Pole hung his head for a moment in silence, then he looked the old man in the face. “Mr. Craig,” he began, in even a lower voice, “do you reckon thar's any gold in them mountains?” Pole nodded to the blue wave in the east.
Craig was standing near a bale of cotton and he sat down on it, first parting the tails of his long, black coat.
“I don't know; there might be,” he said, deeply interested, and yet trying to appear indifferent. “There is plenty of it in the same range further down about Dalonega.”
Pole had his hand in the right pocket of his rough jean trousers.
“Is thar anybody in this town that could tell a piece o' gold ef they seed it?” he asked.
“Oh, a good many, I reckon,” said Craig, a steely beam of excitement in his unsteady eye. “I can, myself. I spent two years in the gold-mines of California when I was a young man.”
“You don't say! I never knowed that.” Pole had really heard of that fact, but his face was straight. He had managed to throw into it a most wonderful blending of fear and over-cautiousness.
“Oh yes; I've had a good deal of experience in such things.”
“You don't say!” Pole was looking towards the compress again.
Craig laughed out suddenly, and put his hand on Pole's shoulder with a friendly, downward stroke.