Page:Allan Dunn--Dead Man's Gold.djvu/259

Rh open to the light of day. There was not much noise for the formation was loose and gave easily.

A little pile of débris rolled down from the gash the explosion had made and he walked over to it and carefully examined it in his horny palm.

A mass of glittering ruby crystals he set aside—garnets. Some duller pebbles of green he nodded at.

"Olivines, peridots, we're gettin' warm. But we've bin that warm afore an' got fooled. Now, then." He turned over and over some gray-looking objects and held them up against the light as if half unbelieving, his seamed face twisting gradually into a smile. Then he flung up his hat and whooped, jumping into the air with his find clutched tightly in his great hand, cracking his heels fairly before he lit.

"I'm the pizened son of a horned toad if I ain't got 'em!" he said. "Three of 'em! They ain't no bigger'n peas but they're di'monds, and I wouldn't swap 'em for all that's left of the mother-of-gold up thar in the butte. No, sirree."

He hefted them ecstatically.

"I'll show 'em," he said. "They's more thar in the gneiss but I'll leave them for later to prove I ain't salted my own di'mond mine. And I'll make 'em swaller their grins and their jokes, gol dern their ornery, pesky hides! I'll shove 'em down their throats."

He looked at them again.

"That 'ud be worse than pearls afore swine," he soliloquized. "I'll have the three of 'em cut, if they trim plumb down to chips, and I'll have 'em mounted