After lunch they followed up the stream. At intervals Mr. Martindale stopped to test the gravel, and found always some trace of gold, now slight, now plentiful. Some three miles up they came to a confluence. The stream was joined by a smaller swifter one, which evidently took its rise in the steep hilly country now becoming visible through the trees.
"We'll try this, Jack."
"Why?"
"Because the bed's more gravelly than the other. I guess the big stream comes out of the forest somewhere; the other will suit our book best."
They found their progress becoming more and more difficult. The ground was more rocky, the sides of the gully were steeper, and the edging of dry gravel diminished until by and by it disappeared altogether, and the prospectors had to take off their boots and socks and wade. There were trees and bushes here and there on the sides and at the top of the gully, but the vegetation became more and more scanty as they ascended. Presently the sound of falling water struck upon their ears, and a sudden turn of the stream brought them into full view of a cataract. At this point the gully had widened out, and the water fell over a broad smooth ledge of rock, dashing on the stones after a descent of some fifty or sixty feet.
"That's fine!" exclaimed Jack, halting to watch the cascade sparkling in the sunlight, and the brownish white foam eddying at the foot.
"Grand!" assented Mr. Martindale. "There's enough water power there to save many a thousand dollars' worth of machinery."
"I was thinking of the scenery, not machinery, uncle," said Jack, with a laugh.
"Scenery! Why, I've got a lot finer waterfall than that on my dining-room wall. It isn't Niagara one way or t'other, but it'll do a lot of mill grinding all the same. Now, Jack, you're younger than I am. I want to see what there is by those rocks ten feet away from the bottom of the fall. Strip, my boy; a bath will do you a power of good, a hot day like this; and there are no crocodiles here to make you feel jumpy."
Jack stripped and was soon waist deep in the water. Reaching the spot his uncle had indicated, he stooped, and found that he could just touch the bottom without immersing himself. The water was too frothy for the bottom to be seen; he groped along it with his hands, bringing up every now and then a small fragment of quartz or a handful of gravel, which Mr. Martindale, after inspecting it from a distance, told him to throw in again.