Mr. Randolph was a little more demonstrative, but he said little.
The two boys had done exactly what the two men expected their sons to do; and the hearts of both were glad and proud, but neither man showed his pride in their brave action, only his joy that they had escaped the flood.
Marshall, the moment their fathers dropped their hands, seized a hand of each boy in each of his hands and started to thank them, with tears in his eyes; but both boys quickly jerked their hands away.
"Forget it," Thure said impatiently. "We only did what you or any other man would have done under the same circumstances—Great Moses, just look at that water!" and Thure's eyes turned to the flood that was now foaming and boiling a few feet beneath them.
At this moment the edge of the black clouds swept over them, and the rain fell down in torrents; but in a quarter of an hour the clouds had passed, and the sun was shining again, and the violence of the flood was beginning to slacken. In half an hour the flood had swept by; and with it had gone every vestige of the wing dam they had builded with so much labor and with so many high hopes.
"Durn th' durned dam!" and, without another word, Ham turned his back on the scene of their fruitless labors, and strode off toward Hangtown, followed by all the others, who fervently echoed his words in their hearts.
CHAPTER XX
ROBBED
"Now I'll say good-by to you men," Marshall said, when they reached the outskirts of Hangtown. "I am real sorry that your venture turned out the way that it did; but a man has got to expect any sort of luck in the diggings, and usually it is the worst sort that he gets dealt out to him, at least that has been my experience," and he smiled bitterly.