The pan was again filled and the process of washing resumed. "If we get two cents in this gravel a foot off of bed-rock I'll be satisfied," was Hugh's comment. He got this time what he estimated to be five cents. "Perhaps this is above average," he muttered. Your old-time miner is ever a sceptic.
So while he was washing this second pan Hugh's mind was at work.
"George, I guess you had better go and chuck back all the gravel and wash into the hole and get a fire built on it quick. The ashes will hide the wash, and any person looking down the hole will simply think that you have struck frost and are using fire. The rest of us will keep going till we strike wash."
Frank reached gravel at about seven feet, and reported the same to Hugh, who suggested that he should work a small hole to bed-rock to get a pan of gravel from that point. Hugh cautioned Frank against throwing any gravel out of the shaft to attract the notice of passers-by.
Frank secured a pan of dirt immediately on bed-rock, and Hugh panned it for him. Frank was the only one of the four not a miner.
The pan yielded a little better than that of George had done. Hugh suggested, significantly, that Frank had found frost at the bottom of his shaft, which induced the latter to mutter: "Ground heap frozen all same rock, no ketchum gold without fire, he! he!" This was supposed to be a humorous imitation of the Siwash.
"Never mind your Siwash sweethearts, but get the fire in quick. I suppose if you do strike it rich, or ever get this claim, which is sure worth something, it will be heap klootch, heap dance, all the time! Get a move on, or some rubber-neck will be mooching round here!"
Hugh went back to his pit, and both he and John had struck real frost before Frank roared, "Supper!"
During the meal, and afterwards, the conversation was about the claims and the prospect of their getting them. It was two weeks yet before they could be judiciously staked. In the meantime, Frank and George could put down other shafts prospecting the width and extent of the pay streak, while John and Hugh were getting their shaft down to bed-rock. It would be slow work for these two, now that they had struck frost, which necessitated thawing by wood-fires.
"I guess we need a cabin on these claims," said Hugh. "It's more a sign we're holding them down, and if we start building it we can kill time so as not to look conspicuous, as we would if we was just to sit and do nothing. It would have the rubber-necks guessing."