"Sure it's a white man. Didn't I jest tell you that burnin' in ain't no Injun trick?"
"Dog Rib snowshoes," suggested the Indian in jargon, pointing to the tracks.
"That don't prove nothin'," retorted Claw, "He
could of got 'em from the Injuns, couldn't he? They's two of 'em lives here," he added, from the interior. "Unharness the dogs, while I build up a fire."
From the moment of Brent's departure, Snowdrift bent all her energies persuading the Indians to burn into the gravel for gold. At first her efforts were unavailing. Even Wananebish refused to take any interest in the proceeding, so the girl was forced to cut her own wood, tend her own fire, and throw out her own gravel. When, however, at the end of a week she panned out some yellow gold in the little cabin, as she had seen Brent do, the old squaw was won completely over, and thereafter the two women worked side by side, with the result that upon the test panning, Snowdrift computed that they, too, were taking out almost an ounce a day apiece. When the other Indians saw the gold they also began to scrape away the snow, and to cut wood and to build their fires on the gravel. Men and women, and even the children worked all day and took turns tending the fire at night. Trapping and hunting were forgotten in the new found craze for gold, and it became necessary for Snowdrift to tole off hunters for the day, as the supply of meat shrank to an alarming minimum.
By the end of another week interest began to flag. The particles of gold collected in the test pannings were small in size, and few in number, the
work was hard and distasteful, and it became more and more difficult for the girl to explain to them that these grains were not the ultimate reward for the work, that they were only tests, and that the real reward would not be visible until spring when they would clean up the gravel dumps that were mounding up beside the shafts. The Indians wanted to know how this was to be accomplished, and Snowdrift suddenly realized that she did not know. She tried to remember what Brent had told her of the sluicing out process, and realized that he had told very little. Both had been content to let the details go until such time as the sluicing should begin. Vaguely, she told the Indians of sluice boxes and riffles, but they were quick to see that she knew not whereof she spoke. In vain, she told them that Brent would explain it all when he returned, but they had little use for this white man who had no hooch to trade. At last, in desperation, she hit upon the expedient of showing the Indians more gold. From Brent's sack she extracted quantities of dust which she displayed with pride. The plan worked at first, but soon, the Indians became dissatisfied with their own showing, and either knocked off altogether, or ceased work on the shafts and began to laboriously pan out their dumps, melting the ice for water, and carrying the gravel, a pan at a time, to their cabins.
This too, was abandoned after a few days, and the Indians returned to their traps, and to the
snaring of rabbits. Only Snowdrift and old Wananebish kept up to the work of cutting and hauling the wood, tending the fires, and throwing out the gravel. Despite the grueling toil, Snowdrift found time nearly every day to slip up and visit Brent's cabin. Sometimes she would go only to the bend of the river and gaze at it from a distance. Again she would enter and sit in his chair, or moving softly about the room, handle almost reverently the things that were his, wiping them carefully and returning them to their place. She purloined a shirt from a nail above his bunk, and carrying it home used it as a pattern for a wonderfully wrought shirt of buckskin and beads. Each evening, she worked on the shirt, while Wananebish sat stolidly by, and each night as she knelt beside her bunk she murmured a prayer for the well-being of the big strong man who was hers.
But whether it was at the shaft, at her needle, at her devotions, or upon her frequent trips to his cabin, her thoughts were always of Brent, and her love for him grew with the passing of the days until her longing for his presence amounted, at times, almost to a physical pain. One by one, she counted the days of his absence, and mentally speculated upon his return. After the second week had passed she never missed a day in visiting his cabin. Always at the last bend of the river, she quickened her steps, and always she paused, breathless, for some sign of his return.