They were round and
heavy; a few bore the red streaks of oxidized iron; some appeared to be
veritable lumps of ore, though the action of water had made them
"smooth stones out of the brook." He showed one to Tollemache, who
seemed to possess a good deal of out-of-the-way knowledge, and the
latter instantly pronounced the specimen to be almost pure copper
veined with silver.
"Queer thing!" he commented. "You find the worst rotters in any
country squatted over the richest minerals."
At the time, Courtenay gave slight heed to this bit of crude
philosophy. It was not until he called to mind the Kaffir, the
Australian black, the Alaskan Indian, the primeval nomads of
California, Colorado, and Northern Siberia, that he saw how
extraordinarily true was his friend's dictum. Then he looked on the
shores of Good Hope Inlet with a new interest. Would a city ever
spring up in that desolate land, a city builded of those pebbles which
had clattered against the solid walls of the _Kansas_? Who could tell?
The long romance of gold contained stranger chapters.
But the captain had more important things with which to bother his
brains than the fanciful laying out of corner lots on the comparatively
level bluff overlooking Otter Creek.
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