"Don't care—must have it."
"All right, what do you want it for?"
"Frying slap-jacks." Frank went with his evil-smelling petroleum.
"What the devil is he up to!" asked Jerry, as the drooping figure hulked out of sight. The weasel that peeped at him through the poles of his cabin floor could not tell him, nor did he know.
Frank put the oil on the table of his cabin, and then went outside and began chopping wood. It was now the orthodox bed-time, so he must show a good reason for being about. The sun had just set in the north, the quarter it sets in the Northland.
"Shut her off," he heard the foreman cry, and he knew the cleaning was to be commenced. Down came the axe on a four-inch stick of spruce with a force that burst it asunder and threw the pieces far apart. No experienced woodman in the ordinary course of events would have used so much force, and Frank Corte had chopped much wood.
The roar of the water diminished, the voices of the clean-up men fell away. He could hear no more, but he knew every move. First, the riffles would be lifted from the sluice-boxes and the dump-box, and the dirt in the sluice-boxes would be shovelled into the dump-box. Then a strip of wood, about two inches square, would be placed across the dump-box where it joined the head of the sluices. This would prevent the gold from being washed down the boxes.
When these processes were accomplished the foreman shouted "Turn on half a head," and Ole Oleson, at the gate, allowed half the usual flow of water to rush down the flume to the dump-box. Had Frank watched the impact of the water on the dirt in the dump-box he would, even in the now failing light, have seen a burst of yellow shine out from what had previously appeared dross.
As the water reached the dirt the dirt was forced against it by three or four stout paddles, whereby the husky workmen churned and washed the dirt thoroughly. Across the dump-box where the water met the pay-dirt stretched a band of gold. First it was half an inch, and then two inches. Meanwhile the pebbles and the dross worked their way over the retaining block and bumped ignominiously to the tailings.
"It looks good," said the foreman in loud tones. Frank heard him then shout to Ole, "A quarter of a head." Corte, thereupon, threw down his axe. It was time for action. He went into the cabin, and placed the two bottles of oil in a bucket, with which he set out for the dam. It was the most natural thing in the world for a man to draw a bucket of water before retiring: he might want a drink during the night.