underbrush, and
then emerged, stiff and cramped from his concealment. But he no longer
thought of flight; curiosity and ambition burned in his small veins. He
quickly climbed up the outcrop, picked up the fallen stone, and in spite
of its weight lifted it to the prostrate tree. Here he paused, and from
his coign of vantage looked and listened. The solitude was profound.
Then mounting the tree and standing over its axis he tried to rock it as
the others had. Alas! Johnny's heart was stout, his courage unlimited,
his perception all-embracing, his ambition boundless; but his actual
avoirdupois was only that of a boy of ten. The tree did not move. But
Johnny had played see-saw before, and quietly moved towards its highest
part. It slowly descended under the changed centre of gravity, and the
root arose, disclosing the opening as before. Yet here the little hero
paused. He waited with his eyes fixed on the opening, ready to fly on
the sallying out of any one who had remained concealed. He then placed
the stone where he had stood, leaped down, and ran to the opening.

The change from the dazzling sunlight to the darkness confused him at
first, and he could see nothing. On entering he stumbled over something
which proved to be a bottle in which a candle was fitted, and a box of
matches evidently used by the two men. Lighting the candle he could now
discern that the cavern was only a few yards long, the beginning of a
tunnel which the accident to the tree had stopped. In one corner lay the
clothes that the men had left, and which for a moment seemed all that
the cavern contained, but on removing them Johnny saw that they were
thrown over a rifle, a revolver, and the two chamois-leather bags
that the men had brought there. They were so heavy that the boy
could scarcely lift them. His face flushed; his hands trembled with
excitement. To a boy whose truant wanderings had given him a fair
knowledge of mining, he knew that weight could have but one meaning!
Gold! He hurriedly untied the nearest bag. But it was not the gold of
the locality, of the tunnel, of the "bed rock"! It was "flake gold,"
the gold of the river! It had been taken from the miners' sluices in
the distant streams. The bags before him were the spoils of the sluice
robber,--spoils that could not be sold or even shown in the district
without danger, spoils kept until they could be taken to Marysville or
Sacramento for disposal. All this might have occurred to the mind