The pan was brought, and he put in the beans and poured in water enough to set them a-swim. He gave the pan a few deft twirls and shook it from side to side.
"This is the way we wash gravel to get the gold, señorita," he said, as he set it down. "The rocks are all at the bottom of that pan now, you bet. If you'll kindly give me another pan to put the beans into," he went on, "I'll prove it to you."
The girl hastened to bring a second pan and put it beside the first, and in doing so their hands touched.
"You'd better hold it there," said he, "while I shovel them across," and with his hollowed palms he scooped the beans from one to the other. In the pan he had shaken there now remained a little discoloured water, and at the bottom about a teacupful of gravel.
"There you are," said he triumphantly; "here's your gravel in this one, and there's your frijoles in that one. It's as easy as rolling off a log." She looked agreeably surprised, and he laughed.
"How would you look," said he, "if those little rocks were nuggets, eh? Coarse gold, heavy gold, eh?" He smiled a strange smile, and a strange light shone in his eyes. "Many a thousand pounds of gravel I've washed, looking for gold in the bottom of every one; but this is the first time I ever panned out beans to get gravel. Maybe some day I'll find that heavy gold yet, but God knows where."
He straightened himself up to his full height, leaving on the ground the pan over which he had been stooping. His eyes ranged out across the courtyard through the open gateway to distant pine-clad peaks standing out against the intense blue of the sky.
Manuelita had likewise set down her pan, and was leaning her hand against the side of the doorway and her head against her hand.
"I hope you will find it," she said, with a glance from the depths of her liquid eyes. His eyes met hers and dwelt there for a moment.
"Thanks," he said; "your good wishes should bring good luck."