“Why the down express is due in another minute!” cried Mr. Hitter. “If you don’t get off the track you’ll be run down! Get off I say!”
“Not just yet, son,” said Harvey Brill, calmly. “This is too good a place to leave. If we’ve got a minute I may turn up another bit of pay dirt. It won’t take me a second to get out of the way of the train, and that leaves me fifty-nine seconds to dig in.”
“But you must get off the track!” insisted the agent. “You can’t dig up the ballast that way. The rails may spread and cause an accident. Get out of the way! There’s the whistle of the train!” and he rushed about, dancing up and down, pushing the crowd off the rails. “Leave the track alone!” he shouted. “I’ll call out the police if you don’t.”
“I guess he’s right, Harvey,” said Jim Nestor, slowly. “We had better postpone our operations a while. Besides, I want to introduce you to the friends of mine we came East to see.”
“All right, Jim, I’m agreeable,” assented the other, as he picked up some more bits of rock. “But I sure do hate to leave this pay dirt.”
“Jim—Jim Nestor!” cried Jerry. “What’s it all about, anyhow? Why are you here? What are you digging on the tracks for?”
“I’ll tell you soon, Jerry,” said the old miner. “We came East on purpose to see you, and just by accident we happened to see signs of gold in the track ballast here. Of course it——”
“Gold!” cried half a dozen in the throng.
“Sure, gold!” put in Harvey Brill. “You can’t fool me on the yellow stuff,” and he held out his hand in which several yellow particles gleamed dully.
“Gold! Gold!” murmured the crowd, eagerly.