ed hammer and
chipping about.

"Granite--quartz--gneiss--quartz," he said in a low voice, as he
carefully examined each fresh fracture in the stone. "Why, boys, here's
tin here," he said sharply. "This place can never have been worked."

As he was speaking these latter words he held out a fragment of the
stone he had broken off to Josh.

"That's good tin, my man," he said.

Josh growled. He had more faith in a net or a bit of rope.

"What do you say to it, Will?" said Mr Temple.

Will took the piece of quartz that was sparkling with tiny black
crystals and turned it over several times close to the light. "Good tin
ore, and well worth working," he exclaimed readily.

"Yes," said Mr Temple, "you are right, my lad. It is well worth
working. Let's look a little farther. Here, you come and stand up and
hold the lantern. We can land here."

Will obeyed, and as the boys watched, and Josh solaced himself with
cutting a bit of cake tobacco to shreds, Mr Temple and Will climbed
from place to place, the boys seeing the dark wet pieces of rock come
out clear and sparkling as the blows fell from the hammer.

Now they were here, now there, and the more Mr Temple hammered and
chipped the more interested he seemed to grow.

_Click, click, click, click_ rang the hammer, and _splish, splash_ went
the fragments of rock that fell in the water or were thrown into it; and
thus for quite two hours Mr Temple hammered away, and after giving up a
fragmentary conversation Dick and Josh grew silent or only spoke at
intervals.

CHAPTER THIRTY TWO.

HOW SEALS SOMETIMES MAKE THOSE WHO WAX EAGER STICK.

"I say, Dick," said Arthur after a long silence, "I wish we could go out
now."

"Not frightened, are you?"

"Not now," said Arthur with simple truthfulness. "I was at first, but I
don't mind now."

"It was _unked_, as the people here call it," said Dick, "and gashly. I
wondered at first whether there were any sea-serpents or ugly things
living in a place like this."

"Sea-monsters," said Arthur. "So did I, but I seem to have got used to
it at last."

"Oh, I say," said Dick, "I'm getting so hungry! What a long time father
is!"

"He's finding good ore," said Arthur, "he seems to be so interested.
Dick--Dick--oh! what's that?"

_Snork_!

It was not the snarl of a wild beast, but a sound that seemed to be
represented by that word.

"Old Josh's fast asleep," said Dick merrily. "It's he snoring. Let's
splash