"Gold! let me see it," they all cried. "Is gold always found in that shape?" queried Edward.
"Not always," he replied. "Sometimes it is imbedded in the rocks, and has to be dug out by blasting; while, at others, it comes in globules, called nuggets, often of great value."
"Perhaps there is more around here; let us see," said the trapper, and taking a stick he dug among the soft earth, when, lo! it was speckled with the precious ore.
The sentinel seeing them gathering up the glittering scales with great eagerness, came forward, and with his hatchet struck a few heavy blows against a fragment that projected from a fissure in the rock, when it split from the solid mass, and revealed the precious ore, intermixed with quartz rock; then turning away with disdain, left them to amuse themselves, and took up his former position in the pathway.
"We can gather as much as we please; and if we have the good luck to escape the vigilance of these demons, we shall be rich," said Sidney.
"It is something, at least to have made the discovery. These mountains, I judge from the fragment broken, must be full of ore?" said the trapper.
"The Indians," said Whirlwind, "say there are stones still farther towards the setting sun that give light like stars, and glitter in their bed with a hundred fires; but they are never seen in these hunting grounds. All through the mountains these are to be found in abundance," said he, pointing to the gold that lay glittering in the earth.
"You never told me of this before, Whirlwind," said the trapper. "Why were you so wary about what you must have known was of importance?"
The chief drew up his tall, athletic form, and pointing with his finger to the sky, said:
"As many moons ago as there are stars yonder, when the sun is in the west, there came to the hunting-grounds of the red man a band of white men. They were few, and my fathers fostered them; and, when the white men found the glittering earth accidentally, as you have, they showed them where it could be scooped up by handfuls, and where the star stones lighted up the caverns. Then grew hatred between the red and white man; for the star stones are bad spirits who stirred up evil passions in the heart, then laughed and mocked at their warring. The white man grew many and strong, and more came from beyond the big water. Then they made the earth red with each other's blood, and my forefathers were obliged to give up their hunting grounds, and fly into other possessions, where there was again war for a place to hunt in, until the earth was again red with blood. And now all between the swift water and the great sea towards sunrise is covered by the pale faces' lodges, while, we, a remnant of former days, are forced to give way until we shall have all perished, and the graves of my ancestors become the play grounds of the white man's papoose. Then let the glistening earth sleep where the Great Spirit buried it, that the evil spirits may never again gloat over the earth dyed with the blood of its people. Whirlwind has spoken, let his white brother hear, that their love be not turned to anger, and that they slay not each other."