Sile looked with a face more deeply flushed than even his father's.
"Why, it's exactly like Yellow Pine's old specimens, so far as I can see; no more gold in these than in them."
"That's just the point, Sile. He brought me fair specimens. There isn't any humbug or delusion about it. It's all right, Pine, so far as I can see. As for safety, the mouth of this notch could be made a perfect fort of, if we had to quit mining and go to fighting."
"Guess we won't ever have to do that. Game's plenty, and so is fish, and we won't have to use up our provisions. Chance for you, Sile. You can keep the camp-fires going. Fetch in some fish, first thing in the morning, and then go for all the fresh meat there is. What we don't eat we can cure and put away."
"I'll do the hunting!" shouted Sile. "What are the men all chopping for? There's plenty of dry dead wood."
"I'd call it!" exclaimed Yellow Pine. "If they ain't struck with the mine-fever now. Jest look at 'em, jedge."
"Pine," shouted one of the men from a little distance, "this 'ere shelf by the spring's the spot you marked for the shelter, isn't it?"
"All right, boys," he responded. "Thirty feet by twelve, and an ell for cooking and an ell for stowage."
"Nine feet high to the front, and slope to seven and a half, and lay on the mud as you go?"
"I declare," said the judge; "they haven't eaten a mouthful and they've begun building."
"They're old hands, and the sight of that show of pay-rock has kind o' stirred 'em up. It's all correct, though, jedge. We can look for storms every now and then, and the shelter won't be up any too soon if one of them busters should happen to be on its way."
There is nothing else like enthusiasm. That band of bearded miners went into their work like a crowd of boys building a snow fort. Ha-ha-pah-no and Na-tee-kah took full possession of the camp-fires and cooked for dear life. Judge Parks and Yellow Pine finished their inspection of the hole in the rock and of the ore which had been dug out of it, and then they went to help Sile and Two Arrows care for the horses and mules.
"We won't unpack much till the house is up," said the judge.
"You're satisfied with the outcrop, are ye?" asked Pine, a little proudly.