"Well, gents, if yuh don't care how hard yuh work for five dollars a day, the Dry Mountains is the place. I never had no use for a long-tailed shovel myself."
"I heard how them stream-beds was rich."
"Don't yuh believe it, gents. If they was, there wouldn't be no Marysville 'round here. It'd be all over in the Dry Mountains. No, gents, it's like I says. Yuh can get the colour all right enough, but yuh won't make more'n five a day on an average. Who wants to rock a cradle for that?"
"Now ain't that a fright?" complained Loudon. "Chucked up our jobs with the Flyin' Diamond A 'cause we heard how there was gold in the Dry Mountains, an' come all the way up here for nothin'. It shore does beat the devil!"
"It does, stranger, it does. Have one on the house, gents."
"Say," said Loudon, when the liquor was poured, "say, how about east in the foothills o' the Fryin' Pans? Any gold there?"
"Stranger, them Fryin' Pans has been prospected from hell to breakfast an' they ain't showed the colour yet. Take my word for it, gents, an' leave the Fryin' Pans alone. Bill Archer's got a claim some'ers over that way an' he goes traipsin' out to it every so often. Stays quite a while, Bill does, sometimes. Don't know why. He don't never get nothin'."
"How do yuh know?"
"Stranger, I know them hills. I've prospected that country myself. There's no gold in it."
"Maybe Bill Archer don't agree with yuh."