More mystery! Curiosity waxed great in Ralph's breast and struggled with his irritation. "Hang these people!" he thought. "You never can tell what they're up to!" To her he said unwillingly: "If it's straight I promise not to tell."
"It is straight," she said proudly.
They shook hands on it. She drew a little bag of moosehide from her dress, and untied the thong that bound its mouth. Attentively watching Ralph's face to observe the effect on him, she suddenly turned the bag upside down over his desk, and a little flood of coarse yellow sand poured out upon it with a soft swish. There could be no mistaking the cleanness and the shine of it.
Ralph sprang up. "Gold!" he cried, amazed.
"It is yours," she said, with a little smile. "I give you more if you make my mot'er's arm straight."
"Where did you get it?" Ralph asked sharply.
"I dig it myself," she said. "Do you think I steal it?"
Ralph continued to stare at the yellow stuff as if it had hypnotized him.
"Better put it away," suggested the girl. "Somebody come, maybe. To see gold make white men crazy."
He swept it up handful by handful, and poured it back into the little bag. There was a magic in the feel of the bright, sharp grains and in the extraordinary weight of it that caused a red flag to be run up in his cheeks, and his eyes to shine. He judged from the weight of the little bag that he had in his hand already double the fee he had asked.