Jack put the charger in his pocket, and they went on; but hardly had they come out of the gully, when Joe stopped, and stooping down took hold of something at his feet. "Hold on, Jack," he said, "here is something more," and turning, Jack saw Joe stooping over an old piece of leather lying on the prairie. Joe took hold of the leather to lift it, but when he pulled at it, it slipped through his fingers. "Why, it's stuck fast," he said; and taking a hold of it again, he held it tighter and pulled, and the leather began to tear, and as it tore, some particles that looked like yellow gravel, escaped from the rent, and slipped down on the prairie.
"That's queer," said Jack, and both boys went down on their knees beside it. Jack picked up some of the grains that had escaped, and looked at them. They were very heavy and looked like dull brass. Poking his fingers through the rent in the leather, Joe felt about and poked out a lot more of the gravel, while Jack kept gathering it up in his hand and looking at it. Suddenly Jack's jaw dropped, and he looked at Joe with wide open eyes, while a frightened expression came on his face. "Joe," he said in a whisper, "do you know, I believe this is gold."
"You're crazy;" said Joe. "You must be very crazy. Who would leave gold lying out here on the prairie? I never heard of anything like that."
"But, Joe," said Jack, "feel how heavy it is, it must be gold. Nobody would carry brass around in a buckskin package and leave it here on the prairie any more than they would gold. Somebody must have been travelling here and lost this off his horse. This must be worth a lot of money. Now let's gather it up carefully and take it into camp and show it to Hugh, and see what he says. He'll know, dead sure."
The boys did not know how to get this on their horses without losing any of it. Evidently this old buckskin sack had lain there so long, that it was rotten and would not hold together. With their knives they dug carefully about the sack and as they dug, they found that it was in part buried in the soil, so that there was more of it below the surface of the prairie than above. Jack took off his hat and placed in it all the grains that they could gather up, and then digging deeply around the sack, they at length got below it.
"Now, Joe," said Jack, "there's only one thing to do that I can think of, to carry this stuff in the camp. We've got to have something that's strong and something that has no holes in it, so that none of the dust can get out; and the only thing of that kind that we have with us, is one of your leggings. Take off your leggings and we'll tie up the end of one of them and slip this bag and the dirt into the other end, and then tie that up and we can put it across a horse."
They did this, but it was not easy to do. In the first place the lump of dirt which held the sack was large, heavy and very frail, so that when they tried to lift it, it looked as if it would break in two. Instead of lifting it, therefore, they put the legging down on the ground, and while they lifted the lump of earth little by little, they slipped the side of the legging under it, until the whole mass was within the buckskin covering. Then they tied each end of the legging firmly with buckskin strings, and started to put it on the horse. It was very heavy. Joe said it weighed as much as half a sack of flour, that is, fifty pounds.
Both boys were in a high state of excitement and talked to each other in whispers, and kept looking guiltily over their shoulders in all directions, as if they were committing some crime. No doubt their notion was, that some one else might appear on the scene and lay claim to a portion of this treasure that they had found. Presently they mounted and set out for the camp, Jack keeping one hand behind him on the precious bundle that was tied behind his saddle, while Joe rode with his horse's head at Jack's knee, and kept his eyes fixed on the load.
"How much do you suppose there is, Joe?" said Jack.