as you say on the surface,
there is no saying how rich it may be when we get down to the bed rock."

They had already settled that the two parties should work in
partnership, and as, including the women and boys, they numbered
fifteen, and could take up the five claims which, by mining law, the
discoverer of a new place was entitled to, they had in all twenty
claims, which gave them the whole of the little amphitheatre at the foot
of the fall for a distance of fifty yards down.

The men all set to work with their axes, and by nightfall much had been
done. Frank's party had their tent, and the two small tents of the other
party were allotted to the married couples. A rough hut was got up for
the rest of the men; this was to act as the kitchen and general room. A
storehouse was erected of stout logs, with earth piled thickly over it
to keep out the wet, and here their stores were securely housed. The
tents and huts were on the slope, where the rocks widened out twenty
yards below the bottom of their claim.

It was late in the second evening before the work was done. All were
anxious to test the ground, but it was agreed not to touch it until they
had housed themselves. At daybreak they were at work, and soon all were
washing out pans of gravel at the stream; the results fully justified
their expectations,--there being a residuum of glittering grains at the
bottom of each pan varying in weight from a pennyweight to a quarter of
an ounce.

"Now," Abe said, "I should suggest that we makes a big cradle, fifteen
feet long by three feet wide, and hang it on cross poles so as to be
able to rock it easily; then we will dam up the stream at the top of the
fall, and lead it down straight through a shoot into the cradle; of
course the shoot will have a sluice so as to let in just as much water
as we want, and that way two men will do the work of eight or ten
washing."

Abe's plan was agreed to, and all the men set to work to construct the
dam, cradle, and shoot.

It took two days' hard labour before all was in readiness, and then the
work began in earnest. Two men swayed the cradle, four others shovelled
the gravel and dirt into it, three continually stirred the contents and
swept off the large stones and pebbles from the top, while the other two
carried them away beyond the boundaries of their claims.

At the lower end of the cradle was a sheet of iron perforated with
holes, large at the top, but getting smaller lower down