ctor has his own
idees, same as he has for playin' poker, but he don't win any quicker
because o' that. Leastways, not so far as I've seen.

"As for judgin' by the rock an' the color o' the soil, why, you can
take your pick. Take San Diego County, Californy, where I've worked,
the gold lies in schist, sometimes blue, green, or grey. In the
Homestake, South Dakota, red looks good, a sort o' rotten quartz
stained with iron. Black flint's a good sign in Colorado. Snow-white
quartz is often lucky. Purple porphyry sometimes has veins that work
up rich. An' I've seen gold come out o' pink sandstone, yellow
sandstone, all shades o' granite, an' even coal!"

Clem turned an incredulous glance at Owens, but the mine-owner nodded
agreement.

"Jim's right," he said, "color isn't any clue. Gold can be found in
any kind of rock. So far as that goes, it shows up in strata of any
geological age. There's gold everywhere. There isn't a range of hills
in any country of the world which may not contain gold. There isn't a
bed of sand or gravel that may not be auriferous. Even the sea beach,
in places, has yielded fortunes. For that matter, there's gold in
every bucket of water you dip up from the sea.

"But there's not much of it. Geologists have figured that there's
about one cent's worth of gold to every ton of rock in the earth's
crust, but it would take fourteen dollars a ton to handle it. There's
about a hundredth of a cent's worth of gold in a ton of sea water, and
it would cost about ten dollars a ton to get it out. Not much chance
of getting rich that way, is there?"

"I should say not," declared Clem, with decision.

"But, as Jim has been pointing out, gold isn't scattered evenly all
through the earth. In some places, it's moderately plentiful, in
others it's scarce or entirely absent. Prospecting for gold, Clem,
doesn't mean looking for a place where there is gold, but looking for
a place where the proportion of gold to the soil or to the rock is
high enough to give a profit in the working of it.

"It isn't always the place where the gold is most plentiful that gives
the greatest profit, either. A low-grade ore, that is a rock
containing only a small proportion of gold, may be worth a great deal
if it is near the surface, if the rock is easily crushed, if it is
near water-power, and if transportation is not too difficult.

"A high-grade ore, in which there is a large proportion of gold, may
be worth a good deal less, if