These graceful amenities concluded, "We have come all this way to visit my father," explained Miss Durant. "But it is far harder to find him than I should have expected, considering how well known he is. But I'm sure you can help me."
"Sure!" cried her hearers. "You betcher-boots on that!"
"And who may be your dad, lady?" inquired one. "Some crackerjack swell capitalist, I reckon."
At this, a gaunt, elderly man, who had kept in the background, leaning against a tree, and taking no part in the proceedings, shifted his position, uneasily.
"Well," said the young lady, with a conscious laugh, and the condescension of one who might boast descent from Santa Claus, "I suppose every one in these parts is familiar with the name of Matthew Durant."
"Matthew Durant!" The owner of the name did not claim it, and Scarlett and Barney, who, of the onlookers, alone could have identified him, recognizing the tragedy that was being enacted before them, also were silent. Meanwhile the prospectors, after scratching perplexed heads and ransacking memories in vain, denied all knowledge of the man.
"Maybe he warks his proposeetion as a company, leddy," suggested Sandy.
"Oh, dear, no!" Miss Durant flouted the notion. "My father is It!"
The man leaning against the Douglas spruce, his ragged cap drawn down over his eyes, groaned slightly, and turning away, looked toward the distant mountains, while overhead a bird trilled blithely.
"Let me see if I can describe him," his daughter was saying, in her sweet, assured young voice. "He is tall, erect----"
Durant's bowed shoulders bowed themselves still lower.
"He always dresses in the height of fashion. He's quite a dude, I tell him."
"Sure; judging by his darter!" cried Mops, gallantly. "Oh, I don't mean that!" he hastened to add, fearful of having been too free.
"Oh, but I don't mind your meaning it," laughed Evelyn. "But come, if you've never met my father surely you all know his mine--the wonderful Rainbow Mine."
There was a pregnant pause, and then the Bully spoke, slowly, impressively. "I never knowed an out-an'-out prospector that didn't own the wonderfullest mine goin'--only waiting fer a triflin' circumstance like capital ter come along from the East and open it up and put it on a payin' basis. Why, every man Jack of us owns a placer claim, or hydraulicking concession, a silver or a copper mountain or a glut of gold or summat that entitles him to be It. Why, this here little beggar," he jerked his head toward Bill, "he claims he owns an antimony proposition that if developed ull make J. Peerpunt Morgan take a back seat and Hetty Green look like thirty cents----"