"It's days since I had anything
clear in my head, except the lesson we learned on the trail."

The Boy stopped throwing stones, and fixed his eyes on his friend, as
the Colonel went on:

"We had that hammered into us, didn't we?"

"What?"

"Oh, that--you know--that--I don't know quite how to put it so it'll
sound as orthodox as it might be, bein' true; but it looks pretty clear
even to me"--again the big hand brushing at the unmoted sunshine--"that
the only reason men got over bein' beasts was because they began to be
brothers."

"Don't," said the Boy.

"Don't what?"

"I've always known I should have to tell you some time. I won't be able
to put it off if I stay ... and I hate tellin' you now. See here: I
b'lieve I'll get a pack-mule and go over to Indian River."

The Colonel looked round angrily. Standing high against the sky,
Seymour, with the gateman up at the lock, was moderating the strong
head of water. It began to flow sluggishly over the gravel-clogged
riffles, and Scowl Austin was coming down the hill.

"I don't know what you're drivin' at, about somethin' to tell. I know
one thing, though, and I learned it up here in the North: men were
meant to stick to one another."

"Don't, I say."

"Here's Austin," whispered the Colonel.

The Silesian philosopher stood in his "gum-boots" in the puddling-box
as on a rostrum; but silent now, as ever, when Scowl Austin was in
sight. With the great sluice-fork, the philosopher took up, washed, and
threw out the few remaining big stones that they might not clog the
narrow boxes below.

Seymour had so regulated the stream that, in place of the gush and foam
of a few minutes before, there was now only a scant and gently falling
veil of water playing over the bright gravel caught in the riffle-lined
bottoms of the boxes.

As the Boy got up and reached for his stick, Austin stood there saying,
to nobody in particular, that he'd just been over to No. 29, where they
were trying a new-fangled riffle.

"Don't your riffles do the trick all right?" asked the Boy.

"If you're in any doubt, come and see," he said.

They stood together, leaning over the sluice, looking in at one of the
things human industry has failed to disfigure, nearly as beautiful
to-day as long ago on Pactolus' banks when Lydian shepherds, with great
stones, fastened fleeces in the river that they might catch and gather
for King Croesus the golden sands of Tmolus. Improving, not in beauty,
but