n.

It was a gloomy gap or gorge--a sort of gigantic split in the earth--
lying between two parallel ranges of hills at a depth of several hundred
feet, shaped like a wedge, and so narrow below that there was barely
standing room. The gold all lay at the bottom, the slopes being too
steep to afford it a resting-place.

The first diggers who went there were said to have gathered vast
quantities of gold; and when Frank and Joe arrived there was quite
enough to repay hard work liberally. The miners did not work in
companies there. Indeed, the form of the chasm did not admit of
operations on a large scale being carried on at any one place. Most of
the men worked singly with the pan, and used large bowie-knives with
which they picked gold from the crevices of the rocks in the bed of the
stream, or scratched the gravelly soil from the roots of the overhanging
trees, which were usually rich in deposits. The gorge, about four miles
in extent, presented one continuous string of men in single file, all
eagerly picking up gold, and admitting that in this work they were
unusually successful.

But these poor fellows paid a heavy price for the precious metal in the
loss of health, the air being very bad, as no refreshing breezes could
reach them at the bottom of the gloomy defile.

The gold at that place was found both in very large and very small
grains, and was mixed with quantities of fine black sand, which the
miners blew off from it somewhat carelessly--most of them being "green
hands," and anxious to get at the gold as quickly as possible. This
carelessness on their part was somewhat cleverly taken advantage of by a
keen old fellow who chanced to enter the hut of a miner when Frank and
Joe were there. He had a bag on his back and a humorous twinkle in his
eye.

"Well, old foxey, what do _you_ want?" asked the owner of the hut, who
happened to be blowing off the sand from a heap of his gold at the time.

"Sure it's only a little sand I want," said the man, in a brogue which
betrayed his origin.

"Sand, Paddy, what for?"

"For emery, sure," said the man, with a very rueful look; "troth it's
myself as is gittin' too owld entirely for the diggin's. I was a broth
of a boy wance, but what wid dysentery and rheumatiz there's little or
nothin' o' me left, so I'm obleeged to contint myself wid gatherin' the
black sand, and sellin' it as a substitute for emery."

"Well, that is a queer dodge," said the miner, with a la