It was in the fall of the year 1851, and so in the early days of California.

Seth was speaking as Joe entered.

“Is there gold in California?” repeated Seth, apparently in answer to a question.  “I should say there was.  Why, it’s chock full of it.  People haven’t begun to find out the richness of the country.  It’s the place for a poor man to go if he wants to become rich.  What’s the prospects here?  I ask any one of you.  A man may go working and plodding from one year’s end to another and not have ten dollars at the end of it.  There’s some here that know that I speak the truth.”

“How much better can a man do in California?” asked Daniel Tompkins.

“Well, Dan,” said Seth, “it depends on the kind of man he is.  If he’s a man like you, that spends his money for rum as fast as he gets it, I should say it’s just as well to stay here.  But if he’s willing to work hard, and to put by half he makes, he’s sure to do well, and he may get rich.  Why, I knew a man that landed in California the same day that I did, went up to the mines, struck a vein, and—­well, how much do you think that man is worth to-day?”

“A thousand dollars?” suggested Dan Tompkins.

“Why, I’m worth more than that myself, and I wasn’t lucky, and had the rheumatism for four months.  You’ll have to go higher.”

“Two thousand?” guessed Sam Stone.

“We don’t make much account of two thousand dollars in the mines, Sam,” said Seth.

“It’s of some account here,” said Sam.  “I’ve been workin’ ten years, and I ain’t saved up a third of it.”

“I don’t doubt it,” said Seth; “and it ain’t your fault, either.  Money’s scarce round here, and farmin’ don’t pay.  You know what I was workin’ at before I went out—­in a shoe shop.  I just about made a poor livin’, and that was all.  I didn’t have money enough to pay my passage out, but I managed to borrow it.  Well, it’s paid now, and I’ve got something left.”

“You haven’t told us yet how much the man made that you was talkin’ about,” said Tom Sutter.  “It couldn’t be five thousand dollars, now, could it?”

“I should say it could,” said Seth.

“Was it any more?” inquired Dan Tompkins.

“Well, boys, I s’pose I may as well tell you, and you may b’lieve it or not, just as you like.  That man is worth twenty thousand dollars to-day.”

There was a chorus of admiring ejaculations.

“Twenty thousand dollars!  Did you ever hear the like?”

“Mind, boys, I don’t say it’s common to make so much money in so short a time.  There isn’t one in ten does it, but some make even more.  What I do say is, that a feller that’s industrious, and willin’ to work, an’ rough it, and save what he makes, is sure to do well, if he keeps well.  That’s all a man has a right to expect, or to hope for.”

“To be sure it is.”

“What made you come home, Seth, if you were gettin’ on so well?” inquired one.