d, when he took a skunk for a new kind of an
American house cat an' tried tew pick it up in his arms. Fun! No;
gold-diggin' is jest grit an' j'int grease mixed tewgether an' kept
a-goin' with beans an' salt pork an' flapjacks. But, we're gettin' ahind
a-watchin' them dirty Sonorans. Come on," and the huge strides of Ham
made Thure and Bud both trot to keep up with him, as he hurried after
the others, to whom the dry-washing Mexicans were too common a sight to
be worthy a moment's pause for the purpose of watching.

"Now, dad," and Thure turned inquiringly to his father, when, at length,
all stood together in Holt's Gulch on the mound of dirt that had been
already thrown up in building the wing dam, "I don't just see how this
dam is going to help you find the gold."

"Well, my son," and Mr. Conroyal smiled, "it is not at all surprising to
find that you do not know all about mining, seeing that you have been in
the diggings only over night; but I'll give you the theory of the dam.
This little stream of water, as you can see from where we stand, makes
rather a sharp turn a few rods down, against an almost perpendicular
wall of rock, forming a curve in the stream that can be likened to the
crook in a bent arm, and leaving quite a little open space of ground
almost on a level with the water in the bend of the arm. Now we've
discovered that there is a deep hole right at the elbow joint, partly
filled with gravel and big enough to hold a good many tons of gold, but
too deep to get at through the water; and we've figured it out something
like this. The gold found in all the diggings along the beds of rivers
has been washed out of the rocks by the water and carried down by the
current, until stopped by its own weight or some obstruction; and we
calculate that most of the gold carried down by this stream would sink
down into this hole and stay there, because, gold being so heavy, it
would sure fall down into the hole, and, once there, the water would not
be strong enough to lift it out again. Now, that is the reason why we
think there might be gold and lots of it in that there hole," and he
pointed to the elbow made by the curve in the stream.

"But, of course, not being fish, we cannot get down into the hole to see
whether or not there is gold in it, as long as the water runs over it;
and so we are making this wing dam up here above the elbow, to turn the
stream into a new channel and send it flowing kitti-corner-wise across
t