and bars included, two of their helpers having come
provided with a pit-saw for cutting the bigger pine-trunks up into rough
boards, which were to be paid for out of the first gold winnings the
young men made.

Within another week they were out of debt, for, to their intense
delight, the claim promised well, the shaft they had commenced and the
banks of the little river yielding enough gold to set them working every
minute they could see.

But the reality did not come up to the dazzling dream in which they had
indulged, either in their case or that of the men they encountered.
There was the gold, and they won it from the soil; but it was only by
hard labour and in small quantities, which were stored up in a leathern
bag and placed in the bank--this being a hole formed under Abel's bed,
covered first with a few short pieces of plank, and then with dry earth.

The store increased as the time went on, but then it decreased when an
expedition had to be made to the settlement below to fetch more
provisions, the country around supplying them with plenty of fuel and
clear drinking water, but little else. Now and then there was the
rumour of a moose being seen, and a party would turn out and shoot it,
when there was feasting while it lasted; but these days were few.

Occasionally, too, either Dallas or Abel would stroll round with his gun
and get a few ptarmigan or willow grouse. On lucky days, too, a brace
of wild ducks would fall to their shot; but these excursions were rare,
for there was the one great thirst to satisfy--that for the gold; and
for the most part their existence during the brief summer was filled up
by hard toil, digging and cradling the gold-bearing gravel, while they
lived upon coarse bacon, beans, and ill-made cakey bread, tormented
horribly the while by the mosquitoes, which increased by myriads in the
sunny time.

Then came the days when the wretched little insect pests began to grow
rarer.

"We shall not be able to work as late as this much longer," said Dallas.

"No," replied Abel; "the days are getting horribly short, and the nights
terribly long. The dark winter will be upon us directly, and we seem to
get no farther."

"We may turn up trumps at any moment, old fellow," said Dallas cheerily.

"Yes, we may," said Abel gloomily.

"Don't take it like that," cried Dallas. "Here we are in the gold
region, and every day we find nuggets."

"Weighing two or three grains apiece."

"Exactly;