There was no doubt but what a rich pocket had been struck, and yet the good citizens of Nugget Bar, and especially those who had lately served Julius in an advisory capacity, seemed prone to discredit the evidence of their sight and touch, and handled the precious fragments as if they were something intangible.
And in the midst of all the flurry and excitement stood Julius, radiant and joyful, his cherubic face wreathed in a quiet smile of contentment, and not one bit excited or surprised, because had not these rough but honest men told him he would find a lot of gold there, and he had found it as a matter of course?
Resuscitative measures were now in order, and were inaugurated at Julius’s expense. Nugget Bar ate and drank late and deeply that night, but as Julius left next morning with the party “down below,” most of it was up with its aching head and bitter tasting mouth to see him off, and the little dark man was heard to remark that he had told them so from the first, and now he supposed they were satisfied—which they were not.
The landscape in the rear of the “Golden Nugget” was soon terribly disfigured by Nugget Bar picks and shovels, and Sam Turner’s cellar was enlarged to proportions that no self respecting cellar would be guilty of assuming; but I never heard that Nugget Bar found another pocket there.
A DILEMMA.
Hello! why here’s a note from May—
For well that dainty hand I know—
I wonder what she has to say,
When last she wrote ’twas long ago.
My heart I swore was hers alone—