istaken. He was willing, and what Murphy
told him to do he did. But it was Murphy who did the hard work, who
planned for them both.

Presently Mike went bowlegging to camp to start their dinner, and
Murphy finished spiking the windlass to the platform on which it
rested. He still whispered a sibilant "a-ah!" with every blow of the
hammer, and the perspiration trickled down his seamed temples in
little rivulets to his chin that looked smaller and weaker than it
should because he had lost so many of his teeth and had a habit of
pinching his lower jaw up against his upper.

The professor came back with his sample of rock--with a pocketful of
samples--just as Murphy had finished and was wiping his thick glasses
on a soiled, blue calico handkerchief with large white polka-dots on
the border and little white polka-dots in the middle. He turned toward
the professor inquiringly, warned by the scrunching footsteps that
some one approached. But he was blind as a bat--so he
declared--without his glasses, so he finished polishing them and
placed them again before his bleared, powder-burned eyes before he
knew who was coming.

"An' it's you back already," he greeted, in his soft Irish voice, that
tilted up at the end of every sentence, so that, without knowing what
words he spoke, one would think he was asking question after question
and never making a statement at all. "An' what have ye dug outy yer
buke now?"

"No, by George, I dug this out of the ground," the professor declared,
going forward eagerly. "I want you to tell me frankly just what you
think of it."

"An' I will do that--though it's many the fight I've been in because
of speakin' me mind," Murphy stated, grinning a little. "An' now le's
see what ye got there. My gorry, I've been thinkin' they're all av
thim buke mines that ye have here," he bantered, peering into the
professor's face, before he took the largest piece of rock and turned
it over critically in his hands. In a minute he handed it back with a
quizzical glance.

"They's nawthin' there," he said softly. "If thot was gold-bearin'
rock, my gorry, we'd all of us be rollin' in wealth, fer the mountains
is made of such. Young feller, ye're wastin' yer time an' ivery dollar
ye're sinkin' in these here claims ye've showed me--and thot's no lie
I'm tellin' ye, but the truth, an' if ye believe it I'll soon be
huntin' another job and ye'll be takin' the train back where ye come
from."

The professor eyed him