length
of his pick-handle.

All this was discouraging. The man began to grow heart-sick. Who was
there at home waiting and waiting all this time? No one in the camp
could say. In fact, no one in the camp knew any thing at all about this
silent man, who seemed so superior to them all; and as the camp knew
nothing at all of the man, either his past or his present, as is usually
the case, it made a history of its own for him. And you may be certain
it was not at all complimentary to this exclusive and silent man of the
tunnel.

Two, three, four, five years passed. The camp had declined; miners had
either gone back to the States, gone to new mines, or gone up on the
little hill out of the canyon to rest together; and yet this man held on
to his tunnel. He was a little bit bent now from long stooping, waiting,
toiling, and there were ugly crows-feet about his eyes--eyes that had
grown dim and blood-shot from the five years glare of the single candle
in that tunnel.

And the man was not so exclusive now. The tunnel was now no secret. It
was spoken of now with derision, only to be laughed at.

Six, seven, eight, nine, ten years! The man has grown old. He is bent
and gray. But his faith, which the few remaining miners call a madness,
is still unbroken. Yet it is not in human nature to endure all this
agony of suspense, all this hope deferred from day to day, week to week,
month to month, year to year, and still be human. The man has, in some
sense, become a brute. He now is seen to reel and totter to his cabin,
late at night oftentimes. He has at last fallen into the habit of the
camp. He can drink, gamble, carouse, as late as the latest.

Now and then, it is true, he has his sober spells, and all the good of
his great nature is to the surface. Now he takes up a map and diagram
which is hidden under the broad stone of the hearth, and examines it,
measures and makes calculations by the hour at night, when all the camp
is, or ought to be, asleep.

Maybe it is the placing and displacing of this great stone that has
given rise to the story in the camp that the old man is not so poor as
he pretends. Maybe some of the rough men who hang about the camp have
watched him through the chink-holes in the wretched cabin some night,
and decided that it is gold which he keeps concealed under the great
hearthstone.

Eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen years! The man's hair is
long and hangs in strings. It is growing gray, almo