day, she reminded us,
and bade me be in readiness to play my part, though I had no idea what
it was to be. And suppose Ronalds came? we asked. She received the idea
with derision, laughing aloud with all her fine teeth. He could not find
the mine to save his life, it appeared, without Rufe to guide him. Last
year, when he came, they heard him "up and down the road a-hollerin' and
a-raisin' Cain." And at last he had to come to the Hansons in despair,
and bid Rufe, "Jump into your pants and shoes, and show me where this
old mine is, anyway!" Seeing that Ronalds had laid out so much money in
the spot, and that a beaten road led right up to the bottom of the dump,
I thought this a remarkable example. The sense of locality must be
singularly in abeyance in the case of Ronalds.

That same evening, supper comfortably over, our guest busy at work on a
drawing of the dump and the opposite hills, we were all out on the
platform together, sitting there, under the tented heavens, with the
same sense of privacy as if we had been cabined in a parlour, when the
sound of brisk footsteps came mounting up the path. We pricked our ears
at this, for the tread seemed lighter and firmer than was usual with our
country neighbours. And presently, sure enough, two town gentlemen, with
cigars and kid gloves, came debouching past the house. They looked in
that place like a blasphemy.

"Good-evening," they said. For none of us had stirred; we all sat stiff
with wonder.

"Good-evening," I returned; and then, to put them at their ease, "A
stiff climb," I added.

"Yes," replied the leader; "but we have to thank you for this path."

I did not like the man's tone. None of us liked it. He did not seem
embarrassed by the meeting, but threw us his remarks like favours, and
strode magisterially by us towards the shaft and tunnel.

Presently we heard his voice raised to his companion. "We drifted every
sort of way, but couldn't strike the ledge." Then again: "It pinched out
here." And once more: "Every miner that ever worked upon it says there's
bound to be a ledge somewhere."

These were the snatches of his talk that reached us, and they had a
damning significance. We, the lords of Silverado, had come face to face
with our superior. It is the worst of all quaint and of all cheap ways
of life that they bring us at last to the pinch of some humiliation. I
liked well enough to be a squatter when there was none but Hanson by;
before Ronalds, I will own