n' off his friend, who
himself would starve but for the privilege Austin gave him of washing
out Austin's gold. Let the young man stop and see the richest clean-up
at the Forks.

And so it was with the acrid pleasure he had promised himself that he
said to the visitor, bending over the double handful of gold, "Guess it
looks good to you."

"Yes, it looks good!" But he had lifted his eyes, and seemed to be
studying the man more than the metal.

A couple of newcomers, going by, halted.

"Christ!" said the younger, "look at that!"

The Boy remembered them; they had been to Seymour only a couple of
hours before asking for work. One was old for that country--nearly
sixty--and looked, as one of the gang had said, "as if, instid o'
findin' the pot o' gold, he had got the end of the rainbow slam in his
face--kind o' blinded."

At sound of the strange voice Austin had wheeled about with a fierce
look, and heavily the strangers plodded by. The owner turned again to
the gold. "Yes," he said curtly, "there's something about that that
looks good to most men."

"What I was thinkin'," replied the Boy slowly, "was that it was the
only clean gold I'd ever seen--but it isn't so clean as it was."

"What do you mean?" Austin bent and looked sharply into the full hands.

"I was thinkin' it was good to look at because it hadn't got into dirty
pockets yet." Austin stared at him an instant. "Never been passed
round--never bought anybody. No one had ever envied it, or refused it
to help someone out of a hole. That was why I thought it looked
good--because it was clean gold ... a little while ago." And he plunged
his hands in the water and washed the clinging particles off his
fingers.

Austin had stared, and then turned his back with a blacker look than
even "Scowl" had ever worn before.

"Gosh! guess there's goin' to be trouble," said one of the gang.

CHAPTER XXI

PARDNERS

"He saw, and first of brotherhood had sight...."

It was morning, and the night-shift might go to bed; but in the absent
Englishmen's tent there was little sleep and less talk that day. The
Boy, in an agony, with a foot on fire, heard the Colonel turning,
tossing, growling incoherently about "the light."

It seemed unreasonable, for a frame had been built round his bed, and
on it thick gray army blankets were nailed--a rectangular tent. Had he
cursed the heat now? But no: "light," "God! the light, the light!" just
as if he were lying as the Bo