ot square space that was whole. But as
quickly as possible the best bit was spread in the middle of the table.
Dillon, in the breathless silence having slowly untied the thongs, held
his sack aslant between the two lights, and poured out a stream-nuggets
and coarse bright gold.

The crowd about the table drew audible breath. Nobody actually spoke at
first, except O'Flynn, who said reverently: "Be--the Siven! Howly
Pipers!--that danced at me--gran'-mother's weddin'--when the
divvle--called the chune!" Even the swimming wicks flared up, and
seemed to reach out, each a hungry tongue of flame to touch and taste
the glittering heap, before they went into the dark. Low exclamations,
hands thrust out to feel, and drawn back in a sort of superstitious
awe.

Here it was, this wonderful stuff they'd come for! Each one knew by the
wild excitement in his own breast, how in secret he had been brought to
doubt its being here. But here it was lying in a heap on the Big Cabin
table! and--now it was gone.

The right candle had given out, and O'Flynn, blowing with impatience
like a walrus, had simultaneously extinguished the other.

For an instant a group of men with strained and dazzled eyes still bent
above the blackness on the boards.

"Stir the fire," called the Colonel, and flew to do it himself.

"I'll light a piece of fat pine," shouted the Boy, catching up a stick,
and thrusting it into the coals.

"Where's your bitch?" said Dillon calmly.

"Bitch?"

"Haven't you got a condensed milk can with some bacon grease in it, and
a rag wick? Makes a good enough light."

But the fire had been poked up, and the cabin was full of dancing
lights and shadows. Besides that, the Boy was holding a resinous stick
alight over the table, and they all bent down as before.

"It was passin' a bank in 'Frisco wid a windy full o' that stuff that
brought me up here," said O'Flynn.

"It was hearin' about that winder brought _me_" added Potts.

Everyone longed to touch and feel about in the glittering pile, but no
one as yet had dared to lay a finger on the smallest grain in the
hoard. An electrical shock flashed through the company when the General
picked up one of the biggest nuggets and threw it down with a rich,
full-bodied thud. "That one is four ounces."

He took up another.

"This is worth about sixty dollars."

"More like forty," said Dillon.

They were of every conceivable shape and shapelessness, most of them
flattened; some