"To work, then!" Belhumeur replied.
The three men cut down branches from the trees, and formed with them a thick carpet, under which the auriferous sand and nuggets entirely disappeared.
"Will you not take a specimen of the nuggets?" Belhumeur said to the count. "Perhaps it may be useful to take a few."
"My faith, no!" the latter replied, shrugging his shoulders; "I do not care for it. Take some if you will: for my part, I will not soil my fingers with them."
The Canadian began laughing, picked up two or three nuggets as huge as walnuts, and placed them in his bullet pouch.
"Sapristi!" he said, "if I kill sundry Apaches with these they will have no right to complain, I hope."
They quitted the valley, the entrance to which they stopped up with masses of rock. They then regained their horses, and returned to the camp, after cutting notches in the trees, so as to be able to recognise the spot, if, at a later date, circumstances led them to the placer, which, we are bound to say in their favour, not one of them desired.
The Jester was awaiting his friends with the intensest impatience. The prairie was not quiet. In the morning the runners had perceived a small band of palefaces crossing the Del Norte, and proceeding toward a hill, on the top of which they had encamped. At this moment a large Apache war-party had crossed the river at the same spot, apparently following a trail.
"Oh, oh!" Belhumeur said, "It is plain that those dogs are pursuing white people."
"Shall we let them be massacred beneath our eyes?" Louis exclaimed indignantly.