“You’d think they was a bunch of confounded Keskydees,” growled one of them.
The miners slowly dispersed, returning to their own diggings. Somewhat red-faced, and very silent, we gathered up our pans and slunk back to the claim. Our neighbour 167 stuck his head out of his hole. He alone had not joined the stampede in our direction.
“How do you like being popular heroes?” he grinned.
Johnny made as though to shy a rock at him, whereupon he ducked below ground.
However, our spirits soon recovered. We dumped the black sand into a little sack we had brought for the purpose. It made quite an appreciable bulge in that sack. We did not stop to realize that most of the bulge was sack and sand, and mighty little of it gold. It was something tangible and valuable; and we were filled with a tremendous desire to add to its bulk.
We worked with entire absorption, quite oblivious to all that was going on about us. It was only by accident that Yank looked up at last, so I do not know how long Don Gaspar had been there.
“Will you look at that!” cried Yank.
Don Gaspar, still in his embroidered boots, his crimson velvet breeches, his white linen, and his sombrero, but without the blue and silver jacket, was busily wielding a pickaxe a hundred feet or so away. His companion, or servant, was doing the heavier shovel work.
“Why, oh, why!” breathed Johnny at last, “do you suppose, if he must mine, he doesn’t buy himself a suit of dungarees or a flannel shirt?”
“I’ll bet it’s the first hard work he ever did in his life,” surmised Yank.