Bruce’s feet and fingers grew numb working in the icy water with a scrubbing brush and a small scoop but they were no colder than the cold hand of Premonition that lay heavy upon him.
Behind the riffles at the top of the first box the mercury was amalgam—all that he could have wished for—beyond that point it suddenly stopped and all that he recovered as he worked down looked to be as active as when he had poured it from the flask.
What was wrong? He asked himself every conceivable question as he worked with aching hands and feet. Had he given the boxes too much grade? Had he washed too fast—crowded the dirt so that it had not had time to settle? Was it possible that after all the gold was too light and fine to save in paying quantities?
Hope died hard and he tried to make himself believe that the lower boxes and the tables had caught it—that there was more in the mercury than there looked. But the tension as he took up riffle after rime with the one result was like watching a long-drawn-out race with all one’s possessions staked on the losing horse.
He took up riffles until it was a physical impossibility to work longer in the numbing water, his fingers could not hold the scoop. Then he went to the pump-house and told Banule to telephone Smaltz to shut down.
“He wants to know if you’ll be pumpin’ again?”
“Yes, after awhile. Tell him to stay there. I’m going to squeeze out the ‘quick’ I’ve taken up, but I want to get as near finished to-day as I can. You come and help me.”
As Bruce walked back to the sluice-boxes with bowed head he was thinking that the day was well suited to the ending of his roseate dreams. Failure is dull, drab, colorless, and in his heart he had little doubt that for some reason still to be explained, he had failed. Just how badly remained to be seen.
Bruce had scooped the mercury into a clean granite kettle and now, while he held the four corners of a square of chamois skin, Banule poured mercury from the kettle into the centre of the skin until told to stop.
“Looks like you ought to get several hundred dollars out of that,” Banule said hopefully as Bruce gathered the four corners, twisted them and began to squeeze.