stlessly, a
precious phial encased in wood, and, opening it, poured into another
thick glass vessel part of a smoking fluid; he then crumbled some of
the calcined fragments into the glass, and watched the ebullition that
followed with mechanical gravity. When it had almost ceased he drained
off the contents into another glass, which he set down, and then
proceeded to pour some water from his drinking-flask into the ordinary
tin cup which formed part of his culinary traveling-kit. Into this he
put three or four pinches of salt from his provision store. Then
dipping his fingers into the salt and water, he allowed a drop to fall
into the glass. A white cloud instantly gathered in the colorless
fluid, and then fell in a fine film to the bottom of the glass. Key's
eyes concentrated suddenly, the listless look left his face. His
fingers trembled lightly as he again let the salt water fall into the
solution, with exactly the same result! Again and again he repeated
it, until the bottom of the glass was quite gray with the fallen
precipitate. And his own face grew as gray.

His hand trembled no longer as he carefully poured off the solution so
as not to disturb the precipitate at the bottom. Then he drew out his
knife, scooped a little of the gray sediment upon its point, and
emptying his tin cup, turned it upside down upon his knee, placed the
sediment upon it, and began to spread it over the dull surface of its
bottom with his knife. He had intended to rub it briskly with his
knife blade. But in the very action of spreading it, the first stroke
of his knife left upon the sediment and the cup the luminous streak of
burnished silver!

He stood up and drew a long breath to still the beatings of his heart.
Then he rapidly re-climbed the rock, and passed over the ruins again,
this time plunging hurriedly through, and kicking aside the charred
heaps without a thought of what they had contained. Key was not an
unfeeling man, he was not an unrefined one: he was a gentleman by
instinct, and had an intuitive sympathy for others; but in that instant
his whole mind was concentrated upon the calcined outcrop! And his
first impulse was to see if it bore any evidence of previous
examination, prospecting, or working by its suddenly evicted neighbors
and owners. There was none: they had evidently not known it. Nor was
there any reason to suppose that they would ever return to their hidden
home, now devastated and laid bare to