“Sure it was salted.”
“But weren’t they looking out for that?”
“Of course they were watching out for it, and the guy salted it right under their noses. Here, I’ll show you how. Ever see gold panned?”
I shook my head.
Pete picked up a gold pan with its typical sloping sides, and curled rim. He squatted down on his heels and held the gold pan balanced in between his knees. “This is the way a guy pans gold, see?” He twisted the pan back and forth, shaking it with his wrists. “You keep the stuff under water. The idea is to get all the gold mixed up with the water so it settles to the bottom of the pan.”
I nodded.
“Well,” Pete said, “a man pans like this. He’s smokin’. See? He’s always got a right to smoke. He takes a sack of tobacco outa his pocket an’ rolls his own, or, if he’s a little different type, he has a package of tailor-made cigarettes in his pocket. Me, I use my own, because the minute I started smokin’ tailor made cigarettes, anybody that knew me would get suspicious.”
“Go on,” I said.
“Well,” Pete said, “that’s all there is to it.”
“I don’t get you,” Ashbury said.