Carefully I lowered the blue-robed form to its resting place, adjusting the cover, locked the door behind me, and crept back into my own cabin.
Time passed. With a young lover's regularity at the side of his sweetheart I visited my dear one in the little cabin beside my own. Casting about in my mind how to make the place appropriate for the purpose for which it was now used, and at the same time be somewhat more comfortable, I had covered the walls of Olga's cabin both inside and out with a heavy black paper, well calculated to keep out the wind. Upon the ceiling of the front room hung silvered stars which shone brightly, and with a fitfulness not all unnatural in the flickering candlelight. In one corner of the outer room there still remained the heap of earth and gravel taken from the spot where Olga's body now rested. The rainy season was far advanced and before many days the snow and ice would be here for long and weary months. My mining would then be over until another summer. I had been successful beyond my dreaming and could afford to rest, but I dreaded the tediousness and loneliness of winter.
One evening, while dozing in the depths of the easy chair, I saw a form bending above the sand and gravel in the next room. I fancied I heard a pleased and gentle laugh like Olga's of old, and I asked timidly, "What is it, friend?"
"Here is gold. Will you pan out this sand and gravel? You will be repaid." And again I heard the gentle laugh.
"What," said I in astonishment, "will I there find gold?"
A gesture of assent was given.
"Then this cabin and others must stand upon rich, gold-bearing ground?"
A second gesture of assent.
With that I wakened. I immediately procured a gold pan from my cabin, and used it for a few hours to good advantage.
The ground was truly rich; and Olga's form was lying in a bed literally lined with gold. There was wheat gold as well as dust and small nuggets. In my agony of mind at her sudden death it had never occurred to me while digging that the gravel might contain anything of value; but it was plain to me now. Only for my dream I would surely have shovelled the sand thoughtlessly outside where someone might have made the discovery to my own loss.