“Agreed!” said Harry. “Agreed!” said Joe, and they set to work.
They blocked the stream with stones, and stuffed tundra moss into the crevices, then piled turf over the whole. With the pick they hewed a gully in the mica-schist ledge that dammed the little pond and let the water out. Then they knocked Blenship’s boat to pieces and made a rude sluice with the boards. This they braced upon driftwood logs set on the right slant for sluicing. Blenship, skillful as a woodsman with his axe, hewed more sluice timber out of driftwood logs, and finally the structure was complete. There were still no signs of other prospectors, and the boys began to think Blenship’s story of the thousands in the country just south of them must be another delusion of his.
Finally, everything was complete. Blenship showed them how to shovel into the sluice so that enough but not too much dirt should be present in it, and then turned on the water. For two hours the boys swung the shovels lustily, and found it very fatiguing work indeed. Blenship managed the flow of the water so that it should work to the best advantage during this time. Then when the boys were thoroughly weary he shut it off and called a halt. Joe and Harry rested on their shovels, puffing.
“Time to clean up,” he said. “Now we’ll see whether I’m worth a hundred dollars a day or not.”
With water in his gold pan he washed the remaining sand from riffle to riffle, and finally collected the gold in a yellow heap in the pan at the bottom of the sluice. It was quite a little heap, and Blenship weighed it, pan and all, in his hand, thoughtfully.
“Reckon there’s about three pounds of it,” he said coolly. “Say seven hundred dollars.”
Joe and Harry looked over his shoulder with bulging eyes. Seven hundred dollars! Two hours’ sluicing! Neither before had realized the full import of their good fortune. If they could do that in two hours,—in a day, a week, a month! Their heads whirled. And then all three started.
A shadow had fallen across the pan.
Blenship whirled sullenly and savagely, reaching toward his hip with an instinctive movement, though no weapon hung there. Then he laughed.