He answered with an inarticulate sound and did not move. Setting the stones on the table June drew the lamp toward her and lit it. The sudden flood of light seemed to rouse him. The chair creaked under his weight as he turned. His haggard eyes absently traveled over the lamp and the table near it and finally rested on the scattered fragments of rock. June had bent down to look at the wick which she was carefully adjusting, when she heard him give a suppressed exclamation, and his long brown hand entered the circle of lamplight and gathered up the stones. The wick satisfactorily arranged, she settled the shade and turned away. Her father drew his chair closer to the slanting torrent of light, and holding the stones directly under it, leaned forward, scrutinizing them as he turned them about. “Where did you get these?” he said without looking up. She told him, turning again toward the table, absently watching him. “Near the hillside? Just there where the piece of the hill came down?” he queried. “Yes, along the ground there. It’s all strewed with stones and earth and roots. There’s quite a wall of rock left bare and these bits of it are all over. New weeds are sprouting everywhere. I suppose that’s what took Bloss there.” He rose and going to a book-case took out a hand magnifying glass, and returning to the light, studied the fragments through it. Something in his face as he bent over them, struck through the lethargy of her dejection. “Father,” she said, drawing near, “what are they? What’s odd about them?” He lifted a face transfigured with excitement, and leaning forward, laid a trembling hand on hers. “It’s float,” he said, “undeniable float! If I’m not mistaken we’ve got the ledge at last.” END OF BOOK I BOOK II THE TOWN CHAPTER I DOWN IN THE CITY In the darkness of the early November night Colonel Parrish rattled across town in a hired carriage. It was half-past eight when he left his rooms (they were a fine suite on a sunny corner of Kearney Street), and now as he turned into Folsom Street he calculated that if the girls were ready they could be _en route_ by nine o’clock. In the autumn of 1870 the hours for evening entertainments were still early, and the particular entertainment to which the Colonel intended taking June and Rosamund Allen was one of the regular receptions which united the aristocracy of San Francisco at the house of Mrs. Ira Davenport.