less bones of Lone Star
Mountain bare in the moonlight. He understood now the strange rumble
and reverberation he had heard; he understood now the strange hush of
bird and beast in brake and thicket!

Although a single rapid glance convinced him that the slide had taken
place in an unfrequented part of the mountain, above an inaccessible
canon, and reflection assured him his companions could not have reached
that distance when it took place, a feverish impulse led him to descend
a few rods in the track of the avalanche. The frequent recurrence of
outcrop and angle made this comparatively easy. Here he called aloud;
the feeble echo of his own voice seemed only a dull impertinence to the
significant silence. He turned to reascend; the furrowed flank of the
mountain before him lay full in the moonlight. To his excited fancy a
dozen luminous star-like points in the rocky crevices started into life
as he faced them. Throwing his arm over the ledge above him, he
supported himself for a moment by what appeared to be a projection of
the solid rock. It trembled slightly. As he raised himself to its
level, his heart stopped beating. It was simply a fragment detached
from the outcrop, lying loosely on the ledge but upholding him by _its
own weight only_. He examined it with trembling fingers; the
encumbering soil fell from its sides and left its smoothed and worn
protuberances glistening in the moonlight. It was virgin gold!

Looking back upon that moment afterwards, he remembered that he was not
dazed, dazzled, or startled. It did not come to him as a discovery or
an accident, a stroke of chance or a caprice of fortune. He saw it all
in that supreme moment; Nature had worked out their poor deduction.
What their feeble engines had essayed spasmodically and helplessly
against the curtain of soil that hid the treasure, the elements had
achieved with mightier but more patient forces. The slow sapping of the
winter rains had loosened the soil from the auriferous rock, even while
the swollen stream was carrying their impotent and shattered engines to
the sea. What mattered that his single arm could not lift the treasure
he had found; what mattered that to unfix those glittering stars would
still tax both skill and patience! The work was done, the goal was
reached! even his boyish impatience was content with that. He rose
slowly to his feet, unstrapped his long-handled shovel from his back,
secured it in the crevice, and quietly regain