Percy agreed that this was undoubtedly the proper course; but having come to this decision without any trouble they were next confronted by the question,—How were they to do it? It would be an everlasting task to pick up the sand in pinches between one’s finger and thumb, and even then it would be impossible to clear the holes entirely of the residue which they expected to be the most valuable, if not the only valuable, part. Jack’s inventive mind hit upon the means of getting out the bulk of the sand. He ran back to the camp, and returning with one of our spoons in his hand, he bent the head of this domestic implement at right angles to the handle, thus forming of it a kind of scoop.
Selecting as the first to be tested the hole in which Percy had found the nugget, he went down upon his hands and knees and ladled up a spoonful of the deposit. Up came the spoon, brimming with sand, but the moment it reached the surface the current whisked away the contents, and the spoon was empty. This process had every appearance of being a failure.
“Hold up a second,” cried Jack; and off he ran once more to the camp, returning directly with a small tin cup in his hand. This he set in the bottom of the hole and filled by means of the spoon, and then, taking it up with the palm of his hand covering the top, he emptied it into the gold-pan which Percy was holding in readiness.
So far, so good; but presently Jack had scraped out all that the spoon would take up, and still there was a good deal of material left at the bottom of the hole. In turn they peered down through the water, persuading themselves that they could detect a yellow shimmer about the residue—though the ripple and flash of the stream rendered it very uncertain whether they were right or not—but scrape and scrape as they might, they could get up no more of the sand. The matter could not, of course, be left in this unsatisfactory state;—but what were they to do?
For some time they sat side by side upon the edge of the stream, like a pair of pelicans waiting for a fish, trying to think of some means of clearing out the hole, until, presently, Percy slapped his knee and exclaimed:
“I know, Jack, how we can do it! Do you remember, in the story of ‘Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves,’ how Ali’s brother’s wife put some tallow on the bottom of the pot she lent him to measure his money with, and how a piece of gold stuck to the tallow? Well, let us take a lump of deer’s fat and press it down all over the bottom of the hole; it will pick up everything there is there.”
“That’s a great idea,” said Jack. “But I’m afraid, if we use fat, we shall have a great deal of trouble in getting rid of the grease afterwards. An old prospector once told me that. And besides, grease floats, and is apt to carry off the gold with it. Isn’t there anything else we can use?”
“Dough,” suggested Percy, thoughtfully.
“H-m. Dough would do perhaps,” said Jack, dubiously, “but I expect it would be about as bad as grease as far as getting the gold out of it again is concerned. Think again.”
“Clay,” said Percy.