o
fortune ain't in your line, an' it's about time you know it. Get wise,
Bill; get wise. Slow an' certain's the only hand you can play; so go to
it, an' keep to it, too."

As the cross-cuts decreased, showing that the sides of the "V" were
converging, the depth of the "V" increased. The gold-trace was dipping
into the hill. It was only at thirty inches beneath the surface that he
could get colors in his pan. The dirt he found at twenty-five inches
from the surface, and at thirty-five inches yielded barren pans. At the
base of the "V," by the water's edge, he had found the gold colors at
the grass roots. The higher he went up the hill, the deeper the gold
dipped. To dig a hole three feet deep in order to get one test-pan was a
task of no mean magnitude; while between the man and the apex intervened
an untold number of such holes to be dug. "An' there's no tellin' how
much deeper it'll pitch," he sighed, in a moment's pause, while his
fingers soothed his aching back.

Feverish with desire, with aching back and stiffening muscles, with pick
and shovel gouging and mauling the soft brown earth, the man toiled up
the hill. Before him was the smooth slope, spangled with flowers and
made sweet with their breath. Behind him was devastation. It looked like
some terrible eruption breaking out on the smooth skin of the hill. His
slow progress was like that of a slug, befouling beauty with a monstrous
trail.

Though the dipping gold-trace increased the man's work, he found
consolation in the increasing richness of the pans. Twenty cents, thirty
cents, fifty cents, sixty cents, were the values of the gold found in
the pans, and at nightfall he washed his banner pan, which gave him a
dollar's worth of gold-dust from a shovelful of dirt.

"I'll just bet it's my luck to have some inquisitive one come buttin' in
here on my pasture," he mumbled sleepily that night as he pulled the
blankets up to his chin.

Suddenly he sat upright. "Bill!" he called sharply. "Now, listen to me,
Bill; d'ye hear! It's up to you, to-morrow mornin', to mosey round an'
see what you can see. Understand? To-morrow morning, an' don't you
forget it!"

He yawned and glanced across at his side-hill. "Good night, Mr. Pocket,"
he called.

In the morning he stole a march on the sun, for he had finished
breakfast when its first rays caught him, and he was climbing the wall
of the canyon where it crumbled away and gave footing. From the outlook
at the top he fou