. She held it up to the light.

"Gold! Oh, it _is_ gold!" she breathed.

In her hand lay a flat piece of yellow metal, smaller than the nugget
Lollie had found, but of the same character. She dropped to her knees
and with unsteady eagerness searched the bottom of the shallow pool for
other nuggets. Her trembling fingers encountered another one, and
still another! Then her luck seemingly came to an end.

The floor of the cave was strangely worn and filled with numerous
depressions into which the sand had settled. Jean finally dipped her
hands into the pool again and brought up perhaps a cupful. She ran
with it out to the beach and spread it out over a boulder. It was
black, showing tiny garnet-like particles, and here and there the sun
glinted on colors of gold!

She gathered the precious sand together again and stuffed it into the
pocket of her shirt, then swiftly set off toward the spot where she
could ascend the cliff.

Suddenly she remembered Gregg waiting for her at the top. She gasped,
dismayed by the knowledge that she had been totally unconscious of the
passage of time. Had she been gone an hour, two--or perhaps more?
What was he thinking? Perhaps he had tried to descend the cleft after
her and had fallen. Perhaps he was even now lying on the ledge
broken--dead.

Trying to shut out these unwelcome thoughts which took away all the joy
of her discovery, she hastily began her scrambling ascent of the steep
incline.

She had gone only a few feet when a shout halted her. Glancing up she
saw Gregg's relieved face above her.

"Thank heaven, your're safe, Jean!" he shouted, and with reckless
disregard of consequences he began to slide from the ledge toward her.
"I thought you'd fallen down the precipice, when I pulled on the rope
and found you not there!"

He landed on the beach at her feet. The tense look on his face faded
as his eyes devoured her.

"Lord, girl, what ever made you do such a thing! I rushed back toward
Skeleton Rib and met Kayak Bill coming this way. He let me down to the
ledge--for I couldn't get down any other way. He's up there now
waiting for us. Doggone you, anyway, you little rascal!"--he laughed
shakily, grasping her by the shoulders,--"you nearly scared me to
death!"

"But just see what I've found!" Jean opened her hand suddenly, and
with the three nuggets lying on it raised it toward his eyes. Then
without waiting for him to look at them, she thrust them into h