It was noon before his toil was completed and the traces of it so far removed as to ease Jinny’s perturbation. He was obliged to bathe in the enlarged pool before she seemed comfortable when near him.
As he dressed, after his ablutions, his eye caught a broken bit of rock lying at the water’s edge. He picked it up, a curious tightening in his throat.
There is something about the glitter of a streak of yellow in a bit of rock that would set the heart of the last man on the last unsubmerged point of earth to beating fast. The piece of float was freshly severed and the flecks of yellow showed plainly in its split surface. Gard scrutinized the mud round about, and beyond the pool found another bit of float.
Forgetful of all else, he sprang up the cañon. It, too, was full of debris, witness to the mighty power of the storm. He hardly knew the place as he climbed along, making a new way for himself; for the swollen stream roared wildly where but the day before he had been able to walk.
The cañon walls on either side were wrought and twisted by the action of ancient heat, scarred and eroded by the force of ancient waters, but they revealed no fresh break, though he scanned them eagerly.
He kept on, however; for a quarter of a mile above the pool another bit of float pointed the way. It was a savage climb, but mounting, circling and crawling past heaped up boulders and masses of earth, he presently found progress checked by a landslip, beneath which the rushing water was already cutting a channel.
Here lay the vein, uncovered, the gleaming particles in the cloven rock making the man’s breath come thick as he studied them.
There was no doubt about it: he had discovered pay rock of the richest sort. How rich it was he had no means of determining, nor did he then dream; but he knew that right in sight was more gold than he should be able to get out with any tool at his command, and hope was already high within him.
He stooped and picked up small fragments of broken rock that lay among the debris. How heavy they were! What power they represented! What dreams might come true, by the aid of their yellow shine!
Here was his ticket east. Here was a ticket to the uttermost parts of the earth. With it he could go away, stand rehabilitated among his fellows. Golden vistas of power and pleasure spread out before him as he stood gazing long at the cleft, yellow-flecked rock before him.