Harry made a big batch of flap-jacks and a pot of coffee; Shep curled in a corner and snuggled for comfortable sleep; the air outside was chill, but within was warm, and a candle that Archie produced gave light enough to eat by.
Archie was awarded the bunk, for a good rest. Harry and Terry spread their beds on the floor. They were used to sleeping on the ground, but Terry found it hard to go to sleep. He wanted to talk—he fairly itched to be out with spade and pan, digging gold from "their" mine. Think of it! A mine, a genuine gold mine, at last! Now they could pay his father back easy, and also show him and George how to get rich.
"I know how you feel," said Archie, from the bunk. "They say that when Gregory discovered his lode after tracing it for miles, and found four dollars in his first pan, he kept his partner awake till three o'clock in the morning, talking, and he was still talking at breakfast time."
"Wonder how he discovered it," hazarded Terry.
"He just started in on lower Clear Creek, at the Platte, and kept panning, and panning, on up, until above this gulch the gold quit. Then he turned into this gulch, because it seemed to yield the most color, and the gold was the coarsest, and he kept panning and panning until the color quit again. Then he knew he'd come to the place where the gold below was washed from. So he went back to the Platte and got a partner; and they sized up the natural lay of the gulch, at the highest spot where the color had quit—and they struck rich diggin's with the very first spadeful. That was the sixth of May. After they'd located a lot of ground for themselves and their friends the news got out, and now look at the mob!"
"Well, I'll bet we've got something just as good," declared Terry, confidently.
Immediately after a hurried breakfast they started in to pan their own claim, under the direction of Archie.
"I've always found the most gold in that spot there," he instructed. "There was another spot, where I panned first, but it's quit on me. Expect, though, you'll find a lot of 'em. Let's dig and try out some of the dirt in our pans."
Into the spot Terry plunged the spade. The dirt was gravelly and soft—two strokes of the blade were more than enough to loosen sufficient for the three pans. The pans were sheet-iron and about the size and shape of a large milk-pan. In a moment they three were trailing down to the little creek, each with some two inches of the dirt in the bottom of his pan. They squatted to fill the pans with water, and carefully twirled to slop it out again along with the dirt that ought to float off.
This was an anxious process. Archie finished first, because he was in practice.