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Confidence had thus been established between the two, but not to the extent of capture, for on the gold-seeker attempting to place his left hand over his new acquaintance, he scuttled away to his rock with almost inconceivable quickness. The digger's smoke over, he returned to his work in the hole, leaving his blouse where he had sat.
"Si, senor," answered the contractor, bowing mockingly. Tom turned the lever that sent more gas into the bag. The balloon shot up. The young gold-seeker was about to throw on the motor, when Delazes waved his hand to the little party. "Bon voyage!" he called. "I hope you will find the city of gold!" "Bless my soul!" cried Mr. Damon. "He knows our secret!"
Here was the bored traveler, explorer, gold-seeker, soldier of fortune, actually as pleased as a girl over the prospect of arranging his room! He called after him, "Sylvester!" "Yes." "I say, if you could, you know, just try to interest these people to-night with some of your adventures something told SERIOUSLY, you know, as if you really were in earnest I'd be awfully obliged to you.
"I'm not going to stay down here, cruising about without knowing where I'm going. It looks to me as if you were hunting for a needle in a haystack." "That's just about what we are doing," and Tom tried to speak good-naturedly. "Then do you know what I think?" the gold-seeker fairly shot forth. "Not exactly," Tom replied.
And on this voyage I was reminded of Josiah Royce's splendid summary of the American philosophy of the American religion as set forth by William James: "The spirit of the frontiers-man, of the gold-seeker or the home-builder transferred to the metaphysical or to the religious realm. There is a far-off home, our long lost spiritual fortune.
The going was easy, so Polly told of other adventures: of the trip to Buffalo Park when a bear chased them; of her meeting with Old Montresor, the gold-seeker of Grizzly Slide and his pitiful story; of the nights spent out on the mountains, watching beside a dying camp- fire, or listening to the call of the moose to his mate on a moonlit night; of the wonderful sport fishing in trout-filled streams, or seeking gorgeous flora and strange fauna on the peaks, and again photographing wild beasts and birds that never showed a fear of her as she traversed their domains.
The profit to the Mormons from this migration was even greater in 1850. The gold-seeker sometimes paid as high as a dollar a pound for flour; and, conversely, as many of the wayfarers started out with heavy loads of mining machinery and miscellaneous goods, as is the habit of the tenderfoot camper even unto this day, they had to sell at the buyers' prices.
The generations are crowding on my narrow life as a bridge: what has been and what is to be are meeting there; and the bridge is breaking. But I have found you. You have come in time, You will take the inheritance which the base son refuses because of the tombs which the plow and harrow may not pass over or the gold-seeker disturb: you will take the sacred inheritance of the Jew."
Any other than a gold-seeker might have been deceived by these stones, which looked like vitrifications at the foot of a volcano; but the practised eye of Fabian instantly recognised the virgin gold under its clayey envelope, as it is brought down by the torrents from the gold-producing mountains. Before his eyes lay the richest treasure that was ever displayed to the view of man.
In the swamps and ravines, where they may thrust down their steel-pointed flexible spears as much as eight feet, the roaming diggers use that weapon to explore the field. In the hard open country they have to fall back upon the spade. Unlike the gold-seeker, the gum-digger can hope for no great and sudden stroke of fortune. He will be lucky if hard work brings him on the average £1 a week.
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