When they gained it and looked through the open door, they saw the tall, blond-haired man. He was dressed in miner’s clothing, even to the flaming red shirt, while round his neck was knotted a blue tie with broad white stripes in it. It was not, however, until attention was called to it that any one was likely to see that this blue and white, with the red of the shirt, formed the same colors as those in the flag. When the stranger turned to the visitors he gave them a broad, pleasant smile, and they saw that he was a handsome, well-set-up fellow, with an attractive face, lighted by dark eyes. “Howdy!” he cried, seeing them. They clustered round the door. “Just bought this shack and moved in, and now I’m getting me something to eat,” he explained. “Step in, if you can find room in here.” Some of them came in, seating themselves on boxes he pushed out for them. He continued the work of getting his breakfast. “The tenderfoot I bought this of was kind enough to tell me, after he had my cash, that the mine wouldn’t yield anything; said he’d worked at it until he was tired out, and didn’t get enough out of it to buy his smoking tobacco.” “I allow he was slingin’ ye the straight truth,” avowed Persimmon Pete, who rested his claim to fame on the fact that he hadn’t shaved since he came into the camp, a year before. “I reckon you know what this hill is called?” he added, after he had studied the face and figure of his host a minute. “Well, no; I hadn’t even heard that it had a name.” “Folly Mountain,” said Persimmon Pete. The blond-headed stranger turned round, the frying pan in his hand. “Wherefore and why?” he asked. “Because every man that’s ever tried to git gold out of it has been compelled to admit, in the end, that he was a fool.” The stranger laughed lightly, and put the frying pan back on the stove. It was sending up a cheerful odor of bacon fat. “That sets out a pleasant prospect for me,” he said, smiling. “So I reckon you’re in to spend yer good money and hard work fer nothin’.” The stranger stabbed at a slice of the bacon with his fork, turned it over neatly, then looked at Persimmon Pete and the men with him. “But there’s more ways of killin’ a dog,” he said, “than by chokin’ him to death on bones.” “Which is what?” “I’m satisfied that _I_ can get gold where others have failed.” “Ye can’t git blood out of a turnip,” declared Persimmon Pete. The man laughed again; he had an easy, gurgling laugh, and his manner was calculated to make him friends. “Which is saying that there ain’t any blood in this turnip. Mebby so. Time will tell the tale. But I’ll say to ye now that I’ve got a new process which will git all the gold there is, anyway; by that I mean _all_ the gold.” He leaned back against the wall, with a glance now and then at his frying pan.