“Great guns, Major. I too have discovered gold—placer gold.”
“Where?”
“At your feet. Look.” And Roderick stooped and picked up a fine smooth-worn nugget as big as a pigeon’s egg. “Look, look, look,” continued Roderick. “It is all around us on this sandbar.”
“I did not happen on this spot,” said Buell Hampton. “The fact is I hardly explored the valley at all. I had all the gold I wanted or could ever want in my own find.”
“Then where is that find?”
“Lower down the stream—a dyke of porphyry and white quartz. But you already know the kind of ore Jim Rankin, Tom Sun, and Boney Earnest helped me to get out of the valley. It is quite different from your gold.”
The Major stooped, and collected a handful of good-sized nuggets.
“How did you come to find this place, Roderick?” he asked, gazing up at the sheer cliffs around them.
“I have been searching for it,” he replied, “since ever I came to Wyoming. Oh, Major, it is a strange story. I hardly know where to begin. But wait. Sit down on that boulder. I have my father’s letter with me. You can read it and will then understand.”
From an inner pocket Roderick produced the map and letter which had never left his possession, night or day, since his Uncle Allen had handed him the sealed packet in the bank manager’s room at Keokuk. Without a word Buell Hampton took the seat indicated, and after a preliminary glance at the map proceeded to read the long epistle left by the old miner, John Warfield, as a dying legacy to his son. Roderick sitting on his heels watched in silence while the other read.