Satisfied by what he saw there, after he had done this, he rose with a new expression on his face—­so crafty, so exultant, and, withal, so evil, that Madge involuntarily shrank back to better screening in her leafy hiding place.

The old man, with sweeping movements of his heavily booted feet, swept the thin earth he had scraped from the rock’s surface back into its place, thrust the fragments deep into his pocket, and started hurriedly away, plainly greatly pleased, along the trail which led into the valley.  She watched him with a beating heart, much puzzled.

What could it be that he had found, there, on her land?  Visions of gold mines and of diamonds, rose within her mind, crude, unformed, childish, based on the imperfect knowledge she had gained of such things from the story-tellers of the mountains.  As mountain people go she was, already, a rich woman, but now dreams of mightier wealth swept through her brain tumultuously.  Ah, she would buy happiness for all her friends when she had, later on, unearthed the secret treasures of her backwoods clearing!  Maybe she would, sometime, have a real silk dress!

She hurried forward in a stooping run to make examination of the place, as soon as the old man had vanished down the mountain side, to see (she thoroughly expected it) the glitter of bright gems or yellow gold beneath the sand which he had with such care spread back upon the little scar which he had made there in the earth.  With trembling fingers she pushed back the yellow earth, and found—­nothing but black rock, uncouth, and unattractive.

She sat there on the ground in her damp skirts, too disappointed, for a moment, to make an exclamation.  In many ways the girl, although well past her sixteenth year, was but a child.  The reaction from the mighty dreams of fortune she had built almost unnerved her.

It was her native humor which now saved her.  Instead of weeping she burst into sudden laughter.

“Dellaw!” said she, aloud.  “Ain’t I a fool?  The man was just a crazy!”

For some time she sat there in the rocky clearing amidst the litter of pine-tops and small undergrowth, contemplating her own silliness with keen amusement.

“Why, he had me that stirred up,” said she, “that I reckoned I was rich a’ready!”

But she put the joke aside, to be told upon herself when the first chance came.  Her long hiding in the thicket while she watched the queer proceedings of the stranger had chilled her through and through.

Close to the black rock which had so excited him and which she had uncovered after he had gone, a little forked stick stood upright, and in its fork, with one end slanted to the ground, a twig of green witch-hazel still reposed.  Beneath the twig a tiny spiral of arizing smoke showed that here, with these primitive appliances, the treasure seeker had prepared his dinner, later carefully covering his fire.