Our hero did not despair, and, having no natural inclination for dissipation, did not make his rejection an excuse and an opportunity for self-indulgence. He was of an intense and earnest nature, and he was really in love with the girl who had discarded him, but life was not dead of duty or achievement to him because of her loss, which he looked upon as final, for her newly-acquired position as a wealthy heiress made it impossible to his self-respect to seek a reconciliation. He applied himself with assiduity and industry to his profession, and soon became an exceedingly skillful and reliable mining expert. Ability to comprehend the story written upon the rocks cannot always be gained by study or experience. At last it is a “faculty,” rather than the result of reading or training. Fire and flood, oxygen and electricity, the tempests of the air and the volcanic throbbings of the earth, have been busy for ages with the quartz lode, and have left their marks upon it. It is possible sometimes to decipher these hieroglyphics so as to answer with a degree of accuracy the ever-recurring question, “Will it pay to work?” Yet such possibility cannot be reduced to a science. Professors of geology and metallurgy are often wrong in their conclusions, and even old prospectors are frequently at fault. Go across a piece of marsh land on a spring morning accompanied by a bull-dog and a Gordon setter. The former will flush no snipe save those he may fairly run over as he trots along. But the fine nose of the dog with the silky auburn coat will catch the scent of the wary bird, and follow it here and there around tufts of marsh grass and across strips of meadow, until the sagacious canine shall be seen outlined against earth and sky. It is difficult to be certain of anything in this world of human deceptions, but one may be absolutely sure under such circumstances that the dog will not lie, and that he cannot be mistaken. There is a snipe within a few yards of that dog in the direction in which his nose is pointed. If the sportsman fails to secure the bird, the fault will be with his aim or his fowling-piece—the dog has done his part.