in't a more natural-born site for a mill than that right
bank, with water enough to run fifty stamps. That hillside is an
original dump for your tailings, and a ready found inclined road for
your trucks, fresh from the hands of Providence; and that road we're
kalkilatin' to build to the turnpike will run just easy along that
ridge."

Later, when we were forced to accept the fact that finding gold was
really the primary object of a gold-mining company, we still remained
there, excusing our youthful laziness and incertitude by brilliant and
effective sarcasms upon the unremunerative attractions of the gulch.
Nevertheless, when Captain Jim, returning one day from the nearest
settlement and post-office, twenty miles away, burst upon us with
"Well, the hull thing'll be settled now, boys; Lacy Bassett is coming
down yer to look round," we felt considerably relieved.

And yet, perhaps, we had as little reason for it as we had for
remaining there. There was no warrant for any belief in the special
divining power of the unknown Lacy Bassett, except Captain Jim's
extravagant faith in his general superiority, and even that had always
been a source of amused skepticism to the camp. We were already
impatiently familiar with the opinions of this unseen oracle; he was
always impending in Captain Jim's speech as a fragrant memory or an
unquestioned authority. When Captain Jim began, "Ez Lacy was one day
tellin' me," or, "Ez Lacy Bassett allows," or more formally, when
strangers were present, "Ez a partickler friend o' mine, Lacy
Bassett--maybe ez you know him--sez," the youthful and lighter members
of the Eureka Mining Company glanced at each other in furtive
enjoyment. Nevertheless no one looked more eagerly forward to the
arrival of this apocryphal sage than these indolent skeptics. It was
at least an excitement; they were equally ready to accept his
condemnation of the locality or his justification of their original
selection.

He came. He was received by the Eureka Mining Company lying on their
backs on the grassy site of the prospective quartz mill, not far from
the equally hypothetical "slide" to the gulch. He came by the future
stage road--at present a thickset jungle of scrub-oaks and ferns. He
was accompanied by Captain Jim, who had gone to meet him on the trail,
and for a few moments all critical inspection of himself was withheld
by the extraordinary effect he seemed to have upon the faculties of his
introducer.