THE BOYS STOOD ATTENTIVELY WATCHING THE OPERATION.
"How will you separate them?" asked Frank.
"Now ye'll obsarve the use that that cask is to be put to," replied Tim, "if ye'll oblige me by filling the same with water."
This was done, when Tim flung about a pound of mercury into the cask, after which he dumped into it the black and yellow sand. As soon as the gold came in contact with the mercury it formed an amalgam.
"This will do to start things," said Tim. "When we have enough to make it pay, we'll squaze it through a buckskin bag."
"What is the result?"
"Nearly all the mercury will ooze through the bag, and we can use the same agin in the cask. The impure goold will be placed on a shovel and held over a hot fire till the mercury has gone off in vapor, and only the pure goold is lift, or rather there's just a wee bit of the mercury still hanging 'bout the goold; but we'll make a big improvement whin Jiff comes back. The filing of this claim ain't the only thing that takes him to Dawson City."
"What do you think of the deposit here?"
"I b'lave it's one of the richest finds in the Kloondike counthry, and if it turns out as it promises, we shall go home and live like gintlemen the rist of our lives."