"Straight cyanidin' proposition, averagin' $60 to the ton with a tunnel cross-cuttin' the ore-shoot at forty feet that samples $80 where she begins to widen--" Lack of breath prevented Porcupine Jim from saying that the hanging wall was of schist and the foot wall of granite and he would take $65,000 for it, if he could have 10 per cent. in cash. The specimen which Yankee Sam waved in the face of Capital's representative almost grazed his nose. "This here rock is from the greatest low-grade proposition in Americy! Porphery dike with a million tons in sight and runnin' $10 easy to the ton and $40,000 buys it on easy terms. Ten thousand dollars down and reg'lar payments every six months, takin' a mortgage--" "I'm a s-showin' y-you the best f-free-millin' proposition outside of C-California," Judge George Petty stammered in his eagerness. "That there mine'll m-make ten m-men rich. They's stringers in that there ledge that'll run $5,000--$10,000 to the ton. I t-tell you, sir, the 'B-Bouncin' B-Bess' ain't no m-mine--she's a _b-bonanza_! And, when you git down to the secondary enrichment you'll take it out in c-c-chunks!" Inwardly, Lannigan was cursing himself bitterly that he had eaten "The Gold-Dust Twins," but, searching through his pockets, fortunately, he found a sample from the "Prince o' Peace." He handed it to Mr. Dill, together with a magnifying glass. "Take a look at this, will you?" He indicated a minute speck with his fingernail. Mr. Dill lost the speck and was some time in finding it and, while he searched, the stove pipe separated at the joint, calling attention to the fact that the sufferer upstairs was nervous. Pa Snow's voice came so distinctly down the stove-pipe hole that there was reason to believe he was on his hands and knees. "Befoah you should do anything definite, we-all should like if you would look ovah 'The Bay Hoss.' It's makin' a fine showin', and 'The Under Dawg' is on the market, too, suh." In the excitement Uncle Bill sat puffing calmly on his pipe. Mr. Dill with a gesture brushed aside the waving arms and eager hands: "And haven't you anything to sell?" he asked him curiously. "Don't you mine?" "Very little," Uncle Bill drawled tranquilly: "I dudes." "You what?" "I keeps an 'ad' in the sportin' journals, and guides." "Oh, yes, hunters--eastern sportsmen--" Mr. Dill nodded. "But I thought I recognized an old-time prospector in you." "They's no better in the hull West," Yankee Sam declared generously, while Uncle Bill murmured that there was surer money in dudes. "Show Dill that rar' mineral, Uncle Bill." To Dill in an aside: "He's got a mountain of it and it's somethin' good." Uncle Bill made no move. "I aims to hold it for the boom." "And what's your honest opinion of the country, Mr. Griswold?" Dill asked conciliatingly. "What do you think well find when we reach the secondary enrichment?"