“Why,”— Rathburn sought to laugh as he began to explain,—“I’m young as yet. I have no large practice. If I should find ore in quantities like the specimens Baintree shows,”—despite his fears his eyes glowed,—“I should be a wealthy man, a millionaire!” He looked zestfully at the stolidly attentive mountaineers. They were alike incapable of sharing or understanding an enthusiasm such as this. A vague mental numbness, a sort of paralysis, began to steal over him, as he gradually realized how impossible it was to explain to them the greed for wealth, to move them to the love of riches. Yet he returned once more to the attempt:— “Why, it would be a godsend to all this country. It would be opened out. You would all get rich,—new people in droves would come in. You would all get rich!” The two mountaineers looked at one another. “Thar ain’t nobody so special pore hyar, though some is better off ’n others,” observed Jepson calmly. “You would all become educated and live high, like the ‘valley folks.’” “Laws-a-massy, I pray ter God I’ll never be like no valley folks!” protested Clem. “Meanes’ blacksmith, ceptin’ you-uns, I ever knowed kem from Colbury. Yes, sir; Grenup war his name.” “If you could strike paying ore on that little farm of yours,”—the stranger, turning to Jepson, still essayed the subject,—“you might sell it for thousands and thousands of dollars.” “I couldn’t sell it at all,” said Jepson definitely. “My folks is all buried thar.” Rathburn looked at him with an expression which precedes a burst of astonished laughter, caught himself in time, and said no more. “So this air what hev brung ye from home an’ frien’s, an’ kith an’ kin, ter hunt the mountings along of a murderer fur a silver mine,” said Jepson sternly. Rathburn quailed slightly, but sought to defend himself. “He is no murderer. The jury acquitted him.” “D’ ye happen ter know whar’s Sam’l Keale, the man he _didn’t_ kill, then?” “Of course I don’t,” said Rathburn, visibly nettled. “I can only take the verdict of the jury on such questions. I have no right to go behind that.” “Waal, I don’t need twelve men ter swear my brains inter my head,” declared Jepson. “_Whar’s Sam’l Keale?_” The words rang out with the sonorous intensity of his voice. A faint echo came from the crag above the forge. The moonlight stood motionless in the door. Without, the frosty woods glittered. “Whar’s Sam’l Keale?” he cried again. “Look-a-hyar, stranger.” He turned abruptly, and, with a lowered tone and a fiery eye, he laid his hand upon Rathburn’s arm, who shrank under his touch. “Ye axed me whar’s the mouth o’ the cave whar Baintree hid him. The critter never tole! An’ _I_ fund Sam’l Keale’s coat. An’ _I_ fund Sam’l Keale’s hat in a gorge they never sarched. God an’ the mountings only know the hidden place, an’ in thar mystery they will not reveal it.”