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 regained the summit.

It was all his own! His own by right of discovery under the law of the
land, and without accepting a favor from THEM. He recalled even the fact
that it was HIS prospecting on the mountain that first suggested the
existence of gold in the outcrop and the use of the hydraulic. HE had
never abandoned that belief, whatever the others had done. He dwelt
somewhat indignantly to himself on this circumstance, and half
unconsciously faced defiantly towards the plain below. But it was
sleeping peacefully in the full sight of the moon, without life or
motion. He looked at the stars; it was still far from midnight. His
companions had no doubt long since returned to the cabin to prepare for
their midnight journey. They were discussing him, perhaps laughing at
him, or worse, pitying him and his bargain. Yet here was his bargain! A
slight laugh he gave vent to here startled him a little, it sounded
so hard and so unmirthful, and so unlike, as he oddly fancied, what he
really THOUGHT. But WHAT did he think?

Nothing mean or revengeful; no, they never would say THAT. When he had
taken out all the surface gold and put the mine in working order, he
would send them each a draft for a thousand dollars. Of course, if they
were ever ill or poor he would do more. One of the first, the very first
things he should do would be to send them each a handsome gun and tell
them that he only asked in return the old-fashioned rifle that once was
his. Looking back at the moment in after years, he wondered that, with
this exception, he made no plans for his own future, or the way he
should dispose of his newly acquired wealth. This was the more singular
as it had been the custom of the five partners to lie awake at night,
audibly comparing with each other what they would do in case they made
a strike. He remembered how, Alnaschar-like, they nearly separat