"There might be wagonloads of it in this
creek."
"There might, but it isn't likely." Bill shook his head. "This is a
simon-pure pocket, and it would keep a graduate mineralogist guessing
to say how it got here, because it's a different proposition from the
wash gold in the creek bed. I've got all that's here, I'm pretty sure.
And you might prospect this creek from end to end and never find
another nugget bigger than a pea. It's rich placer ground, at
that--but this pocket's almost unbelievable. Must be forty pounds of
gold there. And you found it. You're the original mascot, little
person."
He bestowed a bearlike hug upon her.
"Now what?" she asked. "It hardly seems real to pick up several
thousand dollars in half an hour or so like this. What will we do?"
"Do? Why, bless your dear soul," he laughed. "We'll just consider
ourselves extra lucky, and keep right on with the game till the high
water makes us quit."
Which was a contingency nearer at hand than even Bill, with a firsthand
knowledge of the North's vagaries in the way of flood, quite
anticipated.
Three days after the finding of the pocket the whole floor of the creek
was awash. His rocker went downstream overnight.
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