Neither had success as yet affected their boyish simplicity and the
frankness of old frontier habits; they played with their new-found
riches with the naive delight of children, and rehearsed their glowing
future with the importance and triviality of school-boys.

"I've bin kalklatin'," said Dick Mattingly, leaning on his long-handled
shovel with lazy gravity, "that when I go to Rome this winter, I'll get
one o' them marble sharps to chisel me a statoo o' some kind to set up
on the spot where we made our big strike. Suthin' to remember it by, you
know."

"What kind o' statoo--Washington or Webster?" asked one of the Kearney
brothers, without looking up from his work.

"No--I reckon one o' them fancy groups--one o' them Latin goddesses that
Fairfax is always gassin' about, sorter leadin', directin' and bossin'
us where to dig."

"You'd make a healthy-lookin' figger in a group," responded Kearney,
critically regarding an enormous patch in Mattingly's trousers. "Why
don't you have a fountain instead?"

"Where'll you get the water?" demanded the first speaker, in return.
"You know there ain't enough in the North Fork to do a week's washing
for the camp--to say nothin' of its color."

"Leave that to me," said Kearney, with self-possession. "When I've built
that there reservoir on Devil's Spur, and bring the water over the ridge
from Union Ditch, there'll be enough to spare for that."