pan containing a stew. The pan had
seen better days--and worse ones, too, for one side of its rim was
gone, and the bottom had been cleverly turned up to form a new one,
making it semi-circular with a straight side.

"Prospectin'?" my host ventured, eying me dreamily.

"No, lookin'," I told him.

"Humph." Then, "Hope you find it."

But his curiosity ended there.

"Say, if you're wantin' ter see sum'thin' good, looka that."

He tossed over a piece of quartz.

"Got er whole mountain uf it," he jerked his head toward the tunnel.
He lowered his voice, glanced around, beckoned me to follow, and led
the way inside his mine.

At the edge of the darkness he halted, returned to the entrance and
peered about. Then he leaned close that none might hear, and whispered
the secret; the old, old secret no prospector ever keeps. Not that
prospectors have anything to keep!

Another time, in the rough region west of Ypsilon Mountain, I came upon
a lean, wiry little old man leading a burro. He jerked at the lead
rope in vain attempt to hurry the phlegmatic animal.

"Com' on, durn ye," he squeaked as he tugged at the rope. "Don't ye
know we're tracin' the float? Lead's right close now."

But the burro was of little faith. He had lost his youthful
enthusiasm. He carried all his master's possessions (except his golden
dreams) on his back, but his pack was light.

So engrossed was the old man that he passed within fifty yards of where
I sat without seeing me. He was oblivious to everything but what might
lie hidden on the mountainside. The float would lead to a bonanza
strike, a mill would be built to handle the ore, a town would spring
up--his town, named in his honor as the discoverer of the lead! He
mumbled of these things as he worked. Sometimes he paused, looking
abstractedly at the peaks above, without apparently seeing them at all.
He babbled incoherently of leads, floats, lodes and veins.

His actions were like those of a dog puzzling out the faint trail of a
rabbit that had crossed and crisscrossed its own trail until nothing
could track it down. Somewhere on the mountain above was the source of
the float. The old man edged up the slope, tacking back and forth
across the line of scattered quartz. He located the vein at last by
trenching through a carpet of spruce needles.

He set up camp and started digging, so I dropped down the canyon towards
the Poudre River. But a week later, upon my return, he wa