“Is there another pan, Melchior?” said Saxe; “I want to try too.”
“No, herr, there is only one.”
“You wait, and let’s see what I find, my lad. I expect it will be nothing. There’s a nice fragment of onyx,” he continued, picking out and pitching up a piece of flinty-looking rock to the lad. “I dare say there are some good agates here too, if we searched for them.”
Dale spent about a quarter of an hour getting rid of every scrap of the granite; then held the pan in the bright sunshine, so that the water drained off and the rays shone full upon the bottom of the vessel.
He turned it about at different angles, shook the fine sand, and turned it over with his fingers; but ended by shaking his head.
“No luck, sir?”
“Not a speck. Never mind; I’ll try again.”
He dug down with the edge of the tin, scooping out a good deal of sand, so as to get a tinful from as deep down as he could.
“Gold is heavy, and would sink low if it were washed down,” he said; and for the next quarter of an hour he repeated the washing process, while Melchior smoked, the mule browsed on the succulent herbage, and Saxe devoted himself to creeping farther along by the stream, and peering down into the pools in search of trout.
“That old fellow at the chalet said the mule would feed himself, Mr Dale,” said the boy suddenly.