"That very day I found what I had looked for. I hit upon a bar on this creek, where gold was so thick that I was bewildered.
"I suppose you know how gold is washed? Well, I had no need to wash—I picked out of that heap of gravel in three days over seventy-five pounds' weight of it!"
"Seventy-five pounds of gold! Why, that was worth £3000!" I cried.
"Yes, quite that," said Meade; "but I got £2500 for it here, and have a decent little bag of nuggets still unsold. I'll show them to you at the bank some day if you like."
I smiled. I'm afraid I did not altogether believe him. I had an idea that he was romancing. "How did you get down and bring all that gold with you?" I asked, half laughing.
"It's too long a yarn to tell now," he replied. "I got back all right to Dawson in my canoe, sold it, and managed to keep my find secret. I fortunately procured a passage in the stern-wheeler, P. B. Weare, the last boat for St Michael's that season. From there I easily got here, and no one knew that I had struck gold—no one does know it yet but the manager of the bank, and now you."
It was a most interesting story, certainly; I was glad to have heard it, but there was "no such luck for me," I observed, at which Meade laughed, but added, "See here, I've told you this because I want you to share with me this season! What d'ye say?"
"What?" I exclaimed, "and get gold like that? Oh! of course I'll go; but are you in earnest? why should you favour me thus?"
He declared solemnly that he meant it; he averred that he had taken to me, that he knew I was strong, healthy, a good fellow, and used to working in rough country, and as he was determined to go, and certainly would not do so again alone, he had made me his confidant and this offer in perfect good faith, and he ended thus, "Think it over, take time, keep what I've told you to yourself, but I hope you'll join me."
Later, he explained that we must leave Victoria soon, that we should come back at the end of September, and that he would be miserably surprised if we did not return with reasonable piles. "But we will not go the way I went," said he. "No, I met some men at Dawson who had come by a much shorter route—by the Lynn Canal and Skagway. We save thus nearly 3000 miles, and the trail is quite feasible. You've done some boating, some canoeing, I suppose?"