ped back into his hole, only to stick his head out again
for the purpose of telling us:

"Mind you keep fifteen feet away!"

With eager hands we slipped a pick and shovels from beneath the pack
ropes, undid our iron bucket, and without further delay commenced
feverishly to dig.

Johnny held the pail, while Yank and I vied with each other in being the
first to get our shovelfuls into that receptacle. As a consequence we
nearly swamped the pail first off, and had to pour some of the earth out
again. Then we all three ran down to the river and took turns stirring
that mud pie beneath the gently flowing waters in the manner of the "pot
panners" we had first watched. After a good deal of trouble we found
ourselves possessed of a thick layer of rocks and coarse pebbles.

"We forgot to screen it," I pointed out.

"We haven't any screen," said Johnny.

"Let's pick 'em out by hand?" suggested Yank.

We did so. The process emptied the pail. Each of us insisted on
examining closely; but none of us succeeded in creating out of our
desires any of that alluring black sand.

"I suppose we can't expect to get colour every time?" observed Johnny
disappointedly. "Let's try her again."

We tried her again; and yet again; and then some more; but always with
the same result. Our hands became puffed and wrinkled with constant
immersion in the water, and began to feel sore from the continual
stirring of the rubble.

"Something wrong," grunted Johnny into the abysmal silence in which we
had been carrying on our work.

"We can't expect it every time," I reminded him.

"All the others seem to."

"Well, maybe we've struck a blank place; let's try somewhere else,"
suggested Yank.

Johnny went over to speak to our neighbour, who was engaged in tossing
out shovelfuls of earth from an excavation into which he had nearly
disappeared. At Johnny's hail, he straightened his back, so that his
head bobbed out of the hole like a prairie dog.

"No, it doesn't matter where you dig," he answered Johnny's question.
"The pay dirt is everywhere."

So we moved on a few hundred feet, picked another unoccupied patch, and
resumed our efforts. No greater success rewarded us here.

"I believe maybe we ought to go deeper," surmised Yank.

"Some of these fellows are taking their dirt right off top of the
ground," objected Johnny.

However, we unlimbered the pickaxe and went deeper; to the extent of two
feet or more. It was good hard work, especia