“And I’ll bet he won’t do that very long,” I guessed.
But Don Gaspar seemed to have more sticking power than we gave him credit for. We did not pay him much further 168 attention, for we were busy with our own affairs; but every time we glanced in his direction he appeared to be still at it. Our sack of sand was growing heavier; as indeed were our limbs. As a matter of fact we had been at harder work than any of us had been accustomed to, for very long hours, beneath a scorching sun, without food, and under strong excitement. We did not know when to quit; but the sun at last decided it for us by dipping below the mountains to the west.
We left our picks and shovels in our pit; but carried back with us our pans, for in them we wished to dry out our sand. The horses were still at their picket ropes; and we noticed near the lower end of the meadow, but within the bushes, three more animals moving slowly. A slim column of smoke ascended from beyond the bushes. Evidently we had neighbours.
We were dog tired, and so far starved that we did not know we were hungry. My eyes felt as though they must look like holes burned in a blanket. We lit a fire, and near it placed our panful of sand. But we did not take time to cook ourselves a decent meal; we were much too excited for that. A half-made pot of coffee, some pork burned crisp, and some hard bread comprised our supper. Then Yank and I took a handful of the dried sand in the other two pans, and commenced cautiously to blow it away. Johnny hovered over us full of suggestions, and premonitions of calamity.
“Don’t blow too, hard, fellows,” he besought us; “you’ll blow away the gold! For heaven’s sake, go easy!”
We growled at him, and blew. I confess that my heart went fast with great anxiety, as though the stakes of 169 my correct blowing were millions. However, as we later discovered, it is almost impossible to blow incorrectly.
There is something really a little awing about pure gold new-born from the soil. Gold is such a stable article, so strictly guarded, so carefully checked and counted, that the actual production of metal that has had no existence savours almost of the alchemical. We had somewhat less than an ounce, to be sure; but that amount in flake gold bulks considerably. We did not think of it in terms of its worth in dollars; we looked on it only as the Gold, and we stared at the substantial little heap of yellow particles with fascinated awe.
170CHAPTER XVII
THE DIGGINGS
The following days were replicas of the first. We ate hurriedly at odd times; we worked feverishly; we sank into our tumbled blankets at night too tired to wiggle. But the buckskin sack of gold was swelling and rounding out most satisfactorily. By the end of the week it contained over a pound!