"Gold!" proclaimed Pat. "Faith, an' if 'tain't a twinty dollar pan I'll ate it. Wance I washed out siventeen dollars myself, but never a pan like that from mere a few riffles. Keep it, Your Honor. Would ye like to try ag'in?"
"Oh, no, no," declined Editor Greeley, considerably flustered as he painstakingly transferred the flakes and dust to his buckskin sack. "This is proof enough. Now I have worked with my own hands and seen the results with my own eyes—I have the results in my very pocket! Nobody can gainsay the richness of these new Western mines, and the truth shall be announced to the world as far as my paper can carry it." He smiled boyishly on Terry. "I beat you, my son, didn't I? Well, well!"
"This is one of the Pike's Peak Limited boys, Mr. Greeley," explained Journalist Richardson. "You remember a party of emigrants on the trail sent word by us to them, in case we ran across them at Cherry Creek or elsewhere."
"Yes, yes. That is so," and the great Horace Greeley extended his hand to Terry. "You must be Terry, then—the son of that Mr. and Mrs. Richards in one of the wagons."
"Yes, sir," answered Terry, wondering how Mr. Greeley could remember. "They're my father and mother. The other outfit lived on the next ranch to us in the Big Blue Valley."
"And they had another boy, and a little girl beside," said Mr. Greeley. "That's good. I'm glad to see young blood entering this vast new country of the United States. When I return to New York I think I shall print as a motto: 'Go West, young man; go West.'"
After shaking hands again with Pat, the Horace Greeley party rode on up the gulch, for further investigations. Pat respectfully watched them; then he clapped on his battered hat and faced Terry with a droll wink.
"B' gorry, that was good wages for an hour's work. Oi'm thinkin' Mr. Grayley'll be wishin' to sell his Tribyune an' dig in the dirt along with the rest of us here."
"I should say!" agreed Terry. "Jiminy, this is awful rich ground! I didn't know there was so much gold in here, did you? We must have opened up a regular layer yesterday."
"Don't ye tell anybody," whispered Pat, "but Oi opened up me oyster-can a bit, an' sprinkled a few pinches jist to make the visit by His Honor the more interestin'. Sure," continued Pat, "ye wouldn't want a man like the great Horace Grayley to soil his hands for mere a dollar or two, would ye? An' it's all right. The same gold came out o' here in the first place, an' wance Oi tuk siventeen dollars an' fifty cents from a single pan, myself. He might have done as much without my help, if he'd struck the proper spot, an' I only made matters 'asy for him. Now he can print the news with an exclamation point. Well, let's clane up the sluice, an' give back to the oyster-can what's due it an' more besides."