"Mine's Sinclair--George Sinclair. Well, Mr. Power, this is a fortunate meeting for both of us. You could never have reached the coast if you had not fallen in with just such an outfit as mine, because there are the devil's own breeds of Indians prowling about the last hundred and fifty miles of this river. Luckily, they dare not attack forty well-armed men; but, if looks count, they are willing for the job should an opportunity offer. We simply couldn't secure a guide; so decided to follow the river all the way, especially as it made transport fairly easy, except at the rapids. Now you, on the other hand, can tell us just what we want to know. Is the stream practicable much farther? What sort of country lies between this point and the snow-line?" "Yes, I can tell you those things, and a good deal more. What is the object of your expedition? Gold?" Sinclair laughed rather constrainedly. "I suppose that is the bedrock of the proposition," he said. "A bit of science, a bit of prospecting, a last glimpse at a country which is not marked on any map before I leave Patagonia for good--there you have the scheme in a nutshell." "Are you willing to turn back now?" "No. Why should we? We have come close on three hundred miles; another fifty, or less, should see us close to the frontier of Chile." "But you may sacrifice your lives." "No Indians can stop us--let me assure you of that, straight away." "Won't you let me mark your maps? I can supply every detail with sufficient accuracy." "Allow me to suggest that I am a business man, Mr. Power, and I mean this expedition to pay its way." "Ah! It is gold you really have in mind, then? But there is no gold." "Now you are talking nonsense. We have found it." "You have found alluvial gold. There are few fast-running streams in the world which do not contain gold in that form. The denudation of the Andes is so extraordinarily rapid that it would be a singular fact if this river did not yield float gold. But the metal is not, and cannot be, present in paying quantities. The primary sources of gold are reefs, either in quartz or in metalliferous veins of galena and the various pyrites. There are none of these in the lower Andean range, which is composed almost exclusively of crystalline schist with a slight blend of basalt. I am a mining engineer, Mr. Sinclair, and I know what I am talking about. If you could put the entire southern Cordillera through a mill, you would not secure a pennyweight of gold to the ton." Sinclair, of course, could not appreciate the remarkable way in which Power's tongue loosened in dealing with the familiar jargon of his profession. For the time he was far more concerned with what he deemed a real marvel. "A mining engineer, and your name is Power! Surely you can't be the Mr. Power who sailed from San Francisco to Valparaiso on the _Panama_ seven years ago?" he cried. "I am."