Honey and Lin sat for a while, making few observations and far between, as their way is between whom flows a stream of old-time understanding.  Mutual whiskey and silence can express much friendship, and eloquently.

“What are yu’ doing at present?” Lin inquired.

“Prospectin’.”

Now prospecting means hunting gold, except to such spirits as the boy Lin.  To these it means finding gold.  So Lin McLean listened to the talk of his friend Honey Wiggin as the caboose trundled through the night.  He saw himself in a vision of the near future enter a bank and thump down a bag of gold-dust.  Then he saw the new, clean money the man would hand him in exchange, bills with round zeroes half covered by being folded over, and heavy, satisfactory gold pieces.  And then he saw the blue water that twinkles beneath Boston.  His fingers came again on his trunk check.  He had his ticket, too.  And as dawn now revealed the gray country to him, his eye fell casually upon a mile-post:  “Omaha, 876.”  He began to watch for them:—­877, 878.  But the trunk would really get to Omaha.

“What are yu’ laughin’ about?” asked Honey.

“Oh, the wheels.”

“Wheels?”

“Don’t yu’ hear ’em?” said Lin. “‘Variety,’ they keep a-sayin’.  ’Variety, variety.’”

“Huh!” said Honey, with scorn. “‘Ker-chunka-chunk’ ’s all I make it.”

“You’re no poet,” observed Mr. McLean.

As the train moved into Evanston in the sunlight, a gleam of dismay shot over Lin’s face, and he ducked his head out of sight of the window, but immediately raised it again.  Then he leaned out, waving his arm with a certain defiant vigor.  But the bishop on the platform failed to notice this performance, though it was done for his sole benefit, nor would Lin explain to the inquisitive Wiggin what the matter was.  Therefore, very naturally, Honey drew a conclusion for himself, looked quickly out of the window, and, being disappointed in what he expected to see remarked, sulkily, “Do yu’ figure I care what sort of a lookin’ girl is stuck on yu’ in Evanston?” And upon this young Lin laughed so loudly that his friend told him he had never seen a man get so foolish in three years.

By-and-by they were in Utah, and, in the company of Ogden friends, forgot prospecting.  Later they resumed freight trains and journeyed north In Idaho they said good-bye to the train hands in the caboose, and came to Little Camas, and so among the mountains near Feather Creek.  Here the berries were of several sorts, and growing riper each day, and the bears in the timber above knew this, and came down punctually with the season, making variety in the otherwise even life of the prospectors.  It was now August, and Lin sat on a wet hill making mud-pies for sixty days.  But the philosopher’s stone was not in the wash at that placer, nor did Lin gather gold-dust sufficient to cover the nail of his thumb.  Then they heard of an excitement at Obo, Nevada, and, hurrying to Obo, they made some more mud-pies.