"Hurry, Jim," I said, "or I'll die of suspense."
Patiently he went on. There it was at last in the bottom of the pan—sweeter to our eyes than to a woman the sight of her first-born. There it lay, glittering, gleaming gold, fine gold, coarse gold, nuggety gold.
"Now, boys, you can whoop it up," said Jim quietly; "for there's many and many a pan like it down there in the drift."
But never a whoop. What was the matter with us? When the fortune we had longed for so eagerly came at last, we did not greet it even with a cheer. Oh, we were painfully silent.
Solemnly we shook hands all round.
CHAPTER XVIII
"Now to weigh it," said the Prodigal.
On the tiny pair of scales we turned it out—ninety-five dollars' worth.
Well, it was a good start, and we were all possessed with a frantic eagerness to go down in the drift. I crawled along the tunnel. There, in the face of it, I could see the gold shining, and the longer I looked the more I seemed to see. It was rich, rich. I picked out and burnished a nugget as large as a filbert. There were lots of others like it. It was a strike. The question was: how much was there of it? The Halfbreed soon settled our doubts on that score.