The eye of Dad kindled.
"I want ter know how ye knew I was making diamonds," he asked, with a certain bashful pettishness not unlike his daughter's.
"Heard it in 'Frisco," replied Lance, with glib mendacity, glancing at the girl.
"I reckon they're gettin' sort of skeert down there--them jewelers," chuckled Dad, "yet it's in nater that their figgers will have to come down.

It's only a question of the price of charcoal.

I suppose they didn't tell you how I made the discovery ?" Lance would have stopped the old man's narrative by saying that he knew the story, but he wished to see how far Flip lent herself to her father's delusion.
"Ye see, one night about two years ago I had a pit o' charcoal burning out there, and tho' it had been a-smouldering and a-smoking and a-blazing for nigh unto a month, somehow it didn't charcoal worth a cent.

And yet, dog my skin, but the heat o' that er pit was suthin hidyus and frightful; ye couldn't stand within a hundred yards of it, and they could feel it on the stage road three miles over yon, t'other side the mountain.

There was nights when me and Flip had to take our blankets up the ravine and camp out all night, and the back of this yer hut shriveled up like that bacon.