They had brought a shovel with them, and throwing aside the sand, they saw a piece of leather.
"It is a bag," Joe said; "this is their hoard, sure enough."
Going down on their hands and knees, they pulled up bag after bag, each about fifty pounds in weight, until they had a pile on the surface of eight bags.
"Eureka!" Dave exclaimed, as he lifted the last bag out of the hole. "They had made something like a pile; no doubt they were a strong party, but even with that they must have been here a couple of months to have got this lot together. Well, Boston," and he held out his hand, "we can go east again; we have struck it rich at last."
"You bet," Joe said briefly.
"How much is it?" Dick asked.
"Each of them bags weighs about fifty pounds, Dick."
Dick looked incredulous, and stooped to pick up one of the bags, and was astonished at its weight.
"Fifty pounds if it weighs an ounce, and there are eight of them—four hundred pounds of gold; think of that, lad; that is pretty nigh eighty pounds apiece. I aint good at reckoning, but put it rough at two hundred and fifty dollars a pound, that is somewhere like two hundred thousand dollars each."
"Forty thousand pounds!" Dick exclaimed; "it does not seem possible."