The road now began to descend towards a winding stream, shrunken by drought and ditching, that glared dazzingly in the sunlight from its white bars of sand, or glistened in shining sheets and channels.  Along its banks, and even encroaching upon its bed, were scattered a few mud cabins, strange-looking wooden troughs and gutters, and here and there, glancing through the leaves, the white canvas of tents.  The stumps of felled trees and blackened spaces, as of recent fires, marked the stream on either side.  A sudden sense of disappointment overcame Clarence.  It looked vulgar, common, and worse than all—­familiar.  It was like the unlovely outskirts of a dozen other prosaic settlements he had seen in less romantic localities.  In that muddy red stream, pouring out of a wooden gutter, in which three or four bearded, slouching, half-naked figures were raking like chiffonniers, there was nothing to suggest the royal metal.  Yet he was so absorbed in gazing at the scene, and had walked so rapidly during the past few minutes, that he was startled, on turning a sharp corner of the road, to come abruptly upon an outlying dwelling.

It was a nondescript building, half canvas and half boards.  The interior seen through the open door was fitted up with side shelves, a counter carelessly piled with provisions, groceries, clothing, and hardware—­with no attempt at display or even ordinary selection—­and a table, on which stood a demijohn and three or four dirty glasses.  Two roughly dressed men, whose long, matted beards and hair left only their eyes and lips visible in the tangled hirsute wilderness below their slouched hats, were leaning against the opposite sides of the doorway, smoking.  Almost thrown against them in the rapid momentum of his descent, Clarence halted violently.

“Well, sonny, you needn’t capsize the shanty,” said the first man, without taking his pipe from his lips.

“If yer looking fur yer ma, she and yer Aunt Jane hev jest gone over to Parson Doolittle’s to take tea,” observed the second man lazily.  “She allowed that you’d wait.”

“I’m—­I’m—­going to—­to the mines,” explained Clarence, with some hesitation.  “I suppose this is the way.”

The two men took their pipes from their lips, looked at each other, completely wiped every vestige of expression from their faces with the back of their hands, turned their eyes into the interior of the cabin, and said, “Will yer come yer, now will yer?” Thus adjured, half a dozen men, also bearded and carrying pipes in their mouths, straggled out of the shanty, and, filing in front of it, squatted down, with their backs against the boards, and gazed comfortably at the boy.  Clarence began to feel uneasy.

“I’ll give,” said one, taking out his pipe and grimly eying Clarence, “a hundred dollars for him as he stands.”

“And seein’ as he’s got that bran-new rig-out o’ tools,” said another, “I’ll give a hundred and fifty—­and the drinks.  I’ve been,” he added apologetically, “wantin’ sunthin’ like this a long time.”