"I'll be d—darned!" remarked Mac, with great feeling.
"Mine Gott! Tree ounce stuff!" cried Kaiser.
"Better come and have dinner," suggested Doc.
I do not remember what I said; but even our "boys" babbled away in unintelligible but excited language. Of course we returned to the river—one of the Kumusi head-waters—and by sundown had tested the sands at various points for a distance of two miles on both sides of our bridge. Kaiser, meanwhile, had set to work with his pan, and when we returned to our camping-ground he had about half an ounce of coarse gold to show for his efforts.
Next day we pegged out six prospectors' claims along both banks of the stream, including, of course, as much of the alluvial land on either side as our claims would allow. For several days afterwards we devoted some time to the most promising bars and deposits; but, as we had neither the tools nor the material for constructing sluice-boxes, our methods were restricted to simply washing the "dirt" in our pans. On the fourth day Mac threw down his pan, ejaculating at the same time the most-used word in his fairly-extensive vocabulary.
"What is the matter, Mac?" I cried, from the opposite bank.
"I dinna see hoo I shood hae tae work like a Clyde steevedore," he answered, "when ony man wi' the sma'est scienteefic abeelities could get as much gold in hauf an hoor as the lot o' us can in a day."
"Explain, Mac. Have you an idea?"
"Ay, thousands o' them. But what's tae hinder us frae taking a wheen split bamboos an' stringing them thegether like a sheet o' galvanised iron——"
"Nothing. We have our axes. But what——?"