So they emptied it on to an old tin tray to dry, and set to work again with a will. By-and-by the others shouted that they had struck gold, too, and more shining yellow sand was poured on to the tray.
They looked round for Baby, but she was busy building sand castles and wells and filling them up with water from the old pint. She made dozens and dozens of trips to the water’s edge, and filled the old pint to carry back to the wells; and as the pint was leaking, there was only about a quarter left when she reached the wells. But Baby didn’t care. The more trouble she had, the better she seemed to like it.
“Look at her,” said Willie, in tones of disgust. “A smart lot of good she’d be on a gold-field! Let her build her old castles and her old wells—a smart lot of good they’ll do her!” Then he went on working harder than ever.
“Do you know,” he cried a minute later; “I believe there’s another way—chopping up rocks and stones, and getting it out like ore or something. Let’s try it.”
“Oh, yes, let’s!” cried Doris, who was getting tired of this slow old way. “There’ll be more fun chopping up rocks than washing old sand.”
“And we’ll send the ore away to Sydney for some of them chaps to look at and tell us what it’s worth.”
“Oh!” they cried in the one breath. “Won’t that be grand? Let’s start chopping.”
“She made dozens of trips to the water’s edge.”
“Wait a bit, there’s only one tomahawk,” cried Willie. “Let me go first, ’cause I thought of it,” and he slashed with a will into the shining rocks, and before half an hour great blisters had risen on his soft hands.