orest of the poor. So may
men win fortunes on a turn of the wheat market. But the one is no more
prospecting than the other is business. True prospecting has only the
normal percentage of uncertainties, the usual alloy of luck to brighten
its toil with the hope of the unexpected. A man must know his business
to succeed. A bit of rock, a twist of ledge, a dip of country, an
abundance or an absence of dikes--these and many others are the symbols
with which the prospector builds the formula that spells gold. And after
the formula is made, it must be proved. It is the proving that bends the
back, tries the patience, strains to the utmost the man's inborn
Instinct of the Metal. For that is the work of the steel and the fire,
the water and the power of explosion. Until the proof is done to the
Q.E.D., the man must draw for inspiration on his stock of faith. In the
morning he sharpens his drills at a forge. In the afternoon he may, by
the grace of labour, his Master, have accomplished a little round hole
in the rock, which, being filled with powder and fired, will tear loose
into a larger hole with debris. The debris must be removed by pick and
shovel. After the hole has been sufficiently deepened, the debris must
be loaded into a bucket, which must then be hauled to the surface of the
ground and emptied. How long do you calculate the man will require to
dig in this manner, fifty, a hundred feet? How long to sink one or two
such shafts on each and every claim he has staked? How long to excavate
the numerous lateral tunnels which the Proof demands?

And besides this, from time to time the shaft must be elaborately
timbered in order to prevent its caving in and burying work and workman
together--a tedious job, requiring the skill alike of a woodsman, a
carpenter, a sailor, and a joiner. The man must make his trips to town
for supplies. He must cook his meals. He must meet his fellows
occasionally, or lose the power of speech. The years slip by rapidly. He
numbers his days by what he has accomplished; and it is little. He
measures time by his trips to camp; and they are few. It is no small
thing to make three discoveries--and lose them. It is a greater thing to
find courage for a fourth attempt.

After the Eagle Ridge fiasco, Peter, as cheerful as ever, journeyed over
into Wyoming to try his luck once more. He moved up into the hills,
spent a month in looking about him, narrowed his localities to one
gulch, and built himself a l