“Hardly yellow at all,” he said. “Now this,” he went on, holding up another bottle. “This has a richer colour.”
“Sure. But look where it’s from. The red copperous gravel of Eighty Mile Creek. I’d say, next to some of the big Australian finds, that’s one of the handsomest colours known. Here’s another,” he went on, thrusting another bottle into his visitor’s hand. “It’s nigh as red. It’s like as two peas with the African stuff, and some of the old Californian colour. It might even be from West Australia. But it isn’t. No, it’s Alaskan. And it’s creek gold.”
“Where from?”
“I can’t rightly say—yet. Maybe we’ll learn in good time. We generally do. You see, it’s a sample of the stuff brought in by a boy who’s working along the Lias River territory. That boy I told you of awhile back. The feller you beat over the head at the Speedway the night of its festival. Pretty stuff.”
McLagan was turning the bottle in his hand. He rolled its contents over and over, intently examining its colour and the texture of its grains.
“It’s cleaner than most,” he said presently. “Looks like it was washed by a pretty expert hand. It’s like none of the others. Not even the Eighty Mile stuff. Eighty Mile—that’s on the Canadian side.”
“Yes.” Burns eased himself in his chair. “No. It’s not like any of the other. It looks like tropical stuff, and if I didn’t know better, I’d surely say it was.”
McLagan set the bottle down and sat gazing at it.
“What is there there? An ounce?” he asked, without raising his eyes.
“Half, I’d guess.”