"Yer can see whar the old diggers came and dug their claims," explained Steve to Jack. "Everywhar down in the flats thar's holes and heaps of dirt. But none of them seed what Tom and me did. This gulch is narrow and flat; the sides come in suddenly, and rise to somewheres about four hundred feet. And up thar there's a big kind of tableland that runs back fer miles. Wall, now, the stream that come into the gulch back in them early times aer moved, else the miners wouldn't have been able ter stake their claims. Yer can't see it now, but ef yer ride ten miles up the gulch ye'll find it pouring over a cliff and crashin' down ter the bottom. Do yer see what I'm drivin' at?"
Jack thought he did. "I suppose your idea is to find the old stream, or the place where it once entered the gulch. I should say that if the land up there is flat, and the river shifted years and years ago to some other place, it must be because the bed up there got filled with gravel and stuff, and so deflected the course of the water."
"Right! That aer the thing that happened, I guess. Wall, now, we've got ter find the spot whar that 'ere stream tumbled over the cliff, and ter do that we don't need ter ride clear up the gulch and search all along. Them old miners are done that. Their diggin's don't go more than three miles up from here, and, as ye've seen fer yerself, there ain't any down lower. So I reckon that stream came over the cliff somewhars along these three miles. It may have been down here, or mebbe it war up thar. Thar ain't no sayin', and it ain't of no use ter go by the fall of the land. Thar's been earthquakes and queer ructions here in past days, and the land aer altered."
It took a week's patient and careful scrutiny of the gulch to discover the point where the stream must have flowed into the gulch in past ages, and when the place was found, to the amazement of all it was almost precisely where they had made their temporary camp.
"Which aer a good omen," observed Jacob.
"Thet water must have been comin' over fer a sight of years," said Tom, as he clambered with Jack up the steep face of the cliff. "A chap might hunt and hunt, and never have no notion that it war here it come over. But a spade helps a deal in these matters, and here we have a solid stretch of gravel, sixty yards across, roughly, wedged in between a couple of rocky walls. Do yer foller what happened?"
"I think I see clearly," said Jack. "There must have been a deep slit in the rocks years ago, and the water flowed along it and emptied into this gulch. I suppose the water drained from mountains right over there?"
"That aer so," agreed Tom. "Thar's a big watershed back away at the top of the cliff, and thar must have been a flood coming along this channel."
"Slowly, I think," said Jack, "else the channel would have been continually washed clean. But it has filled and filled, till, in the course of ages, the whole thing has become blocked and the water has found a new channel for itself."
"And aer left us here a pile of gravel, which may or may not hold gold. Reckon, seein' that thim diggin's down thar is extensive and deep dug, that the miners in this camp made something of it. So thar's every chance that gold did come down. Ef it did, thar's a sight of it in this gravel. Not here, perhaps, for the stream would quicken a bit, just whar it was goin' ter fall; but a few yards back. Anyway, we'll set to and test it."