One man in town had solemnly assured him that all these hills were "lousy with gold"; and while the professor did not like the phrase, he did like the heartening assurance it bore to his wistful heart, and he began examining his twenty-acre claim with a new interest.

Surely the early-day miners had not gleaned all the gold! Why, nearly every time he talked with any of the natives he heard of fresh strikes.

Old prospectors like Murphy and Mike were always coming in town for supplies and then hurrying back to far canyons where they fully expected to become rich.
The professor got a book on mineralogy and read it faithfully.

Certain points which he was not sure that he understood he memorized and meant to ask Murphy, who had a memory like a trap and had mined from Mexico to Alaska and from Montana to the sea.
Murphy poised his shovel, since he happened to be working, twinkled his eyes at the professor through thick, silver-rimmed glasses, and demanded: "For why do ye be readin' a buke about it?
For why don't ye get down wit yer pick, man, and _see_ what's in the ground?
My gorry, I been minin' now for forty-wan year, ever sence I come from the auld country, an' _I_ never read no buke t' see what I had in me claim.

I got down inty the ground, an' I seen for meself what I got there--an' whin I found out, my gorry, I didn't need no _buke_ t' tell me was she wort' the powder I'd put inty 'er.