“You pestle her, pardner, an' I'll fix the scales.” McTeague ground the lumps to fine dust in the iron mortar while Cribbens set up the tiny scales and got out the “spoons” from their outfit.
“That's fine enough,” Cribbens exclaimed, impatiently. “Now we'll spoon her. Gi' me the water.”
Cribbens scooped up a spoonful of the fine white powder and began to spoon it carefully. The two were on their hands and knees upon the ground, their heads close together, still panting with excitement and the exertion of their run.
“Can't do it,” exclaimed Cribbens, sitting back on his heels, “hand shakes so. YOU take it, pardner. Careful, now.”
McTeague took the horn spoon and began rocking it gently in his huge fingers, sluicing the water over the edge a little at a time, each movement washing away a little more of the powdered quartz. The two watched it with the intensest eagerness.
“Don't see it yet; don't see it yet,” whispered Cribbens, chewing his mustache. “LEETLE faster, pardner. That's the ticket. Careful, steady, now; leetle more, leetle more. Don't see color yet, do you?”
The quartz sediment dwindled by degrees as McTeague spooned it steadily. Then at last a thin streak of a foreign substance began to show just along the edge. It was yellow.
Neither spoke. Cribbens dug his nails into the sand, and ground his mustache between his teeth. The yellow streak broadened as the quartz sediment washed away. Cribbens whispered:
“We got it, pardner. That's gold.”
McTeague washed the last of the white quartz dust away, and let the water trickle after it. A pinch of gold, fine as flour, was left in the bottom of the spoon.