wash-dirt on the bank, and his eyes shone with
satisfaction.

"Do you think the dam will hold?" asked Scarlett of the experienced
digger.

"It's safe enough till we get a 'fresh'," was the reply. Moonlight
glanced at the dripping rampart, composed of tree-trunks and stones.
"But even if there does happen to be a flood, and the dam bursts," he
added, "we've still got the 'dirt' high and dry. But we shall have
warning enough, I expect, to save the 'race' and sluice-boxes."

"It meant double handling to take out the wash-dirt before we started to
wash up," said Scarlett, "but I'm glad we did it."

"Once, on the Greenstone," said Moonlight, "we were working from the bed
of the creek. There came a real old-man flood which carried everything
away, and when we cleaned out the bed again, there wasn't so much as a
barrowful of gold-bearing dirt left behind. Once bitten, twice shy."

If the process was monotonous, it had the advantage of being simple. The
men slowly shovelled the earth into the last length of the "race," and
the running water did the rest. In the evening, a big pile of "tailings"
was heaped up at the foot of the sluice, and as some of the auger-holes
were half-filled with gold, Moonlight gave the word for cleaning out the
boxes.

The water from the dam was cut off, leaving but a trickle running
through the boxes. The false bottoms were then taken out of the sluice,
and upon the floors of the boxes innumerable little heaps of gold lay
exposed to the miners' delighted eyes.

The heavy gold, caught before it had reached the first sluice-box, lay
at the lower end of the "race." To separate the small quantity of grit
that remained with the gold, the diggers held the rich little heaps
claw-wise with their fingers, while the rippling water ran through them.
Thus the gold was left pure, and with the blade of a sheath-knife, it
was easily transferred to the big tin dish.

"What weight?" asked Jack, as he lifted the precious load.

Moonlight solemnly took the "pan" from his mate. "One-fifty to one-sixty
ounces," he said oracularly. His gaze wandered to the heap of wash-dirt
which remained. "We've washed about one-sixth," he said. "Six times
one-fifty is nine hundred. We'll say, roughly, L4 an ounce: that gives
us something like L3600 from that heap."

As night was now approaching, they walked slowly towards their tent,
carrying their richly-laden dish with them. Sitting in the tent-door,
with their backs to th