CHAPTER XI.

Suddenly—­was the glistening yellow mineral taking fire?  It began to give off sulphurous fumes.  And drifting away with them were all Birt’s golden visions and Nate’s ill-gotten wealth—­ending in smoke!

The sulphurous odor grew stronger.  Even Towse stopped short, and gazed at the shovel with a reprehensive sniff.

“Ker-shoo!” he sneezed.

And commenting thus, he turned abruptly and went hastily out, with a startled look and a downcast tail.

His sneeze seemed to break the spell of silence that had fallen on the little group.

“It be mighty nigh bodaciously changed ter cinders!” exclaimed Birt, staring in amaze at the lustreless contents of the shovel from which every suggestion of golden glimmer had faded.  “What do it be, ef ’tain’t gold?”

“Iron pyrites,” said the professor. “‘Fools’ gold,’ it is often called.”

He explained to Birt that in certain formations, however, gold is associated with iron pyrites, and when the mineral is properly roasted, this process serving to expel the sulphur, the fine particles of gold are found held in the resulting oxide of iron.  But the variety of the mineral discovered down the ravine he said was valueless, unless occurring in vast quantities, when it is sometimes utilized in the production of sulphur.

“I wonder,” Birt broke out suddenly, “if the assayer won’t find no gold in them samples ez Nate sent him.”

The professor laughed.  “The assayer will need the ’philosopher’s stone’ to find gold in any samples from this locality.”

“Ye knowed then, all the time, ez this stuff warn’t gold?” asked Birt.

“All the time,” rejoined the elder.

“An’ Nate hev got the steepest, rockiest spot in the kentry ter pay taxes on,” resumed Birt, reflectively.  “An’ he hev shelled out a power o’ money ter the surveyor, an’ sech, a’ready.  I reckon he’ll be mightily outed when he finds out ez the min’ral ain’t gold.”

Birt stopped short in renewed anxiety.

That missing grant!  Somehow he felt sure that Nate, balked of the great gains he had promised himself, would wreak his disappointment wherever he might; and since the land was of so little value, he would not continue to deny himself his revenge for fear that an investigation into the priority of the mineral’s discovery might invalidate the entry.  Once more Birt was tortured by the terror of arrest—­he might yet suffer a prosecution from malignity, which had hitherto been withheld from policy.  If only the mystery of the lost grant could be solved!

The conversation of the elders had returned to the subject of the investigations around the “lick” and the terms for Birt’s services.  As so much time had been consumed with the pyrites, the professor concluded with some vexation that they could hardly arrange all the preliminaries and get to work this afternoon.