nd held it close before his eyes. Then he made a minute
search of it with his little magnifying glass. Then he fell upon his
knees, and, with his clawlike fingers, scraped more earth from the rock
whence he had chipped it.

Satisfied by what he saw there, after he had done this, he rose with a
new expression on his face--so crafty, so exultant, and, withal, so
evil, that Madge involuntarily shrank back to better screening in her
leafy hiding place.

The old man, with sweeping movements of his heavily booted feet, swept
the thin earth he had scraped from the rock's surface back into its
place, thrust the fragments deep into his pocket, and started hurriedly
away, plainly greatly pleased, along the trail which led into the
valley. She watched him with a beating heart, much puzzled.

What could it be that he had found, there, on her land? Visions of gold
mines and of diamonds, rose within her mind, crude, unformed, childish,
based on the imperfect knowledge she had gained of such things from the
story-tellers of the mountains. As mountain people go she was, already,
a rich woman, but now dreams of mightier wealth swept through her brain
tumultuously. Ah, she would buy happiness for all her friends when she
had, later on, unearthed the secret treasures of her backwoods clearing!
Maybe she would, sometime, have a _real silk dress_!

She hurried forward in a stooping run to make examination of the place,
as soon as the old man had vanished down the mountain side, to see (she
thoroughly expected it) the glitter of bright gems or yellow gold
beneath the sand which he had with such care spread back upon the little
scar which he had made there in the earth. With trembling fingers she
pushed back the yellow earth, and found--nothing but black rock,
uncouth, and unattractive.

She sat there on the ground in her damp skirts, too disappointed, for a
moment, to make an exclamation. In many ways the girl, although well
past her sixteenth year, was but a child. The reaction from the mighty
dreams of fortune she had built almost unnerved her.

It was her native humor which now saved her. Instead of weeping she
burst into sudden laughter.

"Dellaw!" said she, aloud. "Ain't I a fool? The man was just a crazy!"

For some time she sat there in the rocky clearing amidst the litter of
pine-tops and small undergrowth, contemplating her own silliness with
keen amusement.

"Why, he had me that stirred up," said she, "that I reckoned I w