165About an hour after our arrival the other miners began to appear, smoking their pipes. They stretched themselves lazily, spat upon their hands, and set to. Our friend of the day before nodded at us cheerfully, and hopped down into his hole.
We removed what seemed to us tons of rock. About noon, just as we were thinking rather dispiritedly of knocking off work for a lunch–which in our early morning eagerness we had forgotten to bring–Johnny turned up a shovelful whose lower third consisted of the pulverized bluish clay. We promptly forgot both lunch and our own weariness.
“Hey!” shouted our friend, scrambling from his own claim. “Easy with the rocks! What are you conducting here? a volcano?” He peered down at us. “Pay dirt, hey? Well, take it easy; it won’t run away!”
Take it easy! As well ask us to quit entirely! We tore at the rubble, which aggravatingly and obstinately cascaded down upon us from the sides; we scraped eagerly for more of that blue clay; at last we had filled our three pans with a rather mixed lot of the dirt, and raced to the river. Johnny fell over a boulder and scattered his panful far and wide. His manner of scuttling back to the hole after more reminded me irresistibly of the way a contestant in a candle race hurries back to the starting point to get his candle relighted.
We panned that dirt clumsily and hastily enough; and undoubtedly lost much valuable sand overside; but we ended each with a string of colour. We crowded together comparing our “pans.” Then we went crazy. I suppose 166 we had about a quarter of a dollar’s worth of gold between us, but that was not the point. The long journey with all its hardships and adventures, the toil, the uncertainty, the hopes, the disappointments and reactions had at last their visible tangible conclusion. The tiny flecks of gold were a symbol. We yapped aloud, we kicked up our heels, we shook hands, we finally joined hands and danced around and around.
From all sides the miners came running up, dropping their tools with a clatter. We were assailed by a chorus of eager cries.
“What is it, boys?” “A strike?” “Whereabouts is your claim?” “Is it ‘flour’ or ‘flake’?” “Let’s see!”
They crowded around in a dense mob, and those nearest jostled to get a glimpse of our pans. Suddenly sobered by this interest in our doings, we would have edged away could we have got hold of our implements.
“Wall, I’ll be durned!” snorted a tall state of Maine man in disgust. “This ain’t no strike! This is an insane asylum.”
The news slowly penetrated the crowd. A roar of laughter went up. Most of the men were hugely amused; but some few were so disgusted at having been fooled that they were almost inclined to take it as a personal affront that we had not made the expected “strike.”