The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-06-21

1 AOANCPS- w I'LL d SIlldli tldiIlIlGA OAOEA'
away the great masses of clotted Stag
A small bright metal button remained
This is the lead, the silver and the
| gold" explained Durand. and IT ::
here that we exercise care. All else /:
as child's play"
He flattened the button on an anvil
and cut it into several pieces. These
| he placed in the little porous vessels
made of compressed bone ash, called
cupels, which had been slowly heating
in the furnace. The surface of the
! lead filmed over In a moment it turn
ed bright. Then fumes began to rise.
| Durands attention became fixed. His
hand was constantly at the furnace
valve. admitting or excluding more air
according as he desired the temperature
to rise or fall.
1T is this which is difficult" he ex-
planned from the corner of his mouth
IF the heat is too great, some pre-
cious metal escapes with the lead. II
the heat is too little. the lead is not
all driven away"
Lafond was attentive enough to this
| He desired above all the practica
knowledge.
Observe the fumes" said Durand;
| that is the true test. When they Whirl
above the molten metal, then is every
thing well. When the fumes do CREEP
!
the heat is not sufficient If, on the
other hand. they do rise straight up
! ward, then it is necessary to reduce
the heat at once"
After a time the remaining impuri-
| ties, under Durand's skillful manipu-
| lation, were absorbed by the cupels.
The little vessels were drawn from the
furnace and placed to one side to cool
| A small yellow button was finally de-
That, then, is the gold" cried La
fond.
'And silver" corrected Durand. gent
| ly. He weighed the button with great
care. Then with nitric acid he ate
! out the silver. The result was weighed.
The assay was finished. By compar-
ing the weights of the original ore, the
cupelled button and the final product,
statistics were obtained.
The men drew a long sigh of relief
now that the task was quite finished.
ut is hard work." observed Durand.
ut is very good of you to take so
much trouble for me- replied Latond,
| for the sake of politeness."
II like YOU" explained the old man,
| simply, because you speak French and
because there is something in your
face that shows that you, too. have
] been wronged, and that perhaps, like
myself, in your youth you have been
| light-hearted and were loved by maid
and man with the love that is given the
| reckless-and foolish" he concluded,
with a little bitterness.
Inexplicably this appealed to Lafond,
so that he almost wept with the sheer
| joy of it.
1T is true, and you are my brother
to have seen it thus" he cried, lapsing
unconsciously into the idiom of the
Sioux.
They washed their hands and went
into the other cabin. where they sat
in the chairs made of barrels, and La
fond talked, talked, talked, until the
dusk of twilight descended upon them
and stole away even, the white butter
fly cases.
He spoke swiftly and animatedly and
, with much gesticulation. Men will tell
you to-day that his speech was DELHI
crate. scant, reserved.
1t was all of his youth. He de-
scribed with abandon and fire the tall
pines. the still darkling river running
beneath the cedars and birches; the
cabins, antler crowned and the little
gardens of their dooryard. He related
tenderly the life of those old days-the
/ dance in winter to the music of sim
gle fiddle, and the snow shoe journey
homeward under the white stars, with
slap from mittened hand at the
end of it; the wild exhilarating dan
gers of log running in the spring; the
canoe journey, the camping, the fish
ing, through all that watered north
country of the fir-girdled lakes and
trout haunted streams in summer; the
calling of the moose under the round
harvest moon, the stalking of the
white-taied deer, the corn frolics
whereat were more of the full-blos-
! somed low-voiced chatterers not I'M
willing to be Wooed under that same
great moon, through whose shower of
silver light the bull moose called to his
mate. also not unwilling. These things
the half-breed told in that marvellous
| musical voice which, with his express
sive eyes, was now his greatest charm.
He told also more personally of his own
youth. There had been a time when
Michail Lafond had been straight and
| clear-eyed and handsome. At the
! dances and the corn frolicS the fairest
| of the maidens was not so very coy to
him. In the log running Michail Lafond
was the man always called up on to
skim over the bobbing logs under the
very imminence of the jam; his was
| the peavy that moved the bit of tim
| Der which locked the whole his the
merry laugh as he had lightly escaped
the plunging foaming death. On and
| still on the voice rolled, until sudden
| ly the room was silent and dark, and
| the man in the corner had arisen alb
ruptly and gone out and the white
| haired naturalist was left alone, one
| hand on each arm of his chair, looking
straight before him, beyond the cabin
walls, beyond the years.
Next day Lafond came again, and
the next and the next. The assays
| oil finished and tahi1lated Gti1
| he continued to come, as usual, each
afternoon, for an hour or so at least.
| Durand did not smoke himself, but
| he kept a pipe and a package of to-
| bacco always on the table for his Wis
| itor. They clasped each others hands
with fervor when they met ana parted
! They called each other mon vieux.
And, what is more, they could sit quite
silent for hours without embarrassing
each other in the least.
The men in the camp noticed this in
| timacy and commented on it.
"Clar case of millennium" said Bill
! Martin Lion an tn lamb. Amt nc
other way to explain it, fer what good
Mike ever gets out of that nutty old
Bugchaser is beyond mel"
Not that any one cared. Everybody
was at this moment specializing earn
estly on all possible results. good. bad
or indifferent, of the pending visit OF
| the Chicago tenderfeet. Although
only to do with the Great Snake, il
was we'll understood that it fixed also
| the value of every other piece of pBop.
| erty within a circumference of fifty
miles. Little did those three tenderfee-
| realize. as they dutifully changed cars
/ at Grand Island. Edgemont, and other
way stations, how much their holiday