professor through thick, silver-rimmed glasses, and
demanded: "For why do ye be readin' a buke about it? For why don't ye
get down wit yer pick, man, and _see_ what's in the ground? My gorry,
I been minin' now for forty-wan year, ever sence I come from the auld
country, an' _I_ never read no buke t' see what I had in me claim. I
got down inty the ground, an' I seen for meself what I got there--an'
whin I found out, my gorry, I didn't need no _buke_ t' tell me was she
wort' the powder I'd put inty 'er. An' them that made their millions
outy their mines, _they_ didn't go walkin' around wit' a buke in their
hands! My gorry, they hired jackasses like me an' Mike here t' dig fer
all they wanted t' know about.

"And if ye want to find out what's there in yer claim, I'd advise ye
t' throw away yer buke, young feller, an' git busy wit' yer two hands,
an' ye'll be like t' know a dom sight more than wit' all yer readin'.
An' if ye like to bring me a sample of what ye git, I'll be the wan t'
tell ye by sight what ye have, and I don't need no _buke_ t' tell it
by nayther."

Whereat Mike, who was silly from being struck on the head with a
railroad tie somewhere down the long trail of years behind him, gulped
his lean Adam's apple into a laugh, and began to gobble a long,
rambling tale about a feller he knew once in Minnesota who could
locate mines with a crooked stick, and wherever he pinted the stick
you could dig....

Murphy sat down upon him then--figuratively speaking--and reminded
Mike that they were not talking about crooked sticks ner no kind of
sticks, ner they didn't give a dom what happened in Minnesota fifty
year ago--if it ever had happened, which Murphy doubted. So Mike left
his story in the middle and went off to the water jug under a stubby
cedar, walking bowlegged and swinging his arms limply, palms turned
backward, and muttering to himself as he went.

"A-ah, there goes a liar if ever there was one--him and his crooked
sthick!" Murphy brought out a plug of tobacco the length of his hand
and pried off a corner with his teeth. "Mebby it was a railroad tie, I
dunno, that give him the dint in his head where he should have
brains--but I misdoubt me if iver there was more than the prospect of
a hole there, and niver a color to pay fer the diggin'." He looked at
the professor and winked prodigiously, though Mike was out of earshot.
"Him an' his crooked sthick!" he snorted, nudging the professor with
his elbow. "'S fer