldn't.”
The editor laughed softly. He was like a man rousing from a dream. “Nonsense! Luck won't be for one in a hundred; perhaps not for one in a thousand.”
“I'd run the risk, Cap; and if I found any of that dust, I wouldn't sleep or eat or drink, until I'd fished it out of the soil.”
“What will be my chance at making up a company here?” asked Rogers, and now he addressed himself to the Landrays. He recognized in their silence a deeper interest than that manifested by either Mr. Tucker or Captain Gibbs.
“Are you really in earnest about going back?” asked Bushrod Landray, curiously.
Rogers drew his tall form erect. “I allow there's just about two thousand miles of go left in me, Mister,” he said.
“And you think you could pilot a wagon train across the plains?” asked Stephen.
“You give me the chance to show what I can do—that's all I ask. Of course, I see now, I must have been clean crazy to leave the Coast when it took my last dollar, but I ain't fit for heavy work any more; I go shut like a clasp-knife; and I was near about wild to be with some of my own kin.”