"
The professor stopped short in the path.
"Gold!" he ejaculated. "Gold!"
Was there a vibration of incredulity in his voice?
Birt remembered all at once the specimens which he had picked up
that memorable evening, down the ravine, when he shot the red fox.
Here they still were in his pocket. They showed lustrous, metallic,
yellow gleams as he placed them carefully in the old man's
outstretched hand, telling how he came by them, of his mistaken
confidence, the betrayed trust, and ending by pointing at the group
of gold-seekers, microscopic in the distance on the opposite slope.
"I hev hearn tell," he added, "ez Nate air countin' on goin'
pardners with a man in Sparty, who hev got money, to work the gold
mine."
Now and then, as he talked, he glanced up at his companion's face,
vaguely expecting to discover his opinion by its expression, but the
light still played in a baffling glitter upon his spectacles.
Birt could only follow when the professor suddenly handed back the
specimens with a peremptory "Come--come! We must go for the spade.
But when we reach your mother's house I will test this mineral, and
you shall see for yourself what you have lost."
Mrs. Dicey's first impression upon meeting the stranger and learning
of his mission was not altogether surprise as Birt had expected.
Her chief absorption was a deep thankfulness that the floors all
preserved their freshly scoured appearance.
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