nothin' in this world
that's to be got without workin' for it, 'n the more work it takes, the
more it's wuth! 'N the reason gold's wuth more 'n most things, is
because it takes more work 'n most things; more diggin' 'n more
calc'latin'. Why!" he went on, waxing more and more emphatic. "Ef
diggin' gold wa' n't no harder 'n mendin' roads, 't wouldn't _pay_ any
better,--now I tell ye!"

"Perhaps you're right," Wakefield admitted, "but that's not what we're
brought up to think."

"That's what my boys was brought up to think, 'n they're actin'
accordin'."

"Have you got some boys up at Lame Gulch?"

"Yes, four on 'em. 'N I've got a claim up there too, 'n they're workin'
it."

"Why don't you go up and work your claim yourself?" asked Wakefield.

A humorous twinkle came into the man's eyes.

"Wal, now I tell ye!" and his voice dropped to a confidential level.
"Railroadin' _pays better_, so far!"

"Do your boys get a living out of the mine?"

"Not yet, not yet. But they're skilled miners. 'N when they git hard up,
a couple on 'em put in a month's work for some skalliwag 'company' or
other, 'n so they keep agoin'. The three married ones ain't up there at
all."

"So you've got seven sons?"

"Yes; seven boys, all told. We lost a girl," he added, with an
indefinable change in his voice. "Her name was Loretty."

With that, Loretty's father passed up the path and disappeared within
the house.

"Nice old chap," Wakefield thought, as he walked on, past the little
houses with the presumable mortgages on them. "Nice of him to go on
caring for Loretty after he had lost her."

He wondered whether, after all, he had better make such a point of
forgetting about Dorothy! Up there on the red hilltop, hobnobbing with
the yellow cactus, he had resolved never to think of her again; but down
here among human habitations, fresh from the good human intercourse of
the last ten minutes, he did not feel so sure about it. He thought that,
on the whole, it might be as well to decide that question later.
Meanwhile, here was the street-commissioner's door, and here was a
decision that must be come to on the spot.

Harry Wakefield always looked back upon the day when he first pried a
big rock off its base, as a turning-point in his career; a move that put
the game in his own hands. The sensation was different from what he had
anticipated. He had fancied that he was about to engage in a
single-handed struggle, but no sooner had his grip