The big man looked long in silence, then he whistled. But in a second he chuckled.
“Blenship,” he said, “I wouldn’t have thought it of you. You salted the sluice boxes. You’ve put in all the gold you had in camp when you heard me coming.”
“Oh-h-h!” exclaimed Blenship, with scorn, “all the gold we have in camp! You must think we are pretty slow miners. Boys, come down to the tent and open the poke for him.”
With trembling hands Harry drew out the bag of dust and nuggets from its hiding-place and opened it. The colonel looked long into this bag, lifted it, and then whistled softly for the second time.
“Why, confound it!” said he. “There’s a good twelve thousand dollars there. Do you mean to say you got it out of that little mud-hole you are working out there?”
“All on’t, colonel, all on’t. That’s the richest bank—mud-bank—I’ve seen yet, and I’ve been in placer mining all my life. Now, colonel, come out here and talk with me. There’s no man in this world can handle this creek the way you can. It’s the biggest thing the country ever saw. Come out back while I argue with you.”
The two walked back on the tundra together, and Harry tied up the poke and put it in its hiding-place again. Joe, weary with his morning’s work, sat down in the tent, but Harry wandered outside. His thoughts were still of home and the people there. He had heard the steamer whistle again, why he did not know. Home was not so very far away now, he felt that, but the thought made him only the more homesick. He noted some men coming up the creek, seemingly strangers, but strangers were plentiful there now. Probably these were more people from the ship coming up to join those who were with Colonel Lane. There was a big man a little ahead of the group, and Harry did not notice that as he approached he looked earnestly at him and almost broke into a run. The great man rushed up to him, took him by the shoulders, and turned him round, looking him square in the face, then let out a roar that echoed from the surrounding hills.
SLUICING AT CANDLE CREEK