He was mighty careful of that handful of pulp. He even dipped the mortar half full of water and sloshed it round and round, pouring it afterward into the pan to rinse out what gold may have stuck to the iron. His finger tips stirred the wet mass caressingly in the pan, muddying the water with the waste matter and pouring that out before he squatted on his heels at the edge of the stream. The result was gratifying in the extreme. Granting that the values were inclined to “jump” from quartz to porphyry and back again to the quartz, he would still lose none of the gold. He tried to be very conservative in estimating the probable value of the vein. He knew that, granting quartz and porphyry were in place from the surface downward, the values should increase with depth. It would take some digging, however, to determine that point. He was glad that Patricia knew nothing at all about it. If there were to be disappointment later on, he wanted to bear it alone. The joys of success he was perfectly willing to share; but not the sickening certitude of failure. He judged that the outcropping would run several hundred dollars to the ton, provided his panned samples had run a fair average of the vein. Material for air castles aplenty, that! Gary was afraid to believe it. He kept warning himself headily that the world would be peopled entirely with multimillionaires if every man’s dream of wealth came true and every man’s hopes were realized. “Ninety-nine per cent. of all mineral prospects are failures, Faith,” he told the spotted cat admonishingly. “We may get the raspberry yet on this proposition. I’m just waiting to see whether you’re a mascot or a jinx. I wish to heck you were a dog--I’d make you get busy and help dig!” CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE GARY FINDS THE VOICE--AND SOMETHING ELSE “Here’s where Handsome Gary raises a crop of callouses big as birds’ eggs in his mad pursuit of the fickle jade, Fortune. Come on, Faith, doggone you; I want you handy in case this gold thing is a fluke.” Gary had remembered that eating is considered necessary to the preservation of life and had delayed his further investigation of the outcropping until he had scrambled together some sort of a meal. He had bolted food as if he must hurry to catch a train that was already whistling a warning. Now he took down a canteen from behind the door, shouldered an old pick and shovel he had found in the shed, and started back up the bluff, stopping just long enough to fill the canteen at the creek as he passed. Loaded with canteen and tools, the climb was a heart-breaking one. The spotted cat led the way, going as straight as possible toward the tiny ridge behind which lay the outcropping. At the top, Gary decided that hereafter he would bring a lunch and spend the day up there, thus saving a valuable hour or two and a good deal of energy. Energy, he realized, would be needed in unlimited quantities if he did much development work alone.