heerful _tao_ dug and delved
and carried without murmur. Then his diligence subsided and there
was a talk of "siesta." Somebody down at the sluice box shouted,
"Keep busy up there"; so, after one or two efforts to hurry up our
minions, I pointed the pistol carefully into the ground and fired. They
all jumped prodigiously and looked around. But I couldn't play the
part. I didn't look stern, and I simply sat there grinning fatuously
with the sense of my own valor, whereupon the _taos_ burst into a
shout of laughter and seemed to think a bond of friendship had been
established between us. They got lazier and lazier and smiled at
me more and more openly, and made what I judged to be remarks about
my personal appearance. So at another convenient opportunity I let
off another shot, which was a worse fizzle than the first. One old
fellow whose back was glistening with sweat turned and winked at me,
and another pretended to hunt for imaginary wounds.

Recognizing that I was an ignominious failure in the public works
department, I left it to manage itself and strolled over to add my
inexperience and ignorance to the sluicing agency.

Mrs. L---- had anticipated me and was already advising the willing
workers when I appeared. On the whole, they were pretty patient about
it all, and let us ask innumerable questions and make suggestions
(which, however, they never observed) _ad libitum_.

But however little I knew about gold-mining, I have shared one thing
with the real prospector--the eager, fascinated, breathless suspense
of staring into a fold of blanket for "color." When we really saw a
vagrant glint here and there, what delight!--delight easily quenched
by Mr. L----, however, who declared the yield too small for a paying
basis.

All that hot summer day, we dug and washed and watched, but with
unsatisfactory results. In the long-shadowed afternoon we packed
traps and set off down the valley. The egrets, camping by dozens on
feeding carabao, flapped away as we approached; we found our baroto
as we had left it, rising gently on the incoming tide in the shade
of a clump of bamboo.

The homeward journey, if not one of resignation to the will of
Providence, had its compensation in the loveliness of afternoon lights
and the cool, peaceful silence of the forests. We avoided the insidious
snares of kut-i-kut, but found our lagoon just bestowed for the night,
snug, glassy, with the dusk creeping on and on. Thence we passed
into th