ht visions of sudden wealth, with gloomy thoughts
of disappointment,--when, suddenly, one brought up from the bed of the
stream something which he showed to his neighbor, then to another and
another, till a knot had gathered close around him, among which I found
myself. "What is it?" said I, disappointed at not seeing some great mass
of yellow gold.

"Don't you see? It is the fossil bone of the antelope," said Hermose;
"and when the floods have penetrated deep enough to unbury that, there 's
little doubt but we shall find gold enough."

"Who says enough?" cried a Mexican, as, emerging half-suffocated from
the water, he held aloft a pure piece of metal, nearly the size of a
small apple. "Of such fruit as this, one never can eat to indigestion!"

Halkett's whistle was soon heard, summoning the whole party to a council
on the bank; nor was the call long unanswered. In an instant the tanned
and swarthy figures were seen emerging, all dripping as they were,
from the stream, ascending the banks, and then throwing themselves in
attitudes of careless ease around the leader.

A short discussion ensued as to the locality upon which we had chanced,
some averring that it was an unexplored branch of the "Brazo," others
that it was one of those wayward courses into which mountain streams
are directed in seasons of unusual rain. The controversy was a warm, and
might soon have become an angry, one, had not Halkett put an end to all
altercation by saying, "It matters little how the place be called, or
what its latitude; you know the Mexican adage, 'It's always a native
land where there's gold.' That there is _some_ here, I have no doubt;
that there is _as much_ as will repay us for the halt, is another
question. My advice is, that we turn the river into another course,
leave the present channel dry and open, and then explore it thoroughly."

"Well spoken and true," said an old white-headed Gam-busino. "That is
the plan in the Far West; and they are the only fellows who go right
about their work."

The proposal was canvassed ably on all sides, and adopted with scarcely
anything like opposition; and then parties were "told off," to carry
into execution different portions of the labor. The section into which I
fell was that of the scouts, or explorers, who were to track the course
of the stream upwards, and search for a suitable spot at which to
commence operations. Hermose took the command of this party, and named
the "Lepero" as hi