s ravaging the camp than keep cool
under a political argument. The thing that had happened now was
tremendous.

Staid miners, old experienced hands whose lives were wedded to their
quest of gold, whose interest in affairs was only taken from a
standpoint of their benefit, or otherwise, to the gold interest, were
caught in the feverish tide, and sent hurtling along with the rushing
flood. Men whose pulses usually only received a quickening from the
news of a fresh gold discovery now found themselves gaping with the
wonder of it all, and asking themselves how it was this thing had
happened, and if, indeed, it had happened, or were they dreaming.

The whole thing was monstrous, stupendous, and here, happening in
their midst, practically all Suffering Creek were out of it. But in
spite of this the fever of excitement raged, and no one was wholly
impervious to it. Opinions ran riot--opinions hastily conceived and
expressed without consideration, which is the way of people whose
nerves have been suddenly strung tight by a matter of absorbing
interest. Men who knew nothing of the nature of things which could
produce so astonishing a result found themselves dissecting causes and
possibilities which did not exist, and never could exist. They hastily
proceeded to lay down their own law upon the subject with hot
emphasis. They felt it necessary to do this to disguise their lack of
knowledge and restore their personal standing. For the latter, they
felt, had been sorely shaken by this sudden triumph of those whom they
had so lately ridiculed.

And what was this wonderful thing that had happened? What was it that
had set these hardened men crazy with excitement? It had come so
suddenly, so mysteriously. It had come during the hours of darkness,
when weary men hugged their blankets, and dreamed their dreams of the
craft which made up their whole world.

There was no noise, no epoch-making upheaval, no blatant trumpetings
to herald its coming. And the discovery was made by a single man on
his way to his work just after the great golden sun had risen.

He was trailing his way along the creek bank over the road which led
eventually to Spawn City. He was slouching along the wood-lined track
at that swinging, laborious gait of a heavy-booted man. And his way
lay across the oozy claim of Scipio.

But he never reached the claim. Long before he came in view of it he
found himself confronted with a sluggish stream progressing slowly
a