As soon as they had finished their meal, the mining implements, which had been carefully hidden among the rest of their goods when they started from the fort, were brought out. Among these were a dozen light pick-heads and half a dozen handles, as many shovels, a flat iron plate for crushing ore upon, and a short hammer, with a face six inches in diameter, as a pounder; also a supply of long nails, to be used in fastening together troughs, cradles, or any other woodwork that might be required; three or four deep tin dishes, a bottle of mercury, a saw, and a few other tools. Three of the pick-heads were now fastened to their handles, and taking these, a couple of shovels, two of the tin basins, a sledge hammer, and some steel wedges, and the peculiar wooden platter, in shape somewhat resembling a small shield with an indentation in the middle, called a vanner, and universally used by prospectors, the five whites and Leaping Horse started from their camp for the spot where Harry had found the lode. It lay about a mile up a narrow valley, running into the larger one. A rivulet trickled down its centre.
"I reckoned on that," Harry said. "Of course it was frozen when we were here, but I could see that there was water in summer. You see this hollow runs right up into that wood, and there is sure to be water in it for the next three months anyhow."
They had gone but a short distance up when they stopped at a spot where the streamlet widened out into a pool.
"Let us try here," Jerry said, "and see if there is any sign."
Half a shovelful of sand was placed in the vanner with a small quantity of water, and while Harry and Sam proceeded to wash some gravel roughly in the pans, Tom stood watching Jerry's operations. He gave a gentle motion to the vanner that caused its contents to revolve, the coarser particles being thrown towards the edges while the finer remained in the centre. The water was poured away and the rougher particles of gravel and sand swept off by the hand; fresh water was then added, and the process repeated again and again, until at last no more than a spoonful of fine sand remained in the centre. A sideway action of the vanner caused this to slope gradually down towards the edge. At the very bottom three tiny bits of yellow metal were seen. They were no bigger than pins' heads. It seemed to Tom that this was a miserably small return for five minutes' labour, but the others seemed well satisfied, and were still more pleased when, on the two pans being cleaned out, several little pieces of gold were found, one of which was nearly as large as a small pea.
"That is good enough," Ben said; "it will run a lot richer when we get down on to the rock."
At two other places on their way up they tried the experiments, with increasingly good results.
"There is some tall work to be done here with washing," Harry said. "Now come on to the vein. I only saw one of them, but there must be a lot more or you would not find so much metal in the sand. However, the one I saw is good enough for anything." They went on again to a point where the rock cropped boldly out on both sides of the valley; Harry led them a few paces up the side, and pointed to some white patches in the rock. "That is where I chipped it off, lads, three years ago."
The face of the lode, discoloured by age and weather, differed but little from the rock surrounding it; but where it had been broken off it was a whitish yellow, thickly studded with little bits of dull yellow metal sticking out of it. Tom was not greatly impressed; but he saw from the faces of his companions that they were at once surprised and delighted.
"By gosh, Harry, you have done it this time!" Sam Hicks exclaimed. "You have struck it rich, and no mistake. I thought from the way you talked of it it must be something out of the way, but I am blamed if I thought it was like this."