THE POCKET HUNTER 



occasionally upon pockets of more or less 

 value, otherwise he could not have kept up 

 his way of life ; but he had as much luck 

 in missing great ledges as in finding small 

 ones. He had been all over the Tonopah 

 country, and brought away float without 

 happening upon anything that gave pro- 

 mise of what that district was to become in 

 a few years. He claimed to have chipped 

 bits off the very outcrop of the California 

 Rand, without finding it worth while to 

 bring away, but none of these things put 

 him out of countenance. 



It was once in roving weather, when 

 we found him shifting pack on a steep 

 trail, that I observed certain of his be- 

 longings done up in green canvas bags, 

 the veritable " green bag " of English nov- 

 els. It seemed so incongruous a reminder 

 in this untenanted West that I dropped 

 78 



