"What are you going to do with those things?" asked Winthrop. "Not burn
them?"

"Yep; every strap and tie-string," replied Overland, gathering together
the dead prospector's few effects. "Cause why? Well, Billy, if this
claim ain't filed on,--and I reckon it ain't,--why, we files on her as
the original locators. Nobody gets wise to anything and it saves the
chance of gettin' jumped. The bunch over there would make it interestin'
for us if they knowed we was goin' to file on it. They'd put up a fight
by law, and mebby one not by law. Sabe?"

"I think so. Going to burn that little--er--cradle arrangement, too?"

"Yep. Sorry, 'cause it's wood, and wood is wood here. That little rocker
is a cradle all right for rockin' them yella babies in and then out. The
hand that rocks that cradle hard enough rules the world, as the pote
says."

"So this is how gold is mined?" queried Winthrop, examining the crude
rocker and the few rusted tools.

"One way. Pan, cradle, or sluice for free gold. They's about four other
ways. This here's our way."

"Is it a rich claim?"

"Tolerable. I panned some up the branch. She runs about two dollars a
pan."

"Is that all?"

Overland smiled as he poked a smouldering corner of blanket into the
fire. "It is and it ain't. I reckon you could pan fifty pans a day.
That's a hundred dollars. Then I could do that much and the cookin',
too. That's another hundred. Two hundred dollars a day ain't bad wages
for two guys. It ought to keep us in grub and postage stamps and some
chewin'-gum once in a while."

"Two hundred a day!" And Winthrop whistled. "That doesn't seem much in
New York--on the street, but out here--right out of the ground. Why,
that's twelve hundred a week."

"Nope--not exactly. She's a rich one, and bein' so rich at the start
she'll peter out fast, I take it. I know these here kind. When we come
to the end of the canon we're at the end, that's all. Besides, she's so
rich we won't work six days every week. If she was half as good, mebby
we would. You never done much fancy pick-handle exercise, did you?"

"No, but I'm going to. This beats signing checks all to pieces."

"Never got cramps that way myself," grunted Overland. "But I have from
swingin' a pick. Your back'll be so blame stiff in about three days that
you'll wish you never seen a pan or a shovel. Then you'll get over the
fever and settle down sensible. Three of us could do a heap better than
two. I wish Collie was on