y ain't in it!"

He had the habit of soliloquy. His quick-changing facial expressions
might tell every thought and mood, but the tongue, perforce, ran hard
after, repeating, like a second Boswell.

The man lay down on the lip of the pool and drank long and deep of its
water. "Tastes good to me," he murmured, lifting his head and gazing
across the pool at the side-hill, while he wiped his mouth with the back
of his hand. The side-hill attracted his attention. Still lying on his
stomach, he studied the hill formation long and carefully. It was a
practised eye that traveled up the slope to the crumbling canyon-wall
and back and down again to the edge of the pool. He scrambled to his
feet and favored the side-hill with a second survey.

"Looks good to me," he concluded, picking up his pick and shovel and
gold-pan.

He crossed the stream below the pool, stepping agilely from stone to
stone. Where the side-hill touched the water he dug up a shovelful of
dirt and put it into the gold-pan. He squatted down, holding the pan in
his two hands, and partly immersing it in the stream. Then he imparted
to the pan a deft circular motion that sent the water sluicing in and
out through the dirt and gravel. The larger and the lighter particles
worked to the surface, and these, by a skilful dipping movement of the
pan, he spilled out and over the edge. Occasionally, to expedite
matters, he rested the pan and with his fingers raked out the large
pebbles and pieces of rock.

The contents of the pan diminished rapidly until only fine dirt and the
smallest bits of gravel remained. At this stage he began to work very
deliberately and carefully. It was fine washing, and he washed fine and
finer, with a keen scrutiny and delicate and fastidious touch. At last
the pan seemed empty of everything but water; but with a quick
semi-circular flirt that sent the water flying over the shallow rim into
the stream, he disclosed a layer of black sand on the bottom of the pan.
So thin was this layer that it was like a streak of paint. He examined
it closely. In the midst of it was a tiny golden speck. He dribbled a
little water in over the depressed edge of the pan. With a quick flirt
he sent the water sluicing across the bottom, turning the grains of
black sand over and over. A second tiny golden speck rewarded his
effort.

The washing had now become very fine--fine beyond all need of ordinary
placer-mining. He worked the black sand, a small portion a