CHAPTER XIV
STAKING OUT A FORTUNE
The red sun sank behind the northern cliffs, hid there three hours, and slanted eastward and upward again, and still the boys toiled on, oblivious. Panful after panful of the sand they scraped from the clay bottom, now in the edge of the stream, now back toward the tundra, and always they found gold. At length their rude paddle-shovel was worn to a frazzled stick and they themselves were in not much better condition, but in Harry’s worn bandana handkerchief was a store of coarse and fine gold and nuggets that was quite heavy.
Fatigue will finally, however, get the better even of the gold fever, and along in mid-morning, pale and hollow-eyed, quite exhausted with toil and excitement, but triumphant, they stumbled down to camp and turned in, too tired to eat,—indeed, there was little but damaged flour that they could eat. They slept ten hours without stirring, and the sun was low in the northwest when they awoke.
Joe rubbed his eyes open and sat up. He found Harry, the bandana in his lap, poring over the store of gold.
“Gold,” said Harry, “is worth about sixteen dollars to the ounce, as the miners reckon it. I should say we had about three ounces here. Forty-eight dollars,—not bad for a first day’s work!”
“Um-m, no,” said Joe; “but I wish you’d take part of it and go down to the store and buy some provisions. I’m hungry.”
Harry looked at him. Was Joe daft? But no, Joe was the saner of the two.
“We’ve got gold,” Joe continued, “and we’ve got grit,—at least some of mine’s left, though not much, but what we haven’t got is grub. Seems to me the next thing to look out for is something to eat. The gold will wait a day for us, but there is something inside me that says the other won’t. We’d better go prospecting for food this time.”
Harry put his hand on his stomach. “Joe,” he said, “I declare you are right. You generally are. Fact is, I was so crazy over this yellow stuff in the handkerchief that I had forgotten everything else. We’ll hunt to-day.”