None the less, he went in and found a clean corncob, filling it and giving it to Jeffard with a lighted match. The convalescent smoked tentatively for a few minutes, pausing longer between the whiffs until the fire and the tobacco-hunger died out together. After which he said what was in his mind. "Garvin, old man, you must begin work to-morrow," he began. "I can take care of myself now, and in a few days I hope I'll be able to take hold with you. You've lost too much time tinkering with me. I'm not worth it." "We'll find out about that when we get you on to the crank o' that win'lass," said Garvin sententiously. "Man's a good deal like a horse,--vallyble accordin' to location. They tell me that back in God's country, where I was raised, horses ain't worth their winter keep since the 'lectric cars come in; but out yere I've seen the time when a no-account, gristly little bronco, three parts wire and five parts pure cussedness, 'u'd a-been worth his weight in bullion." Jeffard picked the application out of the parable, and smiled. "You've got your bronco," he asserted. "When you're a little better acquainted with me you'll find your definition isn't far wrong. I used to think I was a halfway decent sort of fellow, Garvin, but I believe the last few months have flailed all the whole wheat out of me, leaving nothing but the musty chaff." "Oh, you be hanged!" laughed Garvin, with the emphasis heartening. "You're off your feed a few lines yet and your blood needs thickenin', that's all. I'll risk but what you'll assay up to grade in the mill-run." Silence came and sat between them for a little space, holding its own until Jeffard's eye lighted upon the débris-bearded tunnel-opening in the opposite hillside. "What is that?" he asked, pointing the query with an emaciated finger. "That's my old back number that I was tellin' you about on the way in," Garvin explained. "I thought I'd struck a lead o' tellurides up there, sure, but it petered out on me." "When was that?" Jeffard's recollection of all things connected with the fever-haunted jornada across the ranges was misty and fragmentary. "Two year ago this summer," rejoined the miner; and filling his pipe afresh he retold the story of his earlier visit to the valley. "It's a dead horse," he added, by way of conclusion. "I ought to knowed better. I'm old enough at the business to savvy tellurides when I see 'em, and that lead never did look right from the start." "Did you ever locate it?" asked Jeffard. "Not much! I never got any furder along that-a-way than to stake it off and make a map of it." Garvin found a pack of thumbed and grimy papers in his pocket and worked his way through it till he came upon the map. "You're an engineer," he said: "how's that for a jack-leg entry map?"