"By looking," said Will. "There's Retack Mine over yonder, and Carn Rean over there, and they're both rich; and I think the old people who dug down here went too far, and missed what they ought to have found." "And so you're going to find it, are you, my lad?" "I don't know," said Will quietly; "but I'm going to try." As he said those last words he set his teeth and knit his brow, looking so calmly determined that Josh picked up a little bit of granite, turned it over in his fingers a few times as if finding a suitable part, and then began to rub his nose with it softly. "Well, you do cap me, lad, you do," he said at last. "Look ye here, now," he cried, as if about to deliver a poser, and he seated himself on the rock and crossed his legs, "you don't expect to find coal, do you?" "No," said Will, "there is no coal in Cornwall." "Nor yet gold and silver?" "No: not much." "Then it's tin you're after, and it won't pay for getting." "You are wrong, Josh," said the lad smiling. "Not copper?" "Yes: copper." "Yah! Now is it likely?" "Yes," said Will. "Come here." Josh rose reluctantly, and the lad began to descend again, climbing quickly down the old mine debris till they reached the shore, and then walking a dozen yards or so he climbed in and out among the great masses of rock to where there was a deep crevice or chink just large enough for a full-grown man to force himself through to where the light came down from above. "What's the good o' coming into a gashly place like this?" growled Josh, whose breast-bone and elbows had been a little rubbed. "I wanted to show you that," said Will, pointing to a little crack through which a thread of water made its way running over a few inches of rock, and then disappearing amongst the shingly stones. "Well, I can see it, can't I?" "Yes; but don't you see that the rock where that, water runs is all covered with a fine green powder?" "Yes, it's sea-weed," said Josh contemptuously. "No; it's copper," cried Will excitedly; "that's a salt of copper dissolved in the water that comes out there, and some of it is deposited on the stones." "Yah! nonsense, lad! That arn't copper. Think I don't know copper when I see it? That arn't copper." "I tell you it is," said Will; "and it proves that there's copper in the rock about that old mine if anybody could find it; and the man who discovers it will make his way in the world." "You do cap me, you do indeed, lad. I shall never make anything of you. Well, and do you mean to go down that gashly hole." "I do; and you are going to manage the rope!" "And s'pose you falls in and gets drowned, what am I to say to your uncle?" "I'm not going to fall in, and I'm not going to be drowned," said Will quietly. "I'm going to try and find that copper; so now come along."