“Come on,” said Hank, taking the long man by the arm and leading the way. He had remembered that Candon said he could talk Spanish.
The others were all out of the sand hole watching, and halfway up Candon and George joined Hank.
“Here’s your dredging machine,” cried Hank. “Look at the shovels, ain’t they lovely? Get at them, B. C., and ask their terms.”
Candon spoke with the long man, seeming to explain matters.
“Five dollars a day each,” said Candon. “They say they’ll work all day for that.”
“Fifteen dollars,” said Hank. “Take’em on, it’s cheap. We can get rid of them before we strike the stuff, take’em on for one day, anyhow.”
Candon concluded the bargain. Then he led the beach-combers to the hole and explained matters. They understood, then, having consulted together like experts, they took the matter into their own hands, asking only that the others should set to work and remove the banks of refuse to north and south of the hole.
“Well,” said Hank as they sat at dinner that day, “give me Mexicans for work. A raft of niggers couldn’t have moved the dirt quicker’n those chaps. Why, we’ll be down to bed rock by to-night.”
“I gingered them up,” said Candon, “told them if they got down to what I wanted to find by tonight, I’d give them ten dollars extra apiece. But they won’t do it.”
By six o’clock that evening, however, the job was nearly done. Candon reckoned that only a few hours more work would find the stuff, unless a heavy wind blew up in the night and spoiled things.