t the gold."

"Oh." She could think of nothing else to say.

"In fact Van was all that got me out onct--Napoleon, too. We wasn't
worth it, prob'ly. That's the joke on Van. Since then us three cusses
has starved, and froze, and clean roasted, chasin' gold."

"Oh."

"We was lost in the snow, one winter, with nuthin' to eat but a plug of
tobacker, a can of vasolene, and a porous plaster. We lived on that
menu fer a week--that and snow-soup. But Van got us out all
right--packed Napoleon about five miles on his back. Nap was so thin
there wasn't enough of him to die." His one good eye became dreamily
focused on the past. He smiled. "But someways the desert is worse
than the snow. We got ketched three times without no water. Never did
know, Nap or me, how Van got our two old dried-up carcasses out the
last time, down to Death Valley. He's a funny cuss, old Van."

Once more Beth merely answered: "Oh."

"You bet!" resumed Gettysburg. "He never quits. It ain't in him. He
works his hands off and his soul out of its socket, every time." He
laughed heartily. "Lord! we have done an awful lot of fool work fer
nuthin'! We've tackled tunnels and shafts, and several games like
this, and pretty near died a dozen different styles--all uneasy kinds
of dyin'--and we've lived when it was a darn sight uneasier than
croakin', and kept on tryin' out new diggin's, and kept on bein' busted
all the time. 'Nuff to make a lemon laugh, the fun we've had. But
now, by Jupe! we've struck it at last--and it ain't a-goin' to git
away!"

"Oh, I'm glad--I'm glad!" said Beth, winking back a bit of suspicious
moisture that came unbidden in her eyes as she looked on this
weather-beaten, hardship-beaten old figure, still sturdily ready for
the fates. "I'm sure you all deserve it! I'm sure of that!"

"Wal, that's a question fer God Almighty," Gettysburg replied. "But
there's the gold, the good yellow gold! And I'm awful glad fer Van!"

Into the water he dipped his crooked old fingers, and scratching down
behind a riffle he fetched up a small amount of gold, doubly bright
with the water and the sunlight upon it.

"Gold--and we git it easy," he added, repeating: "I'm awful glad fer
Van. You ought to see him shovel!" He dropped the gold back into the
water carelessly. "It ain't a-goin' to do us old jack-legged cusses
much good, at our age, but I would like to go to San Francisco this
summer once, and shoot the chutes!"