He put up a little furnace in the back room, where he heated ores, “roasting” them, to test their value. He brought in a small assayer’s outfit and a blowpipe. Often he was seen toiling far into the night, the light of his window looking like a red eye or a blazing star, shining on the top of Folly Mountain. The curiosity concerning him was increased by this. If he had sought deliberately to excite the citizens of Blossom Range, the stranger could not have taken means more effective. The hope that some method might be found to render low-grade ores worth working was in the heart of every man; and the stranger’s oft-repeated assertions that he had such a process, and was perfecting it more and more every day, stirred their imaginations. Sometimes men crept up in the night to the cabin, and lay close against the walls, watching and listening, hoping, to surprise his secret, if he had one. But the stranger seemed to possess marvelous intuition. As often as this happened he either ceased his work and remained silent within or came out casually and greeted them. He did not seem surprised when he found them, nor put out; but always spoke to them cheerfully and sometimes invited them in. Twice he was known to show men of that kind what he was doing, so far as they could understand it; which was just far enough to befog them completely. He talked in learned words which none of them could comprehend; and his explanations, though at the moment seeming marvelously clear, were seen afterward not to explain anything. When he had been there a week he lugged down to the Wells Fargo Express office a gunny bag that seemed heavily laden. Some of the loafers before the office doors followed him inside, and saw him plump the heavy bag down before the Wells Fargo agent. When the stranger opened it, they saw that it held gold; not in nuggets or gold dust, but in solid pieces, which apparently he had fused with his blowpipe. “Test it and weigh it,” he said; “and then ship it for me.” “Who’ll I ship it to?” the agent asked, staring at the yellow lumps. “Ship it to Uncle Sam’s Sister, ’Frisco,” was the answer. The agent tested and weighed the “stuff,” and found there was five hundred dollars’ worth; it was genuine gold. “Got it out of that hole up there that I bought of the tenderfoot,” beamed the stranger. “Everybody said there wasn’t anything in it; but they hadn’t seen me work my new and secret process. By and by they will begin to believe.” “I suppose your sister will get this without any other name than that?” The stranger had given a street and a number, but no other name for the consignee. “Just that--Uncle Sam’s Sister. She’ll git it. If not, the company can ship it back to me at my expense.” Some of the loafers, when outside, expressed their amazement; and if Uncle Sam had been selling stock in his new process the stock would have taken a boom. Yet as the news spread there were comments of another kind.