"First thing is to find a camping spot," proposed Harry, briskly. "And then to find our mine."
"How'll we find it?" asked Terry. "Where is the gold? I don't see any."
"This is Gregory gulch, is it?" queried Harry, of the nearest miner—a red-headed, red-stubbled little man squatting in mud to his ankles beside a trickling stream, and twirling a gold-pan. He was muddied all over his tattered trousers and red shirt, and also to his elbows.
"It is; at laste it's the Gregory diggin's." He spoke with a strong Irish brogue.
"Have you found lots of gold?" invited Terry.
"Oi? Not a cint, b'gorry—an' here's another empty pan." As if in disgust the little man straightened up and surveyed them. "But that's not sayin' Oi won't. Oi've got a foine claim right under me feet. Did yez jist get in? Would yez like to buy a nice claim?" He eyed them shrewdly with his twinkling eyes set in his grimy, sweaty face.
"Not yet, thank you," responded Harry. "Where's the gold?"
"Gold? Faith, all yez got to do is foind it. Sure, ain't it here in Gregory gulch, an' don't yez see all the people diggin'? Didn't Gregory an' five men take out $972 in wan week from their vein, an' afterward sell for $2,100 an' lend the men who bought it $200 so they could go ahead?"
"Where are they? Where is that vein?"
"Up yonder on the side o' the gulch; but yez can't get annywhere near it, for the people an' the stakes. They don't want visitors. Jist drive your stakes where yez can, an' begin work. My name's Pat Casey. What might yez be called?"