“I’d venture to prophesy that if we waited until night, which we won’t do, we would see that light still glimmering among the rocks. Therefore, Jack, when we took away this worthless salt, we took the wrong crystal. It is no very strange thing in these hills that a piece of rock-salt should be lying within a foot of a diamond. It caught our eyes, and we were excited, and so we made fools of ourselves, and _left the real stone behind_. Depend upon it, Jack, the Sasassa gem is lying within that magic circle of chalk upon the face of yonder cliff. Come, old fellow, light your pipe and stow your revolver, and we’ll be off before that fellow Madison has time to put two and two together.” I don’t know that I was very sanguine this time. I had begun in fact to look upon the diamond as a most unmitigated nuisance. However, rather than throw a damper on Tom’s expectations, I announced myself eager to start. What a walk it was! Tom was always a good mountaineer, but his excitement seemed to lend him wings that day, while I scrambled along after him as best I could. When we got within half a mile he broke into the “double,” and never pulled up until he reached the round white circle upon the cliff. Poor old Tom! when I came up, his mood had changed, and he was standing with his hands in his pockets, gazing vacantly before him with a rueful countenance. “Look!” he said--“look!” and he pointed at the cliff. Not a sign of anything in the least resembling a diamond there. The circle included nothing but flat slate-colored stone, with one large hole, where we had extracted the rock-salt, and one or two smaller depressions. No sign of the gem. “I’ve been over every inch of it,” said poor Tom. “It’s not there. Someone has been here and noticed the chalk, and taken it. Come home, Jack; I feel sick and tired. Oh! had any man ever luck like mine!” I turned to go, but took one last look at the cliff first. Tom was already ten paces off. “Hollo!” I cried, “don’t you see any change in that circle since yesterday?” “What d’ye mean?” said Tom. “Don’t you miss a thing that was there before?” “The rock-salt?” said Tom. “No; but the little round knob that we used for a fulcrum. I suppose we must have wrenched it off in using the lever. Let’s have a look at what it’s made of.” Accordingly, at the foot of the cliff we searched about among the loose stones. “Here you are, Jack! We’ve done it at last! We’re made men!”