a
sudden feeling of eagerness.

"Well?" he said again, "could what?"

"Esau, come and look down here," I whispered very huskily.

"Can't," he said, lazily. "Too comfortable to move."

"Come here!" I cried again.

"Shan't. I'm tired. I don't want to be roused up to look at a fly, or
some stupid bird in a tree. You can look at it all to yourself."

"Come here, will you?" I said so fiercely that he sprang up.

"What's the matter?"

"Come and look here!"

He rose and came to me, looking wonderingly at my hands, which I held
closely clasped together.

"What's the matter?" he said; "cut yourself? Wait till I tear up my
hank'chief."

"No, no," I panted, and the excitement I felt made me giddy.

"Well, I thought you hadn't," he cried. "Don't bleed. Here, what is
it? What's the matter with you? You look as silly as a goose."

I stared at him wildly, and no answer came.

"He's going to be ill," I heard Esau mutter, as he shook me angrily. "I
say, don't, don't have no fevers nor nothink out here in this wild place
where there's no doctors nor chemists' shops, to get so much as an ounce
o' salts. Oh, don't, don't!"

"I'm not ill," I said at last. "There's nothing the matter."

"Then what do you mean by frightening a fellow like that? I say, I like
a game sometimes, but that's too bad."

"I--I didn't want to startle you, Esau," I said, hurriedly, as the giddy
sensation passed away. "Look--look here."

I held my hands open before him, raising one from the other slowly, as I
felt half afraid that it was partly fancy, and that when my hand was
quite open, that which I believed I held would be gone.

"Well?" said Esau, "what of it? Wet stones? Think you'd caught a
little trout?"

"No, no," I cried impatiently. "Look--look!"

I raised one finger of my right hand, and began to separate the little
water-worn stones with my palm raised in the sunshine, and for a few
moments neither spoke. Then as Esau suddenly caught sight of some
half-dozen smoothly-ground scales, and a tiny flattened bead with quite
a tail to it, he uttered a shout.

"Hooray!" he cried. "Gold! That beats old Quong; he never got as much
as that in his tin plate. Yah! 'tain't gold. Don't believe it! it's
what old Gunson called Pyrrymids."

"Pyrites? No," I said. "It's gold; I'm sure of it. Look what a
beautiful yellow colour it is."

"So's lots of things a beautiful yellow colour," said Esau, sneeringly,
as he curle