Bill had
found plentiful colors as soon as the first big run-off of water had
fallen. He had followed upstream painstakingly, panning colors always,
and now and then a few grains of coarse gold to encourage him in the
quest. The loss of their horses precluded ranging far afield to that
other glacial stream which he had worked with Whitey Lewis when he was
a free lance in the North. He was close to his base of supplies, and
he had made wages--with always the prospector's lure of a rich strike
on the next bar.
And now, with May well advanced, he had found definite indications of
good pay dirt. The creek swung in a hairpin curve, and in the neck
between the two sides of the loop the gold was sifted through wash
gravel and black sand, piled there by God only knew how many centuries
of glacial drift and flood. But it was there. He had taken panfuls at
random over the bar, and uniformly it gave up coarse gold. With a
rocker he stood a fair chance of big money before the June rise.
"In the morning," said he, when lunch was over, "I'll bring along the
ax and some nails and a shovel, and get busy."
That night they trudged down to the cabin in high spirits. Bill had
washed out enough during the afternoon to make a respectable showing on
Hazel's outspread handkerchief.
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