Then,--Bill's lips would smile in spite of the correct position of the mouth, when he reached that point in his dream--then, after a little talk, and the whole family gathering around to exclaim over the beautiful instrument (which really was beautiful, in cold reality), why, then Bill would suggest something, and Doris would strike a preliminary chord or two, and Bill would follow her voice softly with his music while she sang: /P "Just a song at twi-light, When the lights ar-re low, A-and the flick'ring sha-adows, Sof-ftly come and go-o--" P/ Bill's lips would soften, his eyes would grow luminous and very, very tender. He would forget to play and would stare up into the gemmed purple, and wonder, and dream, and hope. After a long while, when Luella had tucked her head under her wing, Bill would lay the saxophone carefully in its velvet nest and begin absently to unlace his boots. Doris Hunter--the gold mine he meant to find--had indeed almost found--"Love's Old Sweet Song"--the skill to play while Doris sang; these things mingled indissolubly in his soul while he slept and dreamed, shuttled through his waking mind while he worked. So this was the real Bill Dale, whom men called Hopeful Bill with their mouths tipped down. CHAPTER THREE LUELLA ANNOUNCES In the beginning of mining booms, accident and freaks of chance are popularly supposed to play the leading rôle. A mule, for instance, played fairy godmother when it let fly its heels and kicked a nub off a ledge of fabulous richness in gold. A man threw a rock at a jack rabbit, and then realized that the rock was heavier than it should be; sought its mates and found a mine. Or a man takes an inadvertent slide down a ledge and lands upon a bonanza. These things do happen occasionally; and, being ready-made romance, they are seized upon avidly by the teller of tales. So the public comes to believe that chance, and chance alone, discovers the precious minerals and leads men like blind children to the spot; a sort of "Shut-your-eyes-and-open-your-mouth" game played by Fate. In reality, more mines are found by careful prospecting than are ever given to the world by sheer accident. More and more is science turning prospector, and men go carefully, reading geologic formations, following volcanic breaks and mineral outcroppings. Your desert prospector may eat with his knife and forget to take off his hat in the house, but he can talk you blind on intrusions and sedimentary deposits and the dips, angles and faults of certain mineral formations he knows. Chlorides, "bromides," sulphides,--these things are the shop talk of desert and mountains. Men speak of one another with praise or disparagement, as "knowing rock" or as not knowing rock. And the man who does not know rock is the man who goes about praying for a mule to kick the dirt off a gold outcropping for him.