a good one, the gravel on top was stripped off
and thrown aside and the 'pay streak' worked with the rocker."

"What is that?" asked Ted, who was all ears, while Kalitan was taking in
everything with his sharp black eyes.

"That arrangement that looks like a square pan on a saw-buck is the
rocker. The rockers usually have copper bottoms, and there is a great
demand for sheet copper at Nome, but often there is not enough of it, and
the miners have been known to cover them with silver coins. That man you
are watching has silver dollars in his, about fifty, I should say. It
seems extravagant, doesn't it, but he'll take out many times that amount
if he has good luck."

The man, who had glanced up at them, smiled at that and said:

"And, if I don't have luck, I'm broke, anyhow, so fifty or sixty plunks
won't make much difference. You going to be a miner, youngster?"

"Not this trip," said Ted, with a smile. "Say, I'd like to know how you
get the gold out with that."

"At first we used to put a blanket in the rocker, and wash the pay dirt
on that. Our prospect hole has water in it, and we can use it over and
over. Some of the holes are dry, and there the men have to pack their pay
dirt down to the shore and use surf water for washing. Most of our gold
is so fine that the blanket didn't stop it, so now we use 'quick.' I
reckon you'd call it mercury, but we call it quick. You see, it saves
time, and work-time up here is so short, on account of winter setting in
so early, that we have to save up our spare minutes and not waste 'em on
long words."

Ted grinned cheerfully and asked: "What do you do with the quick?"

"We paint it over the bottom of the rocker, and it acts like a charm and
catches every speck of gold that comes its way as the dirt is washed over
it. The quick and the gold make a sort of amalgam."

"But how do you get at the gold after it amalgams, or whatever you call
it?" asked Ted.

"Sure we fry it in the frying-pan, and it's elegant pancakes it makes,"
said the man. "See here," and he pulled from his pocket several flat
masses that looked like pieces of yellow sponge. "This is pure gold. All
the quick has gone off, and this is the real stuff, just as good as
money. An ounce will buy sixteen dollars' worth of anything in Nome."

"It looks mighty pretty," said Ted. "Seems to me it's redder than any
gold I ever saw."

"It is," said his father. "Nome beach gold is redder and brighter than
any other Alas