"Yes, yes," said the colonel; "I may say a great success. The poor fellow's confidence in me made me determined to do my best. I used to give him points--those were the days when I could give points. Told him if he would follow the lead west of the Little Bertha--people had hardly heard of the Little Bertha then--he'd strike it. He was broke, and I gave him the money. Three months later he'd struck pay dirt. That was the beginning of the Alcade Mine, but he didn't have sense enough to hold on to it, and sold out for a few thousands. I saw then that I'd have to do more than give him an occasional boost, and stood behind him, off and on, for years. Even when we ran into the Virginia City boom he never bought without my advice. He hadn't any discrimination. I'd just say to him, 'Save your money and buy five feet next to the Best and Belcher,' and he'd do what I said every time. Without me he'd have been working in the mines in Tuolumne yet." In the absorption of his recollections the colonel crossed his knees, bringing one foot, with a torn slipper dropping from the heel, into a position of prominence. "Oh, those were days worth living in!" he said, running a long, spare hand through his hair--"great days! Men that weren't grown then don't know what life is. I meet Jerry sometimes, but we don't talk much about old times. He knows that he owes everything to me, and it goes against the grain for him to acknowledge it. I hear his daughters are handsome girls." "Perhaps--I don't know," said Gault, recalling the occasions when he had sat next to the Miss McCormicks at dinners, and suffered exceedingly in the effort known as "making conversation." "I heard that they were fine, handsome girls, large, and with black hair like their mother. She was a beauty in her day--a hot-tempered Irish girl that Jerry married from the wash-tub. The youngest daughter is about Viola's age--twenty-three." John Gault turned and looked at Viola with some surprise. "You thought I was younger, didn't you?" she said, smiling. "Everybody does." He was about to answer when the colonel once more took up the thread of his reminiscences.