camp for the remaining pans and when he turned back he
saw Wabi leaping in a grotesque dance about the rock while Mukoki
stood on the edge of the pool, his dredge poised over it, silent and
grinning.

"What do you think of that?" cried the young Indian as Rod hurried to
him. "What do you think of that?"

He held out his hand, and in it there gleamed a third yellow nugget,
fully twice as large as the one discovered by Mukoki!

Rod fairly gasped. "The pool must be full of 'em!"

He half-filled his pan with the sand and gravel and ran knee-deep out
into the running stream. In his eagerness he splashed over a part of
his material with the wash, but he, excused himself by thinking that
this was his first pan, and that with the rest he would be more
careful. He began to notice now that all of the sand was not washing
out, and when he saw that it persisted in lying heavy and thick among
the pebbles his heart leaped into his mouth. One more dip, and he held
his pan to the light coming through the rift in the chasm. A thousand
tiny, glittering particles met his eyes! In the center of the pan
there gleamed dully a nugget of pure gold as big as a pea! At last
they had struck it rich, so rich that he trembled as he stared down
into the pan, and the cry that had welled up in his throat was choked
back by the swift, excited beating of his heart. In that moment's
glance down into his treasure-laden pan he saw all of his hopes
and all of his ambitions achieved. He was rich! In those gleaming
particles he saw freedom for his mother and himself. No longer a
bitter struggle for existence in the city, no more pinching and
striving and sacrifice that they might keep the little home in which
his father had died! When he turned toward Wabigoon his face was
filled with the ecstasy of those visions. He waded ashore and held his
pan under the other's eyes.

"Another nugget!" exclaimed Wabi excitedly.

"Yes. But it isn't the nugget. It's the--" He moved the pan until the
thousand little particles glittered and swam before the Indian's eyes.
"It's the dust. The sand is full of gold!"

His voice trembled, his face was white. From his crouching posture
Wabi looked up at him, and they spoke no more words.

Mukoki looked, and was silent. Then he went back to his dredging.
Little by little Rod washed down his pan. Half an hour later he showed
it again to Wabigoon. The pebbles were gone. What sand was left was
heavy with the gleaming particles