nned for dust.

_Courtesy of the Grand Trunk Railway._]

[Illustration: FLUME AT THE MELONES MINE.

To carry 600 miner's inches of water from the Stanislaus River to the
120-stamp mill.]

"Always supposing that there was some gold there to start with," put
in Owens. "How many times have you panned, Jim, without finding any
color?"

"Millions, I reckon! I panned every day an' all day, once, for two
years, without gettin' enough gold dust to fill a pipe-bowl, an' then
I got a double-handful in half a day. In general, you're doin' all
right if you can get out of each pan enough dust to cover a
finger-nail. So now you know what pannin' is, Clem."

"It's not such a cinch, at that!" the young fellow commented.

"But you may strike it rich any day, any hour, any minute!" Jim
exclaimed, the fever of search in his eyes. "When Humphrey got up to
Sutter's Mill, the first man to know anything about gold-washin' that
got there, he was takin' out a thousand dollars a day, easy, for a
month or more. The placers were rich."

"A 'placer,' Clem," Owens interrupted to explain, "is a deposit where
there is gold mixed with sand, or gravel or mud. It is always a
deposit which has been washed down by water, either a river which is
actually running, or which is found in a dry bed where a river used to
run. Mining people call it an 'alluvial or flood deposit.' Most of the
gold-strikes have been found in this way. Go ahead, Jim."

"Right about the time that Humphrey was prospectin' an' doin'
handsomely, an Indian, who had worked on placers in Lower California,
told another o' the mill-hands how to get hold o' the dust. Besides
that, a Kentuckian, who'd been spyin' on Marshall an' Sutter, had
noticed that they'd found gold not only in the tail-race, but up the
creeks. Both of 'em went down to 'Frisco.

"It was interestin', but nobody got excited. Gold strikes weren't
known yet. There'd only been two gold rushes in the United States
afore, neither of 'em big ones.

"The first was in North Carolina. A young chap, Conrad Reed, was
shootin' fish with a bow and arrow in Meadow Creek. He saw in the
water a good-sized stone with a yellow gleam. Pickin' it up, he found
it heavy--seventeen pounds it weighed--an' he reckoned it was some
kind o' metal, but he didn't think o' gold. That was in 1799. The
stone was used to prop open a stable door for a couple o' years.

"One day, runnin' short o' groceries an' bein' shy o' ready cash, Reed