“Ye don’t say!” exclaimed Mrs. Sanders, who evidently thought the intrusions a great joke. “Waal, stranger,” said Teck Jepson, and the man’s nerves became tense and his face rigid and watchful the moment the melancholy, drawling, mellow voice sounded on the air, “what mought yer work be on the mounting?” Mrs. Sanders cast a glance of indignant reproof at her neighbor, for the slightest manifestation of curiosity concerning another’s affairs is a flagrant breach of mountain etiquette. But the stranger answered quickly, as if he were prepared to meet the question and glad to have it asked. He had a sudden, sharply clipped method of enunciation, doubly marked in contrast with the mountaineer’s elongation of the vowels. His words were even more compact and staccato than their wont. “I’m prospecting,—prospecting for silver.” There was a momentary silence. Even Clem held the hammer poised for an instant, while the iron glowed on the anvil, and looked contemptuous comment from out his long, narrow, twinkling eyes. Mrs. Sanders observed, “Law, stranger, ain’t ye got no better sense ’n that? Thar _ain’t_ no silver in these mountings,—leastwise none the yearth’s a-goin’ ter spare. Jes’ enough ter fool fellers inter wastin’ thar time.” “An’ breakin’ the p’ints off’n thar good pickaxes,” added Clem, examining the implement with some interest; “fust-rate one, too,—oughter las’ ye a long time.” Jepson watched the stranger color with vexation; then recovering himself he casually observed, “I reckon may be I’ll come up with a little silver, after a while; indications are first-rate.” “Thar war a man,” Jepson began abruptly, “he lived hyarabouts five year ago an’ better—he b’lieved thar war silver hyar. He got put down in the mouth of a cave; his partner done it; he warn’t seen no more.” The stranger’s light brown eyes were all afire. He leaned forward, and held out one arm to Jepson. “Say!” he exclaimed, “do you know where that exact cave is?” Jepson turned an impassive look upon him. “Dunno the edzac’ spot, an’ don’t want ter know.” A patent disappointment was on the stranger’s face. Then he said, “I ain’t one of the kind that gets put down in caves; you needn’t be uneasy about me.” This was something in the nature of a flippant retort. He was evidently sorry for it immediately afterward, and there was a deprecatory expression on his face as he looked at Jepson, who, however, showed no sign of feeling of any sort as he inquired,— “Who did ye hev ter strike fur ye when ye kem ter the forge? Could ye do sech work by yerself?” He fixed his contemplative eyes on the stranger’s face. It was not an ingenuous face, but the circumstances were coercive, and it showed the heed, the fear, the vacillating hope, that animated him as he replied, “Yes, I had Jake Baintree to strike for me.” His lips were dry. He bit the nether one hard as he looked at Jepson, seeing in his eyes that he understood much,—much that was not said.